<P> This references the recent discovery by geologists of Earth's great age and mutability, a scientific wonder that underlay emerging ideas of nature and evolution . </P> <P> This poem was published before Charles Darwin made his theory public in 1859 . However, the phrase "Nature, red in tooth and claw" in canto 56 quickly was adopted by others as a phrase that evokes the process of natural selection . It was and is used by both those opposed to and in favour of the theory of evolution . </P> <P> Although this phrase "tooth and claw" is commonly ascribed to Tennyson, it already was in use . For example, The Hagerstown Mail in March 1837: "Hereupon, the beasts, enraged at the humbug, fell upon him tooth and claw ." </P> <P> In writing the poem, Tennyson was influenced by the evolutionary ideas of transmutation of species presented in Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation which had been published in 1844, and had caused a storm of controversy about the theological implications of impersonal nature functioning without direct divine intervention . An Evangelical focus on unquestioning belief in revealed truth taken from a literal interpretation of the Bible was already coming into conflict with emerging findings of science . Tennyson expressed the difficulties evolutionary ideas raised for faith in "the truths that never can be proved", while still believing the older idea that reason would eventually harmonise science and religion, as there could be no real contradiction . Canto 55 asks: </P>

Who said nature is red in tooth and claw