Drummond, HENRY

Drummond, HENRY, biologist and theologian, was born at Stirling in 1851, and studied at the University of Edinburgh and the Theological College of the Free Church; and in 1877 was appointed lecturer on Natural Science, and in 1884, professor of Natural Science at the Free Church College in Glasgow. He has travelled in the Rocky Mountains, in Central Africa, Japan, the New Hebrides, and Australia. In his book on Natural Law in the Spiritual World he sought by analogical arguments to reconcile evangelical Christianity with the doctrine of evolution. The book, published in 1883, reached in ten years a 29th edition; and was followed in 1894 by The Ascent of Man, an attempt to christianise evolution by laying stress on altruistic elements in natural selection, which he called 'the struggle for the life of others.' Other publications were a charming work on Tropical Africa (1888; 20th thousand 1890), followed by a series of small books, Travel Sketches in Our New Protectorate (1890), The Greatest Thing in the World, Pax Vobiscum, &c.; and he wrote CREATION for this Encyclopædia. He died 11th March 1897. See Life by G. A. Smith (1899).