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Encyclopedia of Ideas 4/11/2020 Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism - Encyclopedia of Ideas Encyclopedia of Search this site Ideas HOME Science and Nature > HUMAN NATURE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS BEHAVIORISM Uniformitarianism and EMPATHY Catastrophism IMPRINTING AND LEARNING EARLY IN LIFE INDIVIDUALISM, TYPES OF Uniformitarianism assumes the principle that the past LOVE history of the earth is uniform with the present in terms MAN-MACHINE FROM THE GREEKS TO of the physical laws governing the natural order, the THE COMPUTER physical processes occurring both within the earth and PRE-PLATONIC CONCEPTIONS OF HUMAN NATURE on its surface, and the general scale and intensity of PRIMITIVISM these processes. It asserts further that our only means of interpreting the history of the earth is to do so by PRIMITIVISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY analogy with events and processes in the present. PSYCHOLOGICAL IDEAS IN ANTIQUITY Catastrophism assumes the principle that conditions PSYCHOLOGICAL SCHOOLS IN EUROPEAN THOUGHT on the earth during the past were so different from those existing in the present that no comparison is PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES IN AMERICAN THOUGHT possible, that earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the RENAISSANCE IDEA OF THE DIGNITY OF elevation of mountains and floods occurred during the MAN past on a scale many times greater than that of any THERIOPHILY similar events observable in the modern world, and that UNIVERSAL MAN geological events in the past were often so violent and VIRTUOSO catastrophic, that they sometimes destroyed all the VIRTÙ IN AND SINCE THE RENAISSANCE species living in particular districts. WISDOM OF THE FOOL The questions raised by the conflicting assumptions WITCHCRAFT of uniformitarianism and catastrophism apply most LITERATURE AND THE ARTS directly to the interpretation of geological history, but ALLEGORY IN LITERARY HISTORY are not restricted to it. These questions arise in science AMBIGUITY AS AESTHETIC PRINCIPLE whenever there is need to interpret natural events occurring at a distance in space or time. In these ANCIENTS AND MODERNS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY circumstances the separation of the events or processes ART AND PLAY from the observing scientist requires him either to ART FOR ART’S SAKE interpret them by analogy with events and processes closer at hand and more directly observable, or, to BAROQUE IN LITERATURE assume that the distant events are the result of proces- BEAUTY (THEORIES OF BEAUTY SINCE THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY) ses unknown to him and are, therefore, impossible to https://sites.google.com/site/encyclopediaofideas/science-and-nature/uniformitarianism-and-catastrophism 1/16 4/11/2020 Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism - Encyclopedia of Ideas BEAUTY (THEORIES OF BEAUTY TO THE interpret. If a scientist attempts to interpret distant MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY) events by analogy, he is assuming the uniformity of CATHARSIS the natural order through space and time. CHANCE IMAGES CLASSICISM IN LITERATURE 418 CLASSIFICATION OF THE ARTS COMIC (SENSE OF THE COMIC) The terms “catastrophism” and “uniformitarianism” CREATIVITY IN ART were introduced in 1837 by William Whewell in his CRITICISM (LITERARY CRITICISM) History of the Inductive Sciences to describe the two DEMONOLOGY leading schools of theoretical geology at that time. EVOLUTION OF LITERATURE Catastrophism, which was the older theoretical view- point, was in England widely accepted and defended EXPRESSIONISM IN LITERATURE by the older generation of geologists, but its leading FORM IN THE HISTORY OF AESTHETICS exponents were then on the Continent. Leopold von GENIUS (MUSICAL GENIUS) Buch, the German geologist, had presented a theory GENIUS FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO of craters of elevation to account for the form of 1770 volcanic mountains. He supposed that such volcanoes GENIUS: INDIVIDUALISM IN ART AND ARTISTS as Teneriffe in the Canary Islands had not been built GOTHIC (CONCEPT OF GOTHIC) up gradually by many repeated volcanic eruptions carried on over an immense period of time, but by HARMONY OR RAPTURE IN MUSIC an upheaval of the surrounding rock strata, and that ICONOGRAPHY this upheaval had been essentially a single event, cat- IMPRESSIONISM IN ART astrophic in nature, and without parallel in the mod- IRONY ern world. Von Buch presented this theory in 1824 after LITERARY PARADOX a visit to the Canary Islands, and in 1829 Léonce Élie LITERATURE AND ITS COGNATES de Beaumont published his theory of the sudden and MILLENARIANISM simultaneous elevation of mountain chains. He had MIMESIS been struck by the fact that a number of ranges of mountains tended to be composed of rocks of similar MOTIF IN LITERATURE: THE FAUST THEME geological age and showed similarities of structure. For MOUNTAINS (LITERARY ATTITUDES instance, de Beaumont suggested that the Pyrenees had TOWARD MOUNTAINS) been uplifted in a single sudden upthrow (en un seul MUSIC AS A DEMONIC ART jet) and that this elevation had occurred at the same MUSIC AS A DIVINE ART time as that of the Alps. Von Buch and de Beaumont MYTH IN ANTIQUITY suggested that in the geological past there had occurred MYTH IN BIBLICAL TIMES events on such an enormous scale as to be catastrophic in nature and without counterpart in the modern expe- MYTH IN ENGLISH LITERATURE: SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH rience of man. Their view of the history of the world CENTURIES was that while conditions on the earth's surface in MYTH IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY modern times, that is, since the appearance of man NINETEENTH CENTURIES on earth, had been relatively orderly and calm, undis- MYTH IN THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE turbed by any great changes which might destroy a MYTH IN THE NINETEENTH AND significant portion of life on earth, this stable and TWENTIETH CENTURIES reliable condition of the earth's surface was of rela- NATURALISM IN ART tively recent appearance. During the geological past, NEO-CLASSICISM IN ART they assumed that, while there may have been long https://sites.google.com/site/encyclopediaofideas/science-and-nature/uniformitarianism-and-catastrophism 2/16 4/11/2020 Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism - Encyclopedia of Ideas NEWTON'S OPTICKS AND EIGHTEENTH- periods of calm conditions, the earth had also been CENTURY IMAGINATION subjected repeatedly to enormous changes, great shak- SCIENCE AND NATURE ings of the surface of the whole earth, which had ALCHEMY resulted in the throwing up of mountain ranges, vast ASTROLOGY floods, subsidences, and other catastrophes. ATOMISM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY In assuming the extraordinary and catastrophic na- ATOMISM: ANTIQUITY TO THE ture of the earth's history, von Buch and de Beaumont SEVENTEENTH CENTURY were part of a tradition of geological thinking which BIOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS IN extended back to the seventeenth century and was ANTIQUITY deeply influenced by the account of the Creation in BIOLOGICAL HOMOLOGIES AND Genesis. Genesis takes for granted that the condition ANALOGIES of the world at the time of its creation was different BIOLOGICAL MODELS from its present state, and this assumption was CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES accepted unquestioningly by late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century writers on the origin of the COSMIC IMAGES world. Even if one leaves aside extravagant and uncrit- COSMIC VOYAGES ical writers like Thomas Burnet whose Sacred Theory COSMOLOGY FROM ANTIQUITY TO 1850 of the Earth (1681-89) was an imaginative but com- pletely uncritical account of the origin and history of COSMOLOGY SINCE 1850 the earth, the ideas of a cautious and disciplined scien- ENTROPY tist like John Ray nonetheless take for granted that the ENVIRONMENT account in Genesis did reflect the actual events which ENVIRONMENT AND CULTURE occurred at the origin of the world and, furthermore, EVOLUTIONISM that the present world was temporary and would dis- EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE AND appear in a great conflagration at the day of judgment. MECHANICS IN THE MIDDLE AGES In the early eighteenth century, it became generally GENETIC CONTINUITY recognized that the fossils found in rocks were the HEALTH AND DISEASE actual remains of once living animals. For geologists INDETERMINACY IN PHYSICS in Italy fossils demonstrated that the Italian rock strata INHERITANCE OF ACQUIRED had been laid down beneath the sea, because the well CHARACTERISTICS (LAMARCKIAN) preserved fossil shells in the Italian strata were recog- INHERITANCE THROUGH PANGENESIS nizably similar to the shells species living in the LONGEVITY Mediterranean. For geologists in England and in MATTER (CHANGING CONCEPTS OF northern Europe, however, the recognition of fossils MATTER FROM ANTIQUITY TO as the remains of once living animals posed the NEWTON) difficulty that they belonged to species without NATURE counterparts in the north Atlantic, or in other parts NEWTON AND THE METHOD OF ANALYSIS of the world, for that matter. Thus the fossils of the English strata suggested the existence of multitudes of OPTICS AND VISION species in the past which had since died out. The ORGANICISM disappearance of such multitudes of species also RECAPITULATION suggested that they must have been destroyed by some RELATIVITY great catastrophic event on the earth's surface. SPACE Of the geological theories put forward during the SPONTANEOUS GENERATION eighteenth century, perhaps the most influential was TECHNOLOGY https://sites.google.com/site/encyclopediaofideas/science-and-nature/uniformitarianism-and-catastrophism 3/16 4/11/2020 Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism - Encyclopedia of Ideas TIME AND MEASUREMENT that of Abraham Gottlob Werner. As a professor at UNIFORMITARIANISM AND the School of Mines at Frêyburg, Werner became CATASTROPHISM expert in the recognition of rocks and minerals. SITEMAP In 1793 Peter Simon Pallas, as a result of his study of the two principal mountain ranges of Siberia, decided that the characteristic structure of mountain ranges was a central core of granite with schistose rocks containing no fossils along the flanks of the granite, and with fossil-bearing limestone rocks lying outside and above the schistose. Pallas' observations on the structure of mountain ranges, and those of Horace Bénédict de Saussure on the Alps, appear to have been used by Werner in the development of his theory of the earth.
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