The 19th century was one of rapid development and change, far swifter than in previous

centuries. During this period England changed from a rural, agricultural country to an urban,
industrialised one. This involved massive dislocation and radically altered the nature of
society. It took many years for both government and people to adjust to the new conditions.
The Victorian era began in 1837 and ended with Queen Victoria's death in 1901

In the beginning of 19th century, science and faith were in accordance to each other but as
soon as the end of 19th century appears, history takes a turn and the intense conflict
between science and religion got developed. Many writers presented their point of views in
the late nineteenth century which led to influence the change in the thinking pattern of
middle class society of that time. The crisis of faith happened and nobody could do anything
to prevent it from making it happen. The main agenda around which the people were set to
argue was how this universe was created. In this case, William Palley in 1802 wrote Natural
theology that suggests that God is the sole creator of everything as everything that exists in
the real world reflects the existence of God that created all the things in the universe. On
the contrary, Charles Darwin denies the bible, the history of creation as told in genesis that
humans are born naturally and unforcefully. He challenges William palley’s natural theology
and Charles Darwin introduces the theory “Origin of Species” which states that human
beings are created through the process of evolution. Man went through evolution from
being an animal first to being a human later and then this theory believed on ‘striving for
the fittest’. He also published Descent of a man. This led to major change in the lives of
young people who started contradicting religious beliefs, asking questions from the Church,
and fanaticizing and realizing modernizing scientific study and implementation.

The application of science to life could be seen and observed in the Victorian Age in the
work and writings of every other writer particularly geologists. Charles Nyll cGeologists
compared the existence of bible to the existence of Earth and states that earth existed way
before than bible that supports rationalists point of view of Victorian age. People were
moving their minds to enlightenment and the growth of human minds made to happen
differently. One of the major happenings that influenced the modernization and questioned the
existence of church was Industrial Revolution. The new discoveries of steam engines, steam boats,
sewing machines, railways, and many other technological, scientific and industrial innovations, all led
to fiasco created due to the conflict between religion and science in Victorian age.

Richard Helmstadeter, describes the crisis of faith as:

“an intellectual and emotional upheaval, stemming from challenges to the hitoricity of the Bible,
discoveries in geology and biology, and concerns about morality, or rather, the apparent lack of it, in
nature. Science and religion, more precisely science and theology, were deemed to be ‘in conflict’,
the battle lines clearly drawn.”