Story: Ideas in New Zealand

Robert Stout and John Macmillan Brown (3rd of 3)

Robert Stout and John Macmillan Brown

Robert Stout (left), Dunedin lawyer and politician, and John Macmillan Brown (right), professor of classics and English at Canterbury College, were both brought up as Scottish Presbyterians. Both lost their faith under the influence of Darwinism. Brown described Darwin's ideas as 'spiritual dynamite' and condemned religion to the faculty of the imagination as opposed to secular religion. Stout became even more vehemently secular and saw Darwinism as implying that progress was the major law of evolution.

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Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury, University of Canterbury research photograph collection
Reference: MB 1448

Permission of the Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page:

Jock Phillips, 'Ideas in New Zealand - Darwinism and anthropology', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/45470/robert-stout-and-john-macmillan-brown (accessed 11 May 2024)

Story by Jock Phillips, published 22 Oct 2014