John Herschel, Charles Darwin, and the “Mystery of Mysteries”
Why did John Herschel react so warily to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection? Prof. Richard Bellon of Michigan State University has located the answer in Herschel’s deep philosophical commitment to the belief that a calm regularity underlies the natural world. In the eyes of the great astronomer, Darwin’s explanation of species origin relied on a process of “higgledy-piggledy” that could not account for natural order and harmony.