Mivart, St. George Jackson (1827 – 1900)

St. George Mivart was born 30 November 1827 in London and died there on 1 April 1900. The third son of the hotelier James Edward Mivart, he was educated at Clapham Grammar School, Harrow, and King’s College London, and was fully expected to enter Oxford or Cambridge. Following exposure in Harrow and King’s College to the Tractarians, and a series of meetings with the Reverend John Moore at St. Chads (Birmingham), he converted to Catholicism, being confirmed by none other than Nicholas Wiseman in 1845. This precluded attendance at an Oxbridge college, and in 1846 he became a student of the law at Lincoln’s Inn, being called to the Bar in 1851. He never subsequently practiced, and instead – following on from his father’s interests in natural history and personal acquaintance from an early age with the likes of Richard Owen, John Gould, John Gray, William Linneaus Martin, and William Yarrell – devoted his life to scientific investigation. He would become a talented comparative anatomist and held a number of academic posts; Lecturer at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School (1862), Professor of Biology at University College Kensington (1874), and visiting lecturer at the University of Louvain (1890 – 93). Mivart was also well connected within the institutions of science; member of the Royal Institution (1849), Fellow of the Zoological Society (1858, Vice-President, 1869 & 1882), Fellow of the Linnean Society (1862, Secretary, 1874 – 80, Vice-President, 1892). In 1869, supported by Thomas Henry Huxley, he became a member of the Royal Society by virtue of his work on the appendicular skeleton of Primates. While initially a member of the emerging Darwinian elite, he lapsed into a form of theistic evolutionism during the late 1860’s, culminating in the publication of On the Genesis of Species (1871), in which he not only criticized the efficacy of natural selection but advanced a creationist origin for the human soul. Mivart’s views were highly unpalatable to Charles Darwin and Huxley – for scientific and extra-scientific reasons – and he would find himself actively excluded from access to the Darwinian circle. In his later writings, Mivart expressly attempted to synthesis his Catholicism and scientific researches, eventually drawing approbation from the Church for his view that the Church itself should be  an evolving institution.  A series of articles beginning in 1885 brought him into direct conflict with the hierarchy, and in 1900 he was excommunicated by Cardinal Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster. Two months later, he died of a series of heart attacks and was initially buried on unconsecrated ground. In 1904 – claiming that insanity brought on by diabetes had lead to his writings – his friends successfully petitioned for his readmission into the Church, and Mivart was re-interred in the cemetery at St. Mary’s of Kensal Green.

Mivart’s initial acceptance by the scientific community came from a series of closely argued, carefully undertaken, comparative studies published between 1864 and 1869. Working under the tutelage of both Owen and Huxley, Mivart began an examination of the Prosimian primates – a work which Huxley felt would be significant in advancing the case for Darwinian evolution. While initially a satellite member of the Darwinian coterie, Mivart would become disenchanted with their emphasis on the strength of natural selection, seeing this as detrimental to the Catholic faith. In Genesis and Man and Apes (1873), he mounted an attack on Darwinism, particularly with respect to the development of human intelligence and the evolution of altruistic acts. These themes would be subsequently rehearsed in later works such as Nature and Thought (1882) and The Origin of Human Reason (1889), the latter an extended response to George Romanes’s Mental Evolution in Man of the same year. 

Mivart's Genesis offered what can be seen as one of the most devastating critiques of Darwinism, one that, in Vorzimmer’s reading, may have led to Darwin's “withdrawal from the main arena of debate about evolution” (p. 251). Indeed, Mivart's critique was all the more devastating given that the author was originally a protégé of Huxley. The book was based on a series of older articles that were published a year and a half earlier in the Catholic journal The Month, and had as its objective

“to maintain the position that `Natural Selection' acts, and indeed must act, but that still, in order that we may be able to account for the production of known kinds of animals and plants, it is required to be supplemented by the action of some other natural law or laws as yet undiscovered.” (p.5)

Initial sales of Genesis were excellent, with the work receiving favorable reviews in the Tablet and the Dublin Review. None other than Cardinal Newman would comment that ‘it is pleasant to find that the first real exposition of the logical insufficiency of Mr Darwin's theory comes from a Catholic’ (qtd. in Gruber, p. 73). Furthermore, Mivart received some support from A.R. Wallace, who would state that Genesis was

“exceedingly clever, and well worth reading. The arguments against Natural Selection as the exclusive mode of development are some of them exceedingly strong, and very well put.... Though he uses some weak and bad arguments, and underrates the power of Natural Selection, yet I think I agree with his conclusion in the main.” (qtd. in Gruber, p. 77-78)

In offering a cumulative argument against the ability of selection to account for the totality of creation, Mivart would highlight a number of problems with Darwin's theory: namely, the inability of selection to account for the incipient stages of useful structures; the independent origin of similar structures, and the development of useless organs; Darwin's downplaying of the importance of saltationism; the apparent stability of species; and the tight integration of the parts of an organism with each other. None of these arguments was new, and the force of Mivart's work comes from the cumulative effect of their collection in a single volume. Indeed, to this day, many of Mivart’s arguments are still popular.

Mivart was deeply influenced by Owen and his concept of homology, which he felt proved that a deep significance underlies the structure of animals.  Lateral, serial and vertical homologies within the organism all implied a mysterious internal factor which provided such order. Selection was a secondary mechanism, and an internal progressive force was the engine of evolution. This innate tendency operated irrespective of environmental change and led to diversification based on the internal tendency of variation which was built-in by the Creator. In addition, there was no single ‘tree of life’. In a paper written in 1873 he would state that the

“affinities of the animal kingdom, or even the Mammalian class, can never be represented by the symbol of a tree. Rather, I believe, we should conceive the existence of a grove of trees, closely approximated, greatly differing in age and size, with their branches interlaced in a most complex entanglement.” (p. 510)

Thus, the Darwinian tree is replaced by a grove of trees each of which represents an individual independent lineage – an idea that is still seen to this day in the writings of contemporary anti-evolutionists.  

Darwin publicly responded to Genesis in the sixth edition of Origin (1872). While the new edition saw no major changes in Darwin's theory, it did mark a change in tone, which lead to speculative statements being transformed into more stronger language. In addition, an extensive chapter titled ‘Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection’ presented an extensive rejection of Mivart's objections. Noting that Mivart had ‘collected all the objections which have ever been advanced by [Darwin] and others against the theory of natural selection.. .and has illustrated them with admirable art and force’ Darwin went on to claim that, after reading the work ‘with care’, he ‘never before felt so strongly convinced of the general truth of the conclusions’ that he had arrived at. After demonstrating that his theory was competent to account for the incipient stages of useful structures, Darwin attacked Mivart's evolutionary mechanism with these words:

“He who believes that some ancient form was transformed suddenly through an internal force or tendency into, for instance one furnished with wings, will be most compelled to assume, in opposition to all analogy, that many individuals varied simultaneously. It cannot be denied that such abrupt and great changes of structure are widely different from those that most species apparently have undergone.... To admit all of this is, as it seems to me, to enter into the realms of miracle, and to leave those of Science.”

With Mivart thus disposed of, Darwin never again replied to these arguments or modified Origin in any way.

Privately, Darwin was aghast at Mivart's book. Somewhat enraged by Mivart's tone, a subsequent negative review of Descent of Man in the Quarterly Review, and what was seen as a personal attack by Mivart on his son, George, Darwin left it to Huxley and Chauncey Wright to deal with the heretical Catholic. In a prescient sentence in Genesis, Mivart had noted the ‘intolerance and narrow-mindedness of some of those who advocate [Darwinism], avowedly or covertly, in the interest of heterodoxy’ (p. 14). Such a comment, clearly aimed at Huxley, lead the Bulldog to revel in his role as enforcer of Darwinian orthodoxy. Relations between him and Mivart soon spiraled out of control, and Mivart would find himself excluded from the inner circle. Part of the explanation for this must lie with Huxley’s views on Catholicism; he would comment that evolution “occupies a position of complete and irreconcilable antagonism to that vigorous and consistent enemy of the highest intellectual, moral, and social life of mankind – the Catholic Church” (qtd. in Root, p. 3). By gaining control of scientific periodicals and promoting the interests of younger scientists, such as E. Ray Lankester, who were willing to espouse their approach, Huxley aided the spread of the official Darwinian position. Yet this strategy required that doubters and heretics such as Mivart and Henry Charlton Bastain be treated harshly.

Despite this, Mivart would continue to publish scientific studies – notably comparative works on the Aeluroidea (cat-like carnivores), Arctoidea (bear-like carnivores), Canidae (dog family), and Loriinae (brush-tongued parrots), the latter two sumptuously illustrated with color lithographs by J.G. Keulemans. His work was, however, becoming increasingly old-fashioned, and after his marginalization, Mivart gradually began to concentrate more on writing about Catholicism, increasingly attempting to reconcile the Church’s teachings with scientific knowledge, a project which would initially receive approval and an honorary doctorate, from Pope Pius IX in 1876. By 1900, his views on Biblical criticism, liturgical reform, education, and the nature of hell had become less orthodox, reaching a low-point with the following quote from his 1900 article in North American Review:

“After mature reflection and many struggles, I had come to the conclusion that the Roman Catholic Church must tolerate a transforming process of evolution, with respect to many of its dogmas, or sink, by degrees, into an effete and insignificant body, composed of ignorant persons, a mass of women and children and a number of mentally effeminate men” (p. 171)

It is directly to this that Cardinal Vaughn responded with excommunication. Despite Michael Ruse’s judgment of Mivart as being ‘seduced by the Jesuits’ and akin to Judas Iscariot, it is clearly a measure of Mivart's passion that his attempts to unify his science and theology lead to (literal and figurative) excommunication by the leaders within both those spheres.

Bibliography

‘Difficulties of the theory of Natural Selection’, The Month (1869), vol. XI, pp. 35 – 53, 134 – 53, 274 – 89.

On The Genesis of Species (London, 1871)

‘Darwin’s Descent of Man’, Quarterly Review (1871), vol. CXXXI, pp. 47 – 90.

‘Specific Genesis’, North American Review (1872), vol. CXIV, pp. 451 – 68.

‘On the Lepilemur and Cheirogaleus and on the zoological rank of the Lemuroidea’, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of Londion (1873), vol. 41, pp. 484 – 510.

Man and Apes (London, 1873)

Contemporary Evolution (London, 1876)

Lessons From Nature as Manifested in Mind and Matter (London, 1876)

Nature and Thought (London, 1882)

The Origin of Human Reason (London, 1889)

Other Relevant Works

Lessons in Elementary Anatomy (London, 1873)

The Common Frog (London, 1874)

‘Primitive Man: Tylor and Lubbock’, Quarterly Review (1874), vol. CXLVII, pp. 40 – 77.

‘Reply to George Darwin’, Quarterly Review (1874), vol. CXXXVII, pp. 588 – 89.

‘Examination of Mr. Spencer’s Psychology’, Dublin Review (1874 – 79), vol. XXIII – XXXII. (Eight installments).

The Cat, an Introduction to the Study of Backboned Animals, Especially Mammals (London, 1881)

A Philosophical Catechism (London, 1884)

On Truth: A Systematic Inquiry (London, 1889)

Dogs, Jackals, Wolves and Foxes – A monograph on the Canidae (London, 1890)

Introduction générale à l’Etude de la Nature: Course professé à l’Université de Louvain (Louvain & Paris, 1891)

The Elements of Ornithology (London, 1892)

An Introduction to the Elements of Science (London, 1893)

Types of Animal Life (London, 1893)

American Types of Animal Life (Boston, 1894)

A Monograph of the Lories (London, 1896)

The Groundwork of Science: A study of Epistemology (London, 1898)

‘Roman Congregations and Modern Thought’, North American Review (1900), vol. CLXX, pp. 562 – 74.

Further Reading

Brundell. Barry, ‘Catholic Church politics and evolution theory, 1894 – 1902’, British Journal for the History of Science (2001), vol. 34, pp. 81 – 95.

Darwin, Charles, Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, Sixth edn. (London, 1872), Chapter VII.

Fichman, Martin, ‘Ideological factors in the dissemination of Darwinism in England, 1860 – 1900’, in Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 471 – 485.

Gruber, Jacob W., A Conscience in Conflict: The Life of St. George Jackson Mivart, (New York, 1960).

Huxley, Thomas Henry, ‘Mr. Darwin’s Critics’ (1871) repr. In Darwiniana (New York, 1896), pp. 120 – 186.

Richards, Robert J., Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior, (Chicago, 1987), pp. 225 – 230, 353 - 363 and passim.

Root, John D., ‘The final apostasy of St. George Jackson Mivart’, The Catholic Historical Review (1985), vol. LXXI, pp. 1 – 25.

Ruse, Michael, The Evolution Wars, (Oxford, 2000), p. 73.   

Vorzimmer, Peter J., Charles Darwin: The Years of Controversy. The Origin of Species and its Critics 1859-1882. (Philadelphia, 1970), pp. 225 – 251.

Wright, Chauncey, ‘The Genesis of Species’, North American Review (1871), vol. CXIII, pp. 63 – 103.

Wright, Chauncey, ‘Evolution by Natural Selection’, North American Review (1872), vol. CXV, pp. 1 – 30.

[John M. Lynch]