During his lifetime and well into the twentieth century John Fiske was regarded as an eminent scholar. He had numerous connections in the academic world--particularly at Harvard University where he was assistant librarian and occasional faculty member. Among his friends and associates were such notables as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Dean Howells, Francis Parkman, Henry Adams, Charles Eliot, T. H. Huxley, Charles Darwin, and George Eliot. There were some who found Fiske's scholarship superficial; most negative criticism focused, however, on his handling of controversial themes, especially the importance of evolutionary theory and its relationship to religion.

Fiske's major achievement was to reconcile evolutionary science and religion in such a way as to appeal to a large audience. Whatever his subject, the underlying pattern which Fiske consistently evoked was evolution, both as the most rational explanation of human knowledge and the best perspective for guiding human inquiry. This view...