Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-f97m6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-18T22:25:42.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ATHEISM AND POLYGENESIS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: CHARLES BRADLAUGH'S RACIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2018

NATHAN G. ALEXANDER
NATHAN G. ALEXANDER*
Affiliation:
Independent scholar E-mail: nathan.g.alexander50@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines a previously unexplored chapter in the history of atheism: its close links with nineteenth-century racial anthropology. These links are apparent especially in many atheists’ interest in polygenesis, the theory that human races had separate origins, in contrast to the orthodox Christian doctrine of monogenesis that said all races descended from Adam and Eve. The article's focus is Charles Bradlaugh (1833–91), arguably the most important British atheist of the era, representing the radical working-class, secularist movement that emerged in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. The article charts the ways Bradlaugh and other atheists used the research on polygenesis from leading scientific racists in both Britain and the United States to critique Christianity. It also explores some of the contradictions of this use, namely the ways polygenesis clashed with Darwinism and a longer chronology of the age of the Earth. Finally, the article explores how polygenist ideas informed Bradlaugh's imperial worldview and notes that, despite his acceptance of polygenesis, Bradlaugh was a supporter of the rights of nonwhites in the British Empire, particularly in India.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Intellectual History , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , November 2019 , pp. 835 - 861
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

I would like to thank John Clark, Felix Driver, Colin Kidd, David Livingstone, and the two reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this article.

References

1 There is no discussion of Bradlaugh's racial thinking in Tribe, David, President Charles Bradlaugh M.P. (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Niblett, Bryan, Dare to Stand Alone: The Story of Charles Bradlaugh (Oxford, 2010)Google Scholar; or Royle, Edward, Radicals, Secularists and Republicans: Popular Freethought in Britain, 1866–1915 (Manchester, 1980)Google Scholar. The only works to my knowledge which mention Bradlaugh's use of polygenesis are a book and an article from Timothy Larsen, though in both cases only very briefly. See Larsen, Timothy, A People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians (Oxford, 2011), 86–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Larsen, “The Book of Acts and the Origin of the Races in Evangelical Thought,” Victorian Review 37/2 (2011), 35–9.

2 See, for example, Stephens, Mitchell, Imagine There's No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World (New York, 2014)Google Scholar; Jacoby, Susan, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (New York, 2004)Google Scholar.

3 The following two paragraphs are based on Popkin, Richard H., Isaac La Peyrère (1596–1676): His Life, Work, and Influence (Leiden and New York, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kidd, Colin, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000 (Cambridge, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chaps. 3, 4; Livingstone, David N., Adam's Ancestors: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Human Origins (Baltimore, 2008)Google Scholar, chaps. 1–3.

4 Stanton, William, The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes toward Race in America, 1815–59 (Chicago and London, 1960), 28–33.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., 100–12; Agassiz, Louis, “The Diversity of Origin of the Human Races,” Christian Examiner 49 (July 1850), 110–45Google Scholar.

6 Banton, Michael, The Idea of Race (London, 1977), 5Google Scholar.

7 Quoted in Stanton, The Leopard's Spots, 122.

8 Quoted at ibid.

9 Horsman, Reginald, Josiah Nott of Mobile: Southerner, Physician, and Racial Theorist (Baton Rouge and London, 1987), 17Google Scholar.

10 Ibid., 38–9.

11 Ibid., 39–41.

12 Quoted in ibid., 61.

13 Nott, Josiah, Two Lectures, on the Natural History of the Caucasian and Negro Races (Mobile, 1844), 5, original emphasisGoogle Scholar.

14 Nott, Josiah, Two Lectures on the Connection between the Biblical and Physical History of Man: Delivered by Invitation, from the Chair of Political Economy, Etc., of the Louisiana University (New York, 1849), 7Google Scholar.

15 See Harrison, Peter, The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 6.

16 Nott, Josiah and Gliddon, George, Types of Mankind: Or, Ethnological Researches, Based upon the Ancient Monuments, Paintings, Sculptures, and Crania of Races, and upon Their Natural, Geographical, Philological, and Biblical History (Philadelphia, 1854), 56, original emphasisGoogle Scholar.

17 Ibid., 61.

18 Nott, Natural History, 3.

19 Keel, Terence D., “Religion, Polygenism and the Early Science of Human Origins,” History of the Human Sciences 26/2 (2013), 3–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Bachman, John, A Notice of the “Types of Mankind,” with an Examination of the Charges Contained in the Biography of Dr. Morton, Published by Nott and Gliddon (Charleston, 1854), 5Google Scholar.

21 “Books of the Day,” The Reasoner 18/450 (1855), 6.

22 Ibid.

23 “A Man before Adam,” Boston Investigator, 3 May 1854, 2.

24 “Climate Not the Cause of Color,” Boston Investigator, 8 July 1857, 4; “Ethnology,” National Reformer, 3 June 1866, 346–7, at 346.

25 Watts, John, “The Origin of Man,” National Reformer, 15 Jan. 1865, 41–2, at 42.Google Scholar

26 Graves, Kersey, The Bible of Bibles; or, Twenty-Seven “Divine Revelations”, 4th edn (Boston, 1879), 291Google Scholar.

27 “The God Idea,” Boston Investigator, 11 July 1888, 5.

28 Stocking, George W. Jr, Victorian Anthropology (New York, 1987), 247–54Google Scholar.

29 On Knox's life and thought see Lonsdale, Henry, A Sketch of the Life and Writings of Robert Knox the Anatomist (London, 1870)Google Scholar; Richards, Evelleen, “The ‘Moral Anatomy’ of Robert Knox: The Interplay between Biological and Social Thought in Victorian Scientific Naturalism,” Journal of the History of Biology 22/3 (1989), 373–436CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Knox, Robert, The Races of Men: A Philosophical Enquiry into the Influence of Race over the Destinies of Nations, 2nd edn (London, 1862), vGoogle Scholar.

31 Lonsdale, Life and Writings of Knox, 10–13.

32 See Lectures I and II of Knox, The Races of Men.

33 Lonsdale, Life and Writings of Knox, 402.

34 Ibid., 404.

35 Richards, “‘Moral Anatomy’ of Robert Knox,” 404.

36 Knox, The Races of Men, 384.

37 Ibid., 581.

38 Ibid., 555.

39 Ibid., 477; Lonsdale hinted that Knox was sympathetic to deism: Lonsdale, Life and Writings of Knox, 407.

40 Autonomos, “Who Are the Jews? (1),” National Reformer, 12 May 1867, 293–4; Autonomos, “Who Are the Jews? (2),” National Reformer, 19 May 1867, 314–15; Autonomos, “Who Are the Jews? (3),” National Reformer, 26 May 1867, 322–4.

41 The whole series is Autonomos, “Christian Filibusters in Africa (1),” National Reformer, 9 June 1867, 362–3; Autonomos, “Christian Filibusters in Africa (2),” National Reformer, 16 June 1867, 373; Autonomos, “Christian Filibusters in Africa (3),” National Reformer, 23 June 1867, 394–5; Autonomos, “Christian Filibusters in Africa (4),” National Reformer, 30 June 1867, 407; Autonomos, “Christian Filibusters in Africa (5),” National Reformer, 7 July 1867, 5–7; Autonomos, “Christian Filibusters in Africa (6),” National Reformer, 14 July 1867, 20–22; Autonomos, “Christian Filibusters in Africa (7),” National Reformer, 21 July 1867, 37–9; Autonomos, “Christian Filibusters in Africa (8),” National Reformer, 4 Aug. 1867, 69–71.

42 Hunt, James, “Introductory Address on the Study of Anthropology,” Anthropological Review 1/1 (1863), 1–20, at 19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Hunt, James, “The President's Address,” Journal of the Anthropological Society of London 5 (1867), xliv–lxxi, at lix.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Quoted in Lorimer, Douglas, Colour, Class, and the Victorians: English Attitudes to the Negro in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Leicester, 1978), 138.Google Scholar

45 Hunt, “The President's Address,” lxii.

46 Hunt, James, “Anniversary Address, Delivered before the Anthropological Society of London, January 19th, 1869,” Journal of the Anthropological Society of London 7 (1869), civ–cix, at cviii.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Driver, Felix, Geography Militant: Cultures of Exploration and Empire (Malden, MA, 2001), 99Google Scholar; Kennedy, Dane, The Highly Civilized Man: Richard Burton and the Victorian World (Cambridge, MA and London, 2007), 169–70.Google Scholar

48 Bradlaugh, Charles, The Freethinker's Text-Book, Part I. Man; Whence and How? Or, Revealed and Real Science in Conflict (London, 1876), 38.Google Scholar

49 Conway, Moncure, Autobiography: Memories and Experiences, vol. 2 (London and Paris, 1904), 1Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., 1–2.

51 Stocking, Victorian Anthropology, 254–6.

52 Bradlaugh, Charles, Heresy: Its Utility and Morality; a Plea and a Justification (London, c.1870), 5.Google Scholar

53 See, for example, The Reasoner 5/105 (1848), 16.

54 “Heathen and Civilized,” Boston Investigator, 21 June 1865, 52.

55 G.E.H., “The Ethnological Society,” National Reformer, 24 Dec. 1865, 822–3, at 822.

56 “Modern Scientific Theories,” National Reformer, 24 March 1867, 177–8, at 177.

57 Adams, J. P., “The Anthropologists and Their Opponents,” National Reformer, 3 Nov. 1867, 276–7, at 276.Google Scholar

58 Carter Blake, C., “Anthropology,” National Reformer, 12 Oct. 1879, 659–60, at 659.Google Scholar

59 Ibid., 660.

60 Carter Blake, C., “Anthropology,” National Reformer, 2 Nov. 1879, 710–11, at 711Google Scholar; Blake, “Biblical Negroes,” National Reformer, 28 Dec. 1879, 836–7, at 837.

61 Blake, “Biblical Negroes,” 837.

62 Carter Blake, C., “Races in Western Europe,” National Reformer, 1 Feb, 1880, 69–70.Google Scholar

63 Caractacus, “Science and Slavery,” National Reformer, 9 April 1864, 58.

64 Wheeler, J. M., A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations (London, 1889), vi, original emphasis.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., 180, 240.

66 Ibid., 54–5.

67 Morean, J. N., “Original Communications,” Boston Investigator, 20 Oct. 1858, 1.Google Scholar

68 Examples include “Human Genera and Species,” Boston Investigator, 8 Sept. 1841, 2; “What Men Believed in the Sixteenth Century, and What They Believe Now,” The Reasoner 9/205 (1850), 44; Cooper, Robert, The Infidel's Text-Book, Being the Substance of Thirteen Lectures on the Bible, American edn (Boston, 1858), 209–10Google Scholar; J.S.H., “The Unity of the Human Race,” Boston Investigator, 24 Feb. 1858, 1; “Adam and Eve,” Boston Investigator, 22 Feb. 1860, 349.

69 Remsburg, John E., The Bible: I. Authenticity II. Credibility III. Morality (New York, 1907), 283.Google Scholar

70 William Draper, John, The History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (New York and London, 1874).Google Scholar

71 Dickson White, Andrew, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, vol. 1 (New York, 1896), 255Google Scholar.

72 Bradlaugh Bonner, Hypatia, ed., Catalogue of the Library of the Late Charles Bradlaugh (London, 1891), 69, 115, 116.Google Scholar

73 Bradlaugh, Charles, Anthropology (London, 1882), Lecture 1, 1–2, 4.Google Scholar

74 Bradlaugh, Charles, Were Adam and Eve Our First Parents? (London, c. 1865).Google Scholar

75 Bradlaugh, Man; Whence and How?

76 Bradlaugh, Charles, Genesis: Its Authorship and Authenticity, 3rd edn (London, 1882).Google Scholar

77 On the history of anthropology in Britain see Stocking, Victorian Anthropology; Sera-Shriar, Efram, The Making of British Anthropology, 1813–1871 (London, 2013).Google Scholar

78 This is clearest in his classic work: Tylor, E. B., Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom, 2 vols. (London, 1871).Google Scholar

79 Bradlaugh's large library did include an early work by Tylor, Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization (1865), but not his later and more important work, Primitive Culture (1871). See Bradlaugh Bonner, Catalogue, 94.

80 See, for example, Ingersoll, Robert G., “The Gods” (1872), in The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, 12 vols. (New York, 1902), 1: 7–90.Google Scholar

81 Bradlaugh, Adam and Eve, 8.

82 Ibid., 4; see also Bradlaugh, Genesis, 238–9.

83 Bradlaugh, Adam and Eve, 5.

84 Ibid., 6–7.

85 Ibid., 7.

86 Ibid., 1.

87 Underwood, B. F., The Burgess–Underwood Debate: Commencing June 29, 1875, at Aylmer, Ontario, and Continuing Four Days (New York, 1876), 91Google Scholar; Ingersoll, Robert, “Some Mistakes of Moses” (lecture, 1879), in Ingersoll, Works, 2: 99–100.Google Scholar

88 Heston, Watson, The Freethinkers’ Pictorial Text-Book (New York, 1890), 123Google Scholar; on Heston's life see Schmidt, Leigh Eric, Village Atheists: How America's Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation (Princeton and Oxford, 2016)Google Scholar, chap. 2.

89 Arthur Moss, B., “The Age of Man,” Truth Seeker 14/5 (1887), 70–71, at 70.Google Scholar

90 Ibid., 71.

91 Grabill, J. W., “The Age of Man on the Earth,” Truth Seeker 14/14 (1887), 210–11, at 210.Google Scholar

92 Desmond, Adrian and Moore, James, Darwin's Sacred Cause: Race, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins (London and New York, 2009)Google Scholar.

93 Darwin, Charles, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1st edn (London, 1871).Google Scholar

94 Bradlaugh, Charles, “Antiquity and Unity of Origin of the Human Race,” National Reformer, 29 Oct. 1864, 513–14.Google Scholar

95 Newstead, R., “Unity of Origin of the Human Race,” National Reformer, 12 Nov. 1864, 566.Google Scholar

96 Royle, Radicals, Secularists and Republicans, 171.

97 Ibid., 173; Mann, W., “The Hundred Best Books (1),” The Freethinker, 19 Nov. 1905, 740–42Google Scholar; Mann, “The Hundred Best Books (2),” The Freethinker, 26 Nov. 1905, 762–3.

98 Bradlaugh, Man; Whence and How?, 80.

99 Ibid., 65.

100 Ibid., 87.

101 Ibid., 92.

102 Bradlaugh, Anthropology, Lecture 1, 5.

103 Ibid., Lecture 4, 4.

104 See Bowler, Peter, Evolution: The History of an Idea, 25th-anniversary edn (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2009), chap. 9.Google Scholar

105 Bradlaugh, Anthropology, Lecture 1, 8.

106 Ibid., Lecture 4, 5.

107 Ibid., Lecture 2, 4.

108 Ibid., Lecture 2, 3.

109 Ibid., Lecture 3, 7.

110 Ibid., Lecture 3, 8.

111 Ibid., Lecture 4, 6.

112 Bradlaugh, Charles, “Jottings Out of Session,” National Reformer, 10 Oct. 1880, 270.Google Scholar

113 See Part Five of Arthur Nethercot, H., The First Five Lives of Annie Besant (London, 1961).Google Scholar

114 Arthur Nethercot, H., The Last Four Lives of Annie Besant (London, 1963)Google Scholar; see also Bevir, Mark, “In Opposition to the Raj: Annie Besant and the Dialectic of Empire,” History of Political Thought 19/1 (1998), 61–77.Google Scholar

115 Nash, David, “Charles Bradlaugh, India, and the Many Chameleon Destinations of Republicanism,” in Nash, David and Taylor, Anthony, eds., Republicanism in Victorian Society (Stroud, 2000), 106–24.Google Scholar

116 Speech on India at Town Hall, Northampton, 19 Nov. 1883, in Charles Bradlaugh, Speeches (London, 1890), 42.

117 Ibid., 43.

118 Ibid., 45.

119 Bradlaugh, Charles, “England in Asia,” National Reformer, 29 June 1890, 402.Google Scholar

120 “Mr. Bradlaugh and India,” National Reformer, 5 Jan. 1890, 12.

121 Indian National Congress speech, Bombay, 29 Dec. 1889, in Bradlaugh, Speeches, 152.

122 Ibid., 153.

123 “Departure from Bombay,” National Reformer, 2 Feb. 1890, 76.

124 Tribe, President Charles Bradlaugh, 289.

125 Stocking, George W. Jr, Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology, new edn (Chicago and London, 1982), 53–4.Google Scholar