For disillusioned non-believers – who, of course, pre-dated Darwin and created the conditions for his work and its reception – belief in God (and providential design) was replaced by belief in the infinite untapped talents and ambitions of human beings (and in the limitless resources of the earth). It became the enduring project of our modern cultures of redemption – cultures committed above all to science and progress – to create societies in which people can realize their potential, in which ‘growth’ and ‘productivity’ and ‘opportunity’ are the watchwords (it is essential to the myth of
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Non-believers before Darwin needed untapped potential.
