Science, Religion, and Morality : Debates among Cobbe, Wedgwood, Lee, and Besant

The relations among science, morality, and religion were intensely debated by Victorian intellectuals, but generally, women’s contributions to these debates have been ignored. This chapter restores them to the record. It looks, first, at Frances Power Cobbe (1822–1904) and her account of how morality necessarily depends on religion, specifically Christianity. Second, the chapter considers the different engagements with Darwinism of Cobbe and Frances Julia Wedgwood (1833–1913). Third, the chapter introduces a pair of debates, one between Cobbe and Vernon Lee (1856–1935), the other between Cobbe and Annie Besant (1847–1933). Both Lee and Besant defended versions of secularism while Cobbe counterargued that no secularist morality was possible