ABSTRACT

This chapter draws the history of Darwin's muddle as emblematic of Victorian debates about religion and science, looking closely at the relationship of natural theology and the emerging science of evolution. It examines the resolution of that relationship into a theology consonant with evolution yet true to its religious roots, and then situates that theology broadly within Joseph Goddard's philosophy of music. The seemingly fine line between Christian Darwinisticists and Christian Darwinists, and their search for the spiritual origins of the evolving natural world, is played out with a seemingly meaningful conviction in the theological and scientific theatres of the time, yet the spectre of Darwin's theological muddle continued to cast a long shadow over both their progressive intentions. Indeed, music is spiritual selection and its evolution 'has been essential to the formation of that spiritual foundation from which music derives its manifold accent its infinite notes of feeling.