John Robert Seeley, Natural Religion, and the Victorian Conflict between Science and Religion

This essay examines the publishing and reception of J. R. Seeley’s Natural Religion (1882), a book that sought to bring about a reconciliation between science and religion. While Natural Religion has long been overlooked, it is argued that its reception gives us insight into changing views about the relationship between science and religion in the late Victorian period. The essay also explores how the reception of the book was conditioned by its bibliographic lineage as it was signed not by Seeley, but “by the Author of Ecce Homo.”