Introduction
The overarching conflicts and modes of accommodation with Charles Darwin[1]'s theories in France and the United Kingdom have been developed in the previous chapter. Father Alexander Torrend echoed them when writing that Darwin admitted of God as creator and declared his belief in the immortality of the soul. For this, the Jesuit wanted no other proof than the considerations Darwin gave to the thoughts primitive humans may have countenanced about divine existence: “It is obvious, wrote Fr. Torrend, that he who considers human biological progress from an animal state has to wonder how to conciliate this viewpoint with the immortality of the soul. But where is the necessity for us to know at which point in its life the soul becomes immortal and whether this happens before or after birth?” In his view, it is not possible for men to establish the time species evolved from one stratum to the next. He infers from this the existence in people's lives of many phenomena the mysteries of which are resistant to our understanding, and the impossibility for the mind to measure their relation to the impact of blind primeval force. Hence the “Creator” has a part to play in the different stages of human life and it is from the “Almighty” that the human soul receives its immortality even if no one knows at which stage in their life children receive an “immortal soul”. He held that Darwin, towards the end of his life, confirmed his belief in the existence of God and in the immortality of the soul and that he did not lean towards materialist doctrines. While deploying his views on the transformations and progress of species, he merely indicated that humans originated from the ape genus. Follows a presentation of responses to the Darwinists' main contentions, which seem essentially received through a prejudiced reading of Ernest Haeckel[2]'s works.
