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For centuries, scripture and theology were the focus of prodigious amounts of scholarship and publishing. Enlightenment philosophy and science, anthropology, ethnology and the colonial experience all brought new perspectives, lively debates and heated controversies to the study of religion and its role in the world, many of which continue to this day. This series explores the editing and interpretation of religious texts, the history of religious ideas and institutions, and not least the encounter between religion and science.

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253 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Religion

Page 13 of 13

More Worlds Than One
  • The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian
  • David Brewster
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1854
  • Sir David Brewster (1781–1868) was a distinguished scientist and inventor who frequently turned the results of his research to practical ends; his work on the diffraction of light, for example, led to his developing improved reflectors for lighthouses and inventing two popular Victorian toys, the stereoscope and the kaleidoscope. He was also active as the editor of the Edinburgh Magazine and the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia (1808–1830) and contributed to the seventh and eighth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, as well as writing many articles for a variety of philosophical and scientific journals. He was deeply religious, and in More Worlds Than One (1854) he set out to counter the arguments against extra-terrestrial life of William Whewell's recently published Of the Plurality of Worlds (also reissued in this series), urging that Whewell's 'extraordinary doctrine' was wrong on scientific grounds.

The Missionary Life and Labours of Francis Xavier Taken from his own Correspondence
  • With a Sketch of the General Results of Roman Catholic Missions among the Heathen
  • Henry Venn
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 May 2010
    First published in:
    1862
  • A founding member of the Jesuit order, Francis Xavier (1506–1552) travelled as a missionary to India, Japan and China in the mid-sixteenth century. He is traditionally associated with legends of miraculous works and the conversion of tens of thousands of people. This controversial 1862 biography by the Anglican missionary clergyman Henry Venn (1796–1873) uses Xavier's own words to examine the future saint's character and private thoughts. Xavier's correspondence reveals a sensitive, energetic and occasionally vengeful man who was not averse to employing aggressive means. Containing numerous letters printed in full, Venn's chronicle provides an analysis of Xavier's mission, methods and achievements from a non-Catholic perspective. Venn also explores Xavier's close friendship with the Jesuits' founder Ignatius Loyola, and probes the facts behind previous biographers' tales of miracles. The book ends with a detailed and challenging appraisal of the overall success of the worldwide Roman Catholic mission since the sixteenth century.

The Evolution of Christianity
  • Volume 1
  • Lyman Abbott
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1892
  • Lyman Abbott was an American liberal theologian and a confidant of Theodore Roosevelt. He was a moderate man who sought to re-establish Christian faith among the American people in a period of change. This book, first published in 1893, argued that spiritual experience is always new and therefore every age requires a new expression for it. A believer in the possibility of harmonious coexistence between the Church and evolutionary theory, Abbott proposed a 'more intelligible and credible' religion that endeavoured to sustain faith by expressing it in contemporary terms. He maintained that science and faith were compatible and that both natural and spiritual elements belonged to a shared kingdom governed by the law of progress. Blending faith in historical Christianity with belief in progress and evolutionary theory, Abbott aimed to provide a bridge between religious life and late nineteenth-century philosophical thought.

First Principles
  • Herbert Spencer
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    24 September 2009
    First published in:
    1862
  • In 1862, the British philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) published this preamble to a planned series of publications on biology, psychology, sociology and morality. In it, he states that religion and science can be reconciled by their shared belief in an Absolute, and that ultimate principles can be discerned in all manifestations of the Absolute, particularly the general laws of nature being discovered by science. Spencer divides his text into two parts. Part I, 'The Unknowable', discusses early philosophical ideas that human knowledge is limited and cannot meaningfully conceive of God; faith must be the bridge between human experience and ultimate truth. Spencer refutes this as he examines religion and science in detail. In Part II, 'Laws of the Knowable', Spencer argues that religion and science can be reconciled in the underlying unity from which the visible complexity of the universe has evolved.

Modern Ideas of Evolution as Related to Revelation and Science
  • John William Dawson
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1890
  • Darwin's theory of evolution generated a storm of controversy within the scientific community in the later nineteenth century, and Sir J. William Dawson, a renowned geologist of his time, was one of those who vehemently opposed it. In Modern Ideas of Evolution as related to Revelation and Science, first published in 1890, Dawson maintains that it is religion alone that forms a stable base for all new ideas. He dismisses the theory of evolution as a crude and heretical hypothesis, inconsistent with religion and undeserving of acceptance. If adopted as proven truth, he argues, it would lead to unscientific and unspiritual degeneration of the mind. More than a century later, evolution is generally accepted but still not 'proven', and the debates continue. Dawson's energetic polemic remains a key document for historians of science concerned with the Victorian reception of Darwinism and the rise of evolutionary theory.

The Limits of Religious Thought Examined in Eight Lectures
  • Preached before the University of Oxford, in the Year M.DCCC.LVIII on the Foundation of the Late Rev. John Bampton
  • Henry Longueville Mansel
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1867
  • The Bampton lectures at Oxford, founded by the bequest of John Bampton in order to examine ideas from Christian theology, have taken place regularly since 1780. In 1858 the philosopher Henry Longueville Mansel delivered the set of eight lectures reissued in this volume. Mansel expresses the view - influenced by Kant and Hamilton - that the human mind is 'conditioned' and that human knowledge is strictly limited to the finite. Humans cannot attain any positive conception of the nature of the 'Absolute and Infinite Being' with certainty. We only have an imperfect representation of God and the divine through their analogy to finite things. And yet, God exists. Mansel asserts that God cannot be understood by reason but should be accepted by faith. His book ignited a bitter controversy with the Christian socialist theologian Frederick Maurice, and remains of interest to historians of philosophy and theology to this day.

The West Indies
  • Their Social and Religious Condition
  • Edward Bean Underhill
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    04 March 2010
    First published in:
    1862
  • In this book, first published in 1862, Edward Bean Underhill gives an engaging account of a journey to the West Indies on behalf of the Baptist Missionary Society. He visited Baptist churches in Trinidad, Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas in order to evaluate the religious state of the many congregations that were established there after the Emancipation Act. Underhill emphasizes that the religious and social consequences of the Emancipation for the people of the West Indies cannot be viewed independently of one another. He finds that the islands, on their own terms, have made the best possible use of the freedom obtained. Underhill gives an elaborate and vivid description of his impression of the islands, but his main focus is on Jamaica, which he finds has benefited most of all.

Man and his Dwelling Place
  • An Essay towards the Interpretation of Nature
  • James Hinton
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1859
  • History remembers James Hinton as a successful surgeon and author of books and articles on physiology and ethics. A gifted thinker and communicator, Hinton was well placed to address the relationship between science and religion in an age when the two were pitted against each other. First published in 1859, the same year as the Origin of Species, Man and His Dwelling Place takes an ambitiously broad view of the human condition, addressing difficult topics from science, religion, philosophy and ethics. Hinton's arguments against outdated ways of thinking and his approach to human nature were revolutionary, and he took pains to address readers' doubts in a series of question-and-answer dialogues at the end of the book. Hinton's impassioned plea for a bolder spirit of enquiry to better interpret human existence assures this book an important place in the history of science and the understanding of Darwin's intellectual context.

On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God as Manifested in the Creation of Animals and in their History, Habits and Instincts
  • Volume 1
  • William Kirby
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1835
  • This extensively illustrated two-volume treatise, published in 1835, is one of a series commissioned by the Royal Society with funds bequeathed by the Earl of Bridgewater. William Kirby (1759–1850), Cambridge graduate, country parson and respected entomologist, here combines the study of the word of God with that of his works, aiming to disprove Lamarck's hypothesis that all the works of creation can be attributed to second causes, rather than a first cause, i.e. God. Kirby agrees with philosophers' objections to superstitious and bigoted adherence to the letter of scripture, but questions their lack of attention to its spirit. He explores the creation of animals in a spiritual context and goes on to consider the functions and instincts of the major animal groups. Volume 1 includes chapters on molluscs, cephalopods and worms. This book contributed to the intellectual debates that formed the background to Darwin's work on evolution.

A View of the History, Literature, and Religion of the Hindoos
  • Including a Minute Description of their Manners and Customs, and Translations from their Principal Works
  • Volume 4, The Philosophical Systems of the Hindoos
  • William Ward
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    25 February 2010
    First published in:
    1820
  • William Ward's account of the Hindu communities among whom he served as a Baptist missionary in Serampore in West Bengal was first published in 1811 and reprinted in this third edition in 1817. It was an extremely influential work that shaped British views of the newly defined entity of 'Hinduism' in the early nineteenth century. Ward and his fellow missionaries promoted social reforms and education, establishing the Serampore Mission Press in 1800 and Serampore College in 1818. Ward devoted twenty years to compiling his study of Hindu literature, history, mythology and religion, which was eventually published in four volumes. It provided richly detailed information, and was regarded as authoritative for the next fifty years. It is still an important source for researchers in areas including Indian history, British colonialism, Orientalism and religious studies. Volume 4 includes translations from Hindu sacred texts and philosophical writings, and Ward's own reflections on education.

Buddhism
  • In its Connexion with Brahmanism and Hinduism and in its Contrast with Christianity
  • Monier Monier-Williams
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    25 February 2010
    First published in:
    1889
  • This book derives from a series of lectures given in 1888 by Monier Monier-Williams, who was Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford for over 30 years and whose work broke new ground in the Western understanding of Buddhism and other South Asian religions. This substantial historical survey of Buddhism begins with an account of the Buddha and his earliest teaching, as well as a brief description of the origin and composition of the scriptures containing the Buddha's law (Dharma). Monier-Williams explains the early constitution of the Buddha's order of monks (Sangha), and outlines the philosophical doctrines of Buddhism together with its code of morality and theory of perfection, culminating in Nirvana. He also describes formal and popular rituals and practices, and sacred places and objects. The book is an example of Victorian Orientalist scholarship which remains of interest to historians of religious studies, Orientalism, and the British Empire.

Evolution and Dogma
  • John Augustine Zahm
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    24 September 2009
    First published in:
    1896
  • This 1896 volume by Reverend J. A. Zahm, a professor of physics at the University of Notre Dame, considers the Catholic theological tradition as it relates to evolution. The author discusses Darwin's theory of evolution in detail, and traces the debate between theologians and scientists back to the early days of evolutionary theory. He compares late nineteenth-century evolutionary theory and the beliefs of the Catholic church, carefully evaluating the arguments and probing errors and misconceptions in theory and terminology. He also attempts to shed light on the little-understood relations between evolutionism and Christianity as a whole, and discusses whether a person of any Christian denomination can be an evolutionist. Zahm's thoughtful work is considered to be one of the most important volumes on evolution ever written by a Catholic.

Evolution and Ethics
  • Delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre, May 18, 1893
  • Thomas Henry Huxley
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    24 September 2009
    First published in:
    1893
  • In 1893, the biologist and educator Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) published the text of a public lecture on ethics and evolutionary theory. He opens Evolution and Ethics with the story of Jack and the Bean Stalk as a metaphor for cyclical evolution—the small seed that becomes a mature plant. Huxley then takes the reader on a journey through two culturally different belief systems Buddhism and Greek intellectual thought — to illustrate human attempts to understand the 'cosmic process'. Huxley outlines the growth of differing concepts of justice as populations became more organised, and how different societies dealt with the knowledge that nature is unjust. Huxley abhors the harsh applications of Darwin's work to society and decries the 'gladiatorial theory of existence'. Arguing against the concept of social Darwinism, Huxley proposes that ethical behaviour must counteract the painful effects of the 'struggle for survival' in order for society to progress.

Page 13 of 13