3TJ123-8-2009 LK VWD0011 Tradition Humanistic 6th Edition W:220mm x H:292mm 175L 115 Stora Enso M/A Magenta (V)Science and Technology
CHAPTER 27 The Romantic View of Nature 33Protestant theologian and preacher, Friedrich E. D.
Schleiermacher (1768–1834), the object of religion is “to
love the spirit of the world” and “to become one with the
infinite.”
Hegel and the Hegelian Dialectic
The most influential philosopher of the nineteenth century
was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831). A pro-
fessor of philosophy at the university of Berlin, Hegel
taught that the world consists of a single divine nature,
which he termed “absolute mind” or “spirit.” Spirit and
matter obey an evolutionary process impelled by spirit seek-
ing to know its own nature. He explained the operation of
that process, ordialectic, as follows: every condition (or
“thesis”) confronts its opposite condition (or “antithesis”),
which then generates a synthesis. Thesynthesis in turn pro-
duces its opposite, and so on, in a continuing evolution that
moves toward the ultimate goalof spiritual freedom. For
Hegel, all reality is a processthat operateson the principle
of the dialectic—thesis, antithesis,and synthesis—a princi-
ple that governs the realm of ideas, artistic creation, philo-
sophic understanding... indeed, history itself. “Change in
nature, no matter how infinitely varied it is,” wrote Hegel,
“shows only a cycle of constant repetition. In nature, noth-
ing new happens under the sun.”
Hegel’s dense prose work The Philosophy of History
(1807), a compilation of his own and his students’ lecture
notes, advances the idea that the essence of spirit is free-
dom, which finds its ultimate expression in the nation-
state. According to Hegel, human beings possess free will
(thesis), which, though freely exercised over property, is
limited by duty to the universal will (antithesis). The ulti-
mate synthesis is a stage that is reached as individual will
comes into harmony with universal duty. This last stage,
which represents real freedom, manifests itself in the con-
crete institutions of the state and its laws. Hegel’s view of
the state (and the European nation-state in particular) as
the last stage in the development of spirit and the Hegelian
dialectic in general had considerable influence on late
nineteenth-century nationalism, as well as on the econom-
ic theories of Karl Marx (see chapter 30).
Gros and the Glorification of the Hero
Like Hegel, the British scientist Charles Darwin (1809–
1882) perceived nature as constantly changing. A natural-
ist in the tradition of Aristotle, Darwin spent his early
career amassing enormous amounts of biological and geo-
logical data, partly as the result of a five-year voyage to
South America aboard the research vessel HMS Beagle.
Darwin’s study of fossils on the Galápagos Islands of the
Pacific Ocean confirmed the view of his predecessors that
complex forms of life evolved from a few extremely simple
organic forms. The theory of evolution did not originate
with Darwin—Goethe, for example, had already suggested
that all forms of plant life had evolved from a single
primeval plant, and the French biologist Jean-Baptiste de
Lamarck (1744–1829) had shown that fossils give evidence
of perpetual change in all species. Darwin, however, sub-
stantiated the theory of evolution by explaining the process
by which evolution occurs. Observing the tendency of cer-
tain organisms to increase rapidly over time while retain-
ing traits favorable to their survival, he concluded that
evolution operates by means of natural selection.
By natural selection, Darwin meant a process whereby
nature “prunes away” unfavorable traits in a given species,
permitting the survival of those creatures most suited to the
struggle for life and to reproduction of that species. The
elephant’s trunk, the giraffe’s neck, and the human brain
were evidence, he argued, of adaptations made by each of
these species to its environment and proof that any trait
that remained advantageous to continuity would prevail.
Failure to develop such traits meant the ultimate extinc-
tion of less developed species; only the “fittest” survived.
In 1859 Darwin published his classic work,The Origin of
Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of the
Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Less than a year later, a
commentator observed, “No scientific work that has been
published within this century has excited so much general
curiosity.” But curiosity was among the milder responses
to this publication, for Darwin’s theory of evolution, like
Newton’s law of gravity, challenged traditional ideas about
nature and the world order. For centuries, most Westerners
had held to the account of the Creation described in
Scripture. Some, in fact, accepted the chronology advanced
by the Irish Catholic Bishop James Ussher (1581–1656),
which placed earthly creation at 4004B.C.E. Most scholars,
however, perceived the likelihood of a far greater age for
the earth and its species.
Darwin’s thesis did not deny the idea of a divine cre-
ator—indeed, Darwin initially speculated “it is just as noble
a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few
original forms capable of self-development into other and
needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of
creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His
laws.” But Darwin’s theory implied that natural selection,
not divine will, governed the evolutionary process. By sug-
gesting that nature and its operations were impersonal,
continuous, and self-governing, the theory of natural selec-
tion challenged the creationist view (supported by the
Bible) that God had brought into being a fixed and
unchanging number of species. Equally troubling was
Darwin’s argument (clarified in his later publication,The
Descent of Man, 1871) that the differences between humans
and less complex orders of life were differences of degree, not1799 paleontologist William Smith (British) theorizes
that rock strata may be identified by fossils
characteristic to each
1830 Charles Lyell (British) provides foundations for
the modern study of geology in hisPrinciples of
Geology
1859 Darwin publishes The Origin of Species