Victoria Institute
| Established | 1865, as "Philosophical Society of Great Britain"; now uses the working name "Faith and Thought" |
|---|---|
| President | Sir John T. Houghton |
| Location | England |
| Website | faithandthought.org.uk |
The Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain, was founded in 1865, as a response to the publication of On the Origin of Species and Essays and Reviews. Its stated objective was to defend "the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture ... against the opposition of Science falsely so called." Although it was not officially opposed to evolution, it attracted a number of scientists sceptical of Darwinism, including John William Dawson and Arnold Guyot.
The institute was not officially opposed to evolution theory, but its main founder James Reddie objected to Darwin's work as "inharmonious" and "utterly incredible", and Philip Henry Gosse, author of Omphalos, was a vice-president.
The Victoria Institute enjoyed considerable success in the late nineteenth century, having Sir G. G. Stokes as president from 1886 till his death, whilst President of the Royal Society. Membership reached a high point of 1,246 in 1897, but quickly plummeted to less than one third of that figure in the first two decades of the twentieth century.James Clerk Maxwell was repeatedly invited to join the institute, including in writing in 1875, but, although he was a devout evangelical Christian, he turned down the invitations, due the institute's narrow outlook and conservatism. Only a few prominent scientists who were Evangelicals joined it.
Prominent Canadian creationist (and long-standing institute member) George McCready Price, attended meetings regularly while living in London between 1924 and 1928, but his views failed to persuade the membership.
In 1927 it appointed prominent electrical engineer and physicist John Ambrose Fleming as its president. He thought himself a creationist and insisted on creation of the soul, but his acceptance of divinely guided development and of Pre-Adamite humanity meant he was thought of as a theistic evolutionist. Fleming's 1935 presidential address, on his views on anthropology and the Bible, provoked commentary from leading London newspapers and a lengthy reply from anatomist and anthropologist Arthur Keith.
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