UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER Charles Darwin’s Debt to the Romantics Charles Morris Lansley ORCID 0000-0003-0433-5548 Doctor of Philosophy January 2016 This Thesis has been completed as a requirement for a postgraduate research degree of the University of Winchester. Access Agreement (This section to be completed, signed and bound with the hard copy and included as a separate document in the e-copy) I agree to supply a copy of my thesis to the University of Winchester Library and an e-copy to the Data Repository. Tick one of the following statements: The thesis is to be made available from the moment of deposit In order to facilitate commercial publication I request an embargo period of 1year In order to facilitate commercial publication I request an embargo period of years ݲ 2 In order to facilitate commercial publication I request an embargo period of 3 years The thesis is in the process of being recasted for publication – it is expected to take between one and a half to two years. 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No profit may be made from selling, copying or licensing my work without further agreement. I agree that my obligation is to notify the University of Winchester of any change of address in order to facilitate any future requests for licensing. Author’s signature ................................................................................. Date 18 May 2016 Metadata to be included with the thesis Title: Charles Darwin’s Debt to the Romantics Author: Charles Morris Lansley Supervisors: Gary Farnell and Neil Messer Funders or Sponsors: Self-Funded Keywords: Darwin, Evolution, Romantic, Victorian, Humboldt, Goethe, Wordsworth, Natural Selection, Mind, Materialism Abstract: with thesis DECLARATION AND COPYRIGHT STATEMENT Declaration: No portion of the work referred to in the Thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. I confirm that this Thesis is entirely my own work. Copyright: Copyright © 2016 Charles Morris Lansley ORCID 0000-0003-0433-5548 This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. Copies (by any process) either in full, or of extracts, may be made only in accordance with instructions given by the author. Details may be obtained from the RKE Centre, University of Winchester. This page must form part of any such copies made. Further copies (by any process) of copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the permission (in writing) of the author. No profit may be made from selling, copying or licensing the author’s work without further agreement. Page | 1 Page | 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly I would like to thank my supervisors Dr. Gary Farnell (Director of Studies) and Professor Neil Messer for all the help, support and encouragement they have given me for the duration of the research. In particular, Gary has helped steer me through the complexities of Romantic and Victorian literature, whilst Neil has helped sharpen my understanding of Creationism and Ethics. Above all, they have inspired me to think creatively without losing my sense of direction. Thanks also to my original supervision team at the University of Gloucestershire, Professor Adam Hart, Professor Shelley Saguaro and Dr. Roy Jackson who helped me start out on this venture. The journey of my thesis goes right back in time just like Darwin’s ‘tree of life’ and his quest for the origins of life. For me the search for the meaning of life was very much part of the philosophical discussions I had with my brother Peter and our friend Terry (now Doctor) Hopton who inspired me to study Philosophy at university. The inspiration for developing an enquiring philosophical mind came through my tutors at Oxford, Guy Bacchus and his wife Irene. This enthusiasm was developed further when studying Linguistics for my MA at the University of Southampton under the late Professor Chris Brumfit and his wife Ros (now Professor) Mitchell – this is where I first seriously came across Charles Darwin within the context of the evolution of language. Once I started reading Darwin I could not stop. So thank you Chris and Ros. As well as seeing Darwin’s ‘tree of life’ in terms of descent, it can also be seen as a ‘tree of enchantment’ like a Christmas tree covered in baubles, a celebration of life itself and all those privileged to be part of it. So in this sense I would like to thank my late parents, Peter and Ruth Lansley, for enabling me to be a bauble on this tree, and my wife Claire for enabling us to attach our children, Charlotte and William, thereby connecting the past and the present to the future. I would also like to express my indebtedness to my wife Claire for keeping me in the manner whilst carrying out my research. I would also like to thank my parents-in-law Martyn and Brenda Iffland for accompanying me and Claire on my first visit to Charles and Emma Darwin’s home at Down House in 1997 enabling me to purchase my first bundle of Darwin books; and for Martyn finding the ‘Darwin Bark’ nearby which our friends Ray and Stella Newton framed as a commemoration of our visit. And thanks to Charles Darwin for inspiring me to research his life. Page | 3 Finally, I would like to dedicate my research to all past, present and future grandparents for making descent possible and for all past, present and future grandchildren for continuing the line of descent from our past progenitors. In particular my maternal grandparents, Rudolf and Ida Kormes, who I never had the privilege of meeting and who died in one of the Nazi concentration camps, and my paternal grandparents, Percy and Ethel Lansley. To conclude, as a temporary pause at this moment in time, the final dedication goes to our grandson Rupert Morris Maybury, and to our daughter Charlotte and her husband George Maybury for continuing the line of descent. And to any further offspring that may be born to our children Charlotte and William. In Darwin’s own words, ‘from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved’ (Darwin, [1859] 1985, p. 460). Page | 4 UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER ABSTRACT Charles Darwin’s Debt to the Romantics Charles Morris Lansley ORCID 0000-0003-0433-5548 Doctor of Philosophy January 2016 The thesis examines the principal works of Charles Darwin to determine whether there is any evidence of Romantic concepts in his writings and whether, therefore, he owes a debt to the Romantics such as Alexander von Humboldt and Goethe. The first two chapters of the thesis trace the influence of Alexander von Humboldt (1769 – 1859) on Charles Darwin (1809-1882). There are frequent references to Humboldt in Darwin’s works. Humboldt’s Romantic concepts of Nature, expressed in his Personal Narrative [1807 – 1834] and in his later Cosmos [1845], are compared to Darwin’s concepts of Nature in his On the Origin of Species [1859, first edition]. An analysis of Humboldt shows him firmly within the German Romantic school of thought with influences from Schelling and Goethe, especially concerning the concept of Mind. Humboldt’s method of analysing Nature aesthetically had a profound effect on Darwin’s own imaginative view of Nature. Further analysis of this method, coupled with Goethe’s ‘Genetic Method’ of moving between the particular and the infinite when seeing the ‘leaf’ and ‘vertebrae’ archetypes, shows strong evidence of the influence of the German Romantics on the development of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. In analysing the Romantic concept of a ‘One Reality Nature’, the thesis shows that Darwin’s evidence of a common progenitor provides a moral imperative for treating all races as equal in terms of their origins and their potential for development. In Chapter Three the origins of morality are seen by Darwin as having been generated by natural instincts rather than having come from a Creator. This is examined with reference to Darwin’s The Descent of Man [1871; 1879, second edition] within the moral and cultural context of the Victorian era in which he lived. The final Chapter Four compares The Voyage of the Beagle [1839, first edition] to Darwin’s later works to see if there are differences between his earlier and later forms of Romanticism and how easily they sit alongside Darwin the Victorian. The thesis concludes that essentially Darwin’s Romantic theme of Page | 5 wonder and enchantment is the same for both his early and later years. However, Darwin’s Romanticism has moved from an anthropocentric view with Man as its centre to an anthropomorphic view in which Man is seen as part of Nature but not at its centre.