11. The beginning of the ape-man debate
Throughout the work On the Origin of Species, there can be found no direct statement that humanity descended from the apes, or from any other species. The inference can be readily drawn, however, and readily was, in a manner often sneering, as a means of dismissing Darwin’s overall work. When the book was published, Darwin withdrew himself from the debate, and the relentless attacks on his work and his character by churchmen. Criticism of his science he responded to, those of his religious views he did not. Darwin amended the original text for each subsequent edition during his lifetime, incorporating the views of critics and correcting what he later perceived to be errors in his original work.
Still, the view of the general public, untrained in science, was often shaped by what was heard from the pulpit. Darwin was unable to defend his work in the arena of religion, and it was left to his supporters. Until the sixth edition was published – the last of Darwin’s lifetime – the word evolution did not appear in the text. But it appeared in the written debates over Darwin’s work from the time of its first publication, as did the inference that Darwin believed man had descended from the apes. In Great Britain, the debate remained largely clerical and scientific, while in the United States it became visceral and often coarse.
