Under The Microscope: Science, Religion and the Origin of Life through the Eyes of Victorian England

Gillian Jones, MA Hons 1966

William Dallinger, the son of an engraver and printer in the dockyard district of Plymouth, rose to become one of Victorian England’s most eminent preachers. But alongside his leading role in the Methodist Church, Dallinger’s scientific discoveries raised serious questions over the origins of life and God’s role in the universe.

From a childhood fascination with microscopes, he was three times elected President of the Royal Microscopical Society, presiding over advances that brought the smallest life forms into focus under the microscopists’ lens.

Dallinger’s work, which heralded the start of an explosive debate on ‘spontaneous generation’, was met with approbation from Darwin and Huxley but provoked concern and denial from conservative Churchmen. In Under The Microscope, the author explores, using imaginative devices, the preoccupation of so many in Victorian England with the clash of science and religion.

ISBN: 9780954376871