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Alfred Russel Wallace: Philosophy of Nature and Man

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Roger Smith
Roger Smith
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Lancaster, Bailrigg, Lancaster.
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Extract

Historians of the Victorian period have begun to re-evaluate the general background and impact of Darwin's theory of the origin of species by means of natural selection. An emerging picture suggests that the Darwinian theory of evolution was only one aspect (albeit, a major aspect) of a more general change in intellectual positions. It is possible to summarize two correlated developments in the second half of the nineteenth century: the seculariszation of majors areas of thought, and the increasing breakdown of a common intellectual milieu. Studies in linguistics, historical criticism, socio-political theory, theologys, and anthropology, besides evolutionary theory, contributed to these developments. It has also been argued that the background of evolutionary thought lay within a relatively unified early Victorian intellectual context with shared religious, moral, and scientific concepts. Evolutionary theory contributed to the disintegration of this shared context, but it did not intrinsically assume a clear demarcation between value-laden (ethical or religious) ideas and scientific ideas. On the one hand, in the later Victorian period, religious and scientific intellectuals found it increasingly hard to share common ground. On the other hand, they did sometimes share an enthusiasm for applying biological models to social and ethical theory. It is necessary to look closely before ascribing any increased differentiation of positions to the impact of evolutionary biology.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , December 1972 , pp. 177 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1972

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References

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