Similar passages can be found in Disraeli’s novels, which were fairly transparent vehicles for his own political, philosophical, and spiritual convictions. In Tancred, published in 1847, his visionary hero, a young Victorian aristocrat, has the following exchange with a bishop of the Church of England (Disraeli 1927, p. 76).
“‘The Church represents God upon earth,’ said the bishop. “‘But the Church no longer governs man,’ replied Tancred.
“‘There is a great spirit rising in the Church,’ observed the bishop with thoughtful solemnity. . . . ‘We shall soon see a bishop at Manchester.’
“‘But I want to see an angel at Manchester.’ “‘An angel!’
“‘Why not? Why should there not be heavenly messengers, when heavenly messages are most wanted?’”
Tancred then proceeds on a spiritual quest to Jerusalem. While in Palestine, he ascends Mt. Sinai by night and is visited by an angel “vast as the surrounding hills.” After identifying himself as “the angel of Arabia,” the angel says, “‘The relations between Jehovah and his creatures can be neither too numerous nor too near. In the increased distance between God and man have grown up all those developments that have made life mournful’” (Disraeli 1927, p. 300).
Eventually,Tancred forms a plan to revitalize Europe by first restoring the spiritual purity of Asia. “When the East has resumed its indigenous intelligence, when angels and prophets shall again mingle with humanity, the sacred quarter of the globe will recover its primeval and divine supremacy; it will act upon the modern empires, and the faint-hearted faith of Europe, which is but the shadow of a shade, will become as vigorous as befits men who are in sustained communication with the Creator” (Disraeli 1927, p. 441). Disraeli’s vision of a Creator and his angels constantly interfering with the world is far less compatible with Darwinism than the vision of a Creator who keeps his angels in heaven and his hands off the world.
Given his mystical tendency, it is not surprising that Disraeli disliked materialistic evolutionary theories. Tancred appeared before Darwin’s The Origin of Species, but in it Disraeli satirized Robert Chambers’s vestiges of Creation, which also expressed evolutionary ideas.
Before setting off to the East, Tancred developed a temporary affection for beautiful young Lady Constance, whom Tancred regarded as his spiritual guide. One evening Lady Constance spoke to him with effusive praise about a book titled, presciently, The Revelations of Chaos (Disraeli 1927, pp. 112–113).
“‘To judge from the title, the subject is rather obscure,’ said Tancred. “‘No longer so,’ said Lady Constance. ‘It is treated scientifically; everything is explained by geology and astronomy, and in that way. It shows you exactly how a star is formed; nothing can be so pretty! A cluster of vapour, the cream of the milky way, a sort of celestial cheese, churned
into light, you must read it, ’tis charming.’
“‘Nobody ever saw a star formed,’ said Tancred.
“‘Perhaps not. You must read the Revelations; it is all explained. But what is most interesting, is the way in which man has been developed. You know, all is development. The principle is perpetually going on. First, there was nothing, then there was something; then, I forget the next, I think there were shells, then fishes; then we came, let me see, did we come next? Never mind that; we came at last. And the next change there will be something very superior to us, something with wings. Ah! that’s it; we were fishes, and I believe we shall be crows. But you must read it.’
“‘I do not believe I ever was a fish,’ said Tancred.
“‘Oh, but it is all proved; you must not argue on my rapid sketch; read the book. It is impossible to contradict anything in it. You understand, it is all science; it is not like those books in which one says one thing and another the contrary, and both may be wrong. Everything is proved: by geology, you know. You see exactly how everything is made; how many worlds there have been; how long they lasted; what went before, what comes next. We are a link in the chain, as inferior animals were that preceded us: we in turn shall be inferior; all that will remain of us will be some relics in a new red sandstone. This is development. We had fins; we may have wings. . . .’
“‘I was a fish, and I shall be a crow,’ said Tancred to himself, when the hall door closed on him. ‘What a spiritual mistress! And yesterday, for a moment, I almost dreamed of kneeling with her at the Holy Sepulchre! I must get out of this city as quickly as possible.’”
Lady Constance presents the perfect picture of someone barely hanging on to “the faint-hearted faith of Europe, which is but the shadow of a shade” (Disraeli 1927, p. 441), all too ready to be swept aside by the new prophets of evolution. The unfriendly reception Disraeli got from the dons at Sheldon Theater in Oxford is proof of that. A world in which God, angels, and miracles have retreated beyond the most distant borders of material reality was ripe for rapid conquest by Huxley and Darwin.
But while in Syria, Tancred encountered a lady whose faith was anything but insipid; indeed, she manifested a faith in things too intensely mystical for even himself. The lady was Astarte, Queen of the Ansareys. Astarte took Tancred into a secret sanctuary cut out of solid rock in an isolated ravine. There he saw an “elegant hierarchy” composed of “goddess and god, genius, and nymph, and faun” (Disraeli 1927, p. 437). Tancred thought them to be the gods of the Greeks, but Astarte called them the gods of her own people, who once ruled from ancient Antioch. The chief goddess was Astarte, her own namesake.
“‘When all was over,’” said the Queen; “‘when the people refused to sacrifice, and the gods, indignant quitted earth, I hope not for ever, the faithful few fled to these mountains with the sacred images, and we have cherished them’” (Disraeli 1927, pp. 437–438). She expressed a lofty hope that “‘mankind will return again to those gods who made the earth beautiful and happy; and that they, in their celestial mercy, may revisit that world which, without them, has become a howling wilderness’” (Disraeli
1927, p. 438). If Disraeli’s vision of an active God and angels, voiced directly by himself and indirectly through characters like Tancred, is hostile to Darwinian evolution, how much more so the vision of Astarte?
Yet Astarte’s vision of a cosmos permeated with gods and goddesses once ruled Europe. These gods and goddesses were intimately involved in a temporal process of bringing into being other creatures within the universe. The universe was like a living mystical factory filled with subtle machinery, operated by subtle beings, who cooperated in the production of plants, humans, and animals. Then came Christianity. At first, Christianity simply replaced the pagan gods and goddesses with angels. But by gradually deemphasizing the role of angels, Christianity depopulated the cosmos. The visible universe became a lifeless clocklike machine that a distant creator God mysteriously built and set in motion. As far as living things were concerned, they were also machines. Mechanistic science took the final step of removing the mystery of their manufacture. They were not the instantaneous ex nihilo creations of the distant clockmaker, but part of a temporal material process running within the machine of the universe itself. That temporal process was evolution, guided by natural selection. In the universal scheme of life, the great clockmaker became a barely tolerated supernumerary, useful only for maintaining social order and public morality.