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JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
AND THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE
T H E ALBERT J . BEVERIDGE M E M O R I A L F E L L O W S H I P O F
T H E AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION FOR 1 9 4 8 WAS
AWARDED TO THE AUTHOR FOR THE REVISION AND
COMPLETION O F THIS WORK

FOR T H E I R ZEAL AND BENEFICENCE IN CREATING THIS

FUND T H E ASSOCIATION IS INDEBTED T O MANY CITIZENS
O F INDIANA W H O DESIRED T O H O N O R IN THIS WAY T H E
M E M O R Y OF A STATESMAN AND A HISTORIAN
JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
1811-1882
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER

and the Religion of Science

By

DONALD FLEMING

Philadelphia
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
LONDON: GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

1950
 Copyright 1950
AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

All Rights Reserved, Including the Right

to Reproduce This Book, or Portions
Thereof, in Any Form

Manufactured in the United States of America

To my mother
 PREFACE
ONE of the most vigorous enterprises of the nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries has been the creation of a mythology of science—not
in the invidious sense of a collection of lies but of a compression of
experience and dogma into symbols. The imaginary debasement of
men by Copernicus; the alleged dependence of the mechanic James
Watt on the theorist Joseph Black; the supposed tragedy of Jean
Rey, stuck fast in the wrong century with the right theory of cal-
cination; the verified taste of Dr. Einstein for ice cream cones—all
are part of this great myth which we may expect to play an increas-
ing role from year to year. Its significance for patent law has recently
been pointed out, and its significance for the iconography of ad-
vertising need not be pointed out. John William Draper was one of
the chief contributors to this mythologizing process in the nine-
teenth century. On the other hand, his own career, with his remark-
able record in physical and chemical research, supplies a control for
testing the dogmas about science and validating the symbols for
the history of science which he and others helped to spread.
This book began as a doctor's dissertation at Harvard University.
I am indebted to Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger for suggesting the
subject, and to him and Professor I. Bernard Cohen for their com-
ments as readers of the original manuscript on behalf of the uni-
versity. Professor Cohen later read certain portions of the book in
their revised form. I have also had the benefit of comments by the
members of the Committee on the Albert J. Beveridge Memorial
Fund of the American Historical Association: Professors Arthur P.
Whitaker, chairman, Philip Davidson, Dorothy Burne Goebel, and
Henrietta Larson; by the anonymous readers chosen by them from
outside the committee; and by Professor Richard H. Shryock, who
was engaged by them to advise me on the process of revision. The
responsibility for the book as it appears ought not, of course, to be
visited on anyone other than myself.
I also owe to the members of the Beveridge committee the honor
of being awarded the Beveridge Memorial Fellowship for 1948,
which carried with it the publication of this book. I am more grate-
ful for this than I can well say.
One of the chief satisfactions which I got from my research was
the chance to meet several members of the Draper family, who an-
swered questions, fed me, answered questions, put me up for the
night, lent me rare books and unique manuscripts—and answered
vii
viii PREFACE

questions. Aside from letting me interview her at length on two oc-

casions, Mrs. Dorothy Draper Nye gave me access to the letters in
her possession, by far the largest surviving collection, and made it
possible for me to use them to best advantage in a short time; her
brother and sister-in-law, Professor and Mrs. J o h n William Draper,
let me draw out their recollections and gave me some sense of the
physical objects with which his grandfather lived; and their cousin,
Miss Antonia C. Maury, who made the important discovery of the
c-characteristic in stellar spectra, not only supplied me with a great
deal of information, critically assessed, but also brought home to me
in the most immediate fashion the vigorous scientific tradition of
the Drapers, who have now made distinguished contributions to
science in three successive generations. Without the friendly co-
operation of these, Draper's surviving grandchildren, I could not
have written this book; but they have not passed upon the manu-
script and ought not to be blamed for any of its faults. I am also
indebted to Draper's grandnephews, Mr. Charles Lennox Wright
and Dr. Daniel Gardner, with whom I engaged in correspondence.
In the collection of my materials, I made use of the library of the
Boston Athenaeum, the Boston Public Library, the Congressional
Library, the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the
Huntington Library, the New York Public Library, the New York
University library, the University of Pennsylvania library, the
Widener Library, and the Yale University library. I am glad to ex-
press my thanks to their staffs, and in particular to those persons
charged with the keeping of manuscripts who gave me permission to
quote from their holdings. T h e librarian of New York University,
Dr. T . F. Jones, by his previous work in its archives made my own
task much simpler.
My greatest single debt is to my father and mother for their steady
encouragement in every way.

DONALD FLEMING
Providence, Rhode Island
January 1950
 CONTENTS

John William Draper Frontispiece

Photographer, Edward Bierstadt, about 1879

PREFACE vii

I EUROPE 1

II VIRGINIA 9

III " T H E BRIGHT S P E C K IN E A C H E Y E " 20

IV " T H E AMERICAN DAVY" 28

V T H E N E T OF CREATION 42

VI T H E TURNING POINT 56

VII ROCK-PIGEONS AND A P E S 65

VIII T H E WEB OF HISTORY 74

IX T H E REIGN OF REASON 95

X WAR HISTORIAN 113

XI S C I E N C E AND RELIGION 122

XII T W I L I G H T O F A PATRIARCH 136

NOTES 143

B I B L I O G R A P H I C A L ESSAY 177

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST 183

INDEX 199
ix
 Chapter I

EUROPE

T H E R E is a whole chapter of nineteenth-century history pressed to-

gether in the phrase "the conflict between religion and science." Like
the teacake in Remembrance of Things Past, it sets off a train of as-
sociations: the raking fire of miters, the counterfire of microscopes
as the two armies drew up their lines; interdiction by will of the Pope,
registered in the Index Prohibitorum, beatification by grace of E. L.
Youmans, registered in the Popular Science Monthly; proof by Asa
Gray of Harvard that evolution was right but not so very big as
made out, counterproof by Agassiz of Harvard that it was big enough
to swallow all contentment but dead wrong; and Our Mother Eve
and the proto-Ape jostling for places at the head of the family tree.
The rubric under which this troop of disputants, with their cloud
of issues, has gone down in history was composed by John William
Draper (1811-132)—The Conflict between Religion and Science. He
tried to make exact sciences of physiology, history, and politics; and
in this cause he made as quick work as he could of dogmatic theology.
Yet he had his failures of nerve in this undertaking: he slammed the
door on other people's "metaphysics," and flung it wide for his own.
By and large, however, he believed that there was no limit to under-
standing the world in natural rather than supernatural terms. In his
rough, flagging way, he helped break new ground for an age of
science, and brought to the level of laymen some of the issues with
which they must grapple henceforth. But though he looked to the
future, he had the gift of the great popularizer for seeming to leaven
the loaf of tradition instead of throwing it away. The son of a Metho-
dist minister, he was always transposing the formulas of Christianity
into the key of materialism. He succeeded, however, in lending to
new ideas the appearance of old ones. His work is therefore an excel-
lent case-history of the way in which innovations are knit up into
continuity with tradition, and revolutions in thought made palatable.
But beneath the semantic crust he was setting off charges of dynamite.

There are at least two distinct accounts of the origin of the Draper
family, and several cloudy variations on these.1 The family seems to
have disowned the father of John William Draper, so that the matter
l
2 JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
is of less interest than if the son had come to know his relatives. In
any event the line is clear enough from John Draper, who is con-
nected with Liverpool, and his wife, Elizabeth Johnson, of London.
T h e i r son John Christopher, born in London on November 8, 1777,
was the father of John William, the subject of this biography. 2
Nothing much seems to be known about John Christopher Draper
till as a man of "about twenty-one,"—say, in 1798—he and two
friends went to have some fun at the expense of the Methodists. 3
Instead he got pulled up sharp by "converting grace." 4 His conver-
sion is a kind of symbol of the sober, chastened spirit, the high serious-
ness and long praying, that fell over English society in the shadow of
the French Revolution. 5 T o see if he was up to the much higher
standards of gravity among the Wesleyan ministers, Draper, who
seems to have been read out of the family for changing his religion,
served an apprenticeship as a "local preacher" till 1802. 6 T h e n he
struck out as an itinerant, sent by the Conference to a new circuit of
local societies every year or two.
About 1805 Draper married Sarah Ripley, some of whose people
had emigrated to America before the Revolution to found a Wes-
leyan community.1. When the couple set up housekeeping, house-
keeping on the move, he was dark-haired and clean-shaven with a
large broad nose and a thin mouth, of "good natural abilities . . .
improved by reading and study," and she had (it is about all we
know) a heart-shaped face.8 They had tight budgets ahead of them.
T h e standard salary for an itinerant was £ 1 2 a year for himself, £ 1 2
for the support of his wife, £ 4 for each child, and £ 6 for the board
and wages of a servant; but the schedule was reasonably flexible and
at one point when he was teaching his children at home Draper got
£ 8 for each girl and £ 1 2 for his son. 9
T h e upshot was to bring the main events in the history of a fam-
ily—illness, the birth of a child—to the attention of the Conference,
often for the purpose of getting a special grant from its fund. This
close surveillance and mutual help by the Methodist preachers, with
the endless shuffling of them all so as to put down every sort of local
independence among the societies, hedged in the life of the Drapers.
But into the bargain it looks like a life as high as heaven and as
wide as earth. Any sermon might bring off the incalculable descent
of grace, "the wonders of redeeming grace"; and perhaps there had
never been so exhilarating a sense of the body of the philanthropic
at work all around the world. 10 It was the age of Hannah More and
Zachary Macaulay—also, we are told, the age of Lady Southdown,
distributor in quantity of " T h e Sailor's T r u e Binnacle" and "Flesh-
pots Broken; or, the Converted Cannibal," and Mrs. Jellyby, the
"telescopic" philanthropist who believed in taking the broom to
 EUROPE 3
Africa ahead of her front parlor,—the age of tracts and missions de-
scribed in Draper's elegy:
Christian philanthropy his soul possess'd.
And bigotry was banish'd from his breast;
With saints of different names he could agree.
Who held the faith in bonds of charity.
Forth as the zealous advocate he stood.
Of every institution great and good;
View'd Christian Missions as the cause of God,
And helped to send his light and truth abroad;
Bible, and Tract Societies he lov'd,
And Sabbath Schools his firm attachment proved;
The "Bethel Seaman's Union" held a part
In the most warm affections of his heart. 11

It was an atmosphere where grace was solicited, but not to the

neglect of the Bethel Seaman's Union; where the benevolent joined
hands across sectarian lines, in the tradition which had dried u p
the gin mill and founded the charity school but in the tradition also
of nervous concern for fear of doing the poor so much good they
would no longer want to be poor. 12 By the standards, say, of the
great "Broad" prelates of the eighteenth century, it was an atmosphere
of meager aesthetic drives, where the novel, to the indignation of
Jane Austen and the younger Macaulay, was in almost as bad repute
with godly people as card-playing, and Methodist opinion stood
nearly balanced for and against organs to "guide" the singing. But
by the standards of the enemies of evolution among the evangelical
party in 1860, it was an atmosphere of surprising respect for natural
studies, where John Christopher Draper's "Gregorian telescope"
represented the honorable scientific traditions of Nonconformity. 18
In fact, in the elder Draper's prime one of the quiet times in the
history of the tension between science and religion was drawing to
a close, after both Newton and Locke had been digested without
much trouble. The line, therefore, in which the Drapers took their
place was, like every tradition, mixed. But along with this went an
unmixed sharpening of the points of everyday existence, so that
even small issues and minor data could start up into urgent life, if
only one looked for and found what they had to do with God's
purpose. And there was an awe-inspiring facility in narrowing down
the scope of this purpose to the ethics of holding amateur theatricals,
the explanation of crop failures, and the necessity of driving hard
bargains.
In this setting John and Sarah Draper brought up four children.
The oldest, Dorothy Catharine, was born in 1807 at Newcastle-on-
Tyne, and another girl, Elizabeth Johnson, in 1809 at Penrith in
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