Charles Francis Richardson

“ Fiske discusses the theistic problem, and declares that the mind of man, as developed, becomes an illuminating indication of the mind of God, which as a great immanent cause includes and controls both physical and moral forces. More original, perhaps, is the argument in the immediately preceding work, The Destiny of Man, viewed in the Light of his Origin (1884) , which is, in substance, that physical evolution is a demonstrated fact; that intellectual force is a later, higher and more potent thing than bodily strength ”

“ Nearly all of his books were first given to the public in the form of lectures or magazine articles, revised and collected under a general title, such as Myths and Myth-Makers (1872) , Darwinism and Other Essays (1879) , Excursions of an Evolutionist (1883) , and A Century of Science (1899) . He did much, by the thoroughness of his learning and the lucidity of his style, to spread a knowledge of Darwin and Spencer in America. ”

“ His name was originally Edmund Fiske Green, but in 1855 he took the name of a great-grandfather, John Fiske. His boyhood was spent with a grandmother in Middletown, Connecticut; and prior to his entering college he had read widely in English literature and history, had surpassed most boys in the extent of his Greek and Latin work, and had studied several modern languages. He graduated at Harvard in 1863, continuing to study languages and philosophy with zeal; spent two years in the Harvard law school, and opened an office in Boston ”