darwin, design, and the unification of nature 167Historical Perspectives on the Unification of Nature
The subject of nature’s unity is absorbing because it gives another twist to an
ironic thread running through the literature on science and religion—that
forms of scientific inquiry once legitimated by theological discourse have sub-
sequently bitten the hand that fed them.^7 Concepts of the unity of nature, once
derived from theological considerations, have been appropriated by popular
science writers who wish to laud the sciences at the expense of religion.^8
A first question might be whether ideas about the unity of nature might
not have had several originsincludingthe theological. It is of course necessary
to distinguish between the unity of nature and the unity of science, though
arguments for the former have often drawn on arguments for the latter. The
very intelligibility of nature has been seen as a mark of its unity. To admit the
relevance of theological categories was no embarrassment to Whitehead, who
inScience and the Modern World(1925) spoke of an intelligible order antece-
dently guaranteed:
I am not arguing that the European trust in the scrutability of na-
ture was logically justified even by its own theology. My only point is
to understand how it arose. My explanation is that the faith in the
possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of
modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medie-
val theology.^9To focus on the unity of nature can be instructive here, because it was one
of the metaphysical underpinnings of much of seventeenth-century natural
philosophy. When Descartes likened his activity as a natural philosopher to an
architect or lawmaker, he insisted there was not as much perfection in works
made by many masters “as in those on which one man alone has worked”.^10
Buildings designed by a single architect, he added, usually have more beauty
and are better planned than those that many have tried to design. From Des-
cartes, we can see some of the many different levels on which unity might be
affirmed. In his cosmology, the concept of vortices of subtle matter, driving
and constraining planetary motion, constituted a unifying concept, embracing
all solar systems. At a deeper level he insisted on a unique set of laws of impact
pertaining to this world. And despite his dislocation of the human soul from
the world machine, he did envisage a reunification of the human with the
physical world: “If we love God and for his sake unite ourselves in will to all
that he has created, then the more grandeur, nobility and perfection we con-
ceive things to have, the more highly we esteem ourselves, as parts of a whole
that is a greater work.”^11
We should note the confluence of the philosophical with the theological