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Tennyson's Princess and Vestiges
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
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- Notes, Documents, and Critical Comment
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1954
References
1 Rutland, “Tennyson and the Theory of Evolution,” Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, xxvi (1940), 22-23; Mattes, In Memoriam, the Way of a Soul (New York, 1951), Chap. viii and esp. pp. 83-86.
2 Charles Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson (New York, 1949), p. 221; see also Memoir, I, 203, 248. Tennyson asked Moxon for a copy of Vestiges in Nov. 1844; its influence can hardly have appeared in anything written before 1845.
3 George R. Potter, “Tennyson and the Biological Theory of Mutability in Species,” PQ, xvi (1937), 332, points out geological references in “The Epic,” “Audley Court,” and “Edwin Morris,” but associates them with no particular geological theory. In the same way, there are references to the nebular hypothesis and foetal development (a cardinal point for Chambers) in the discarded verses of “The Palace of Art,” but they are not associated with one another or with any general intellectual system. There is a real approach to the evolutionary idea in “The Two Voices,” ll. 364-366 (“Or if thro' lower lives I came,” etc.); this turns out, however, to be a development of the idea of cyclical reincarnation, broached in ll. 340-351. Lines 16-18 of the same poem mention Nature's 6 “cycles”; these seem to me indisputably the “creative eras” which Buffon and his English followers equated with the 6 creative days of Genesis. (This was the sort of thing that disturbed the parson, “hawking at geology and schism,” in “The Epic.”)
4 Memoir, i, 203.
5 Most of these are uttered by the Princess Ida, or refer to her opinions. However, Conclusion 77-78 and 109, referring to the general idea of progress, are spoken by the narrator; vn.245-246, alluding in rather general terms to the progress of species, is spoken by the Prince. He also utters vii.259 (“For woman is not undevelopt man”), which may reflect Chambers' argument in his 14th chapter that sex is “a matter of development.”
6 Sir J. F. W. Herschel, “Presidential Address,” British Assn. for the Advancement of Science, Report of Meetings, xv, 1845 (1846). Florence Nightingale refers to a discussion of Vestiges at the Ashburtons'; Hugh Miller to mechanics talking of it in a railway carriage. See Sir Edward Cook, Life of Florence Nightingale (1942), i, 37; Hugh Miller, Footprints of the Creator, p. 18 of the Edinburgh, 1871 ed. References in Tancred and The Way of All Flesh equally attest to the social range through which interest in the slightly scandalous volume persisted. But evidences need not be multiplied; its popularity was legendary.
7 E. A. Mooney, “A Note on Astronomy in Tennyson's The Princess,” MLN, lxiv (1949), 99 ff., points out that “nebulous star” refers to the recently suggested gaseous nature of the sun rather than to the nebular hypothesis. Chambers, however, uses the same term in his first chapter, adducing it as indirect confirmation of the nebular hypothesis; in 1845 one could hardly put the words “nebulous” and “hypothesis” in succeeding lines without at least risking some careless association of ideas on the reader's part. In any case, I think Mooney may be inclined to rely too much on statements made in Tennyson's old age, when his memory for details would not be good. And we must bear in mind, concerning any denial of the influence of Vestiges, that its reputation had not worn well, its incidental errors and extreme inferences having exposed it to damaging technical attack. Darwin and Huxley were both severe with it: Darwin in the first printing of Origin of Species (before a protest in the 11th edition of Vestiges induced him to retract), Huxley in a review of the 1853 edition in the Medico-Chirurgical Jour., xiii (April 1854). Thus even its credit as pioneer work was in doubt. However, the point here is of only minor importance; the nebular hypothesis acquired special associations from Vestiges, which might have colored the poet's thought as he wrote, but, as Mooney points out, Tennyson knew it from Laplace more than ten years before Vestiges appeared.
8 Most competent astronomers still supported it (Mooney, p. 102); but the recent resolution of numerous nebulae into star-clusters by Lord Rosse's telescope had inclined a conservative-minded party to challenge it, and their views were urged repeatedly in the popular articles and pamphlets dealing with Vestiges. See Sedgwick's review (Edinburgh Rev., July 1845, pp. 17 ff.); or, as a typical minor voice, John Wallis, A Brief Examination of the Nebulous Hypothesis (1845). Wallis' title page describes him as a “lecturer on astronomy.”
9 ii. 357 ff. shows the Prince and his party as impressed by the learning of the Academy. And we must remember that the phrase “sport half-science” of Conclusion 76 refers to the Institute of the Prologue, not to the Academy of the poem. The context makes this clear.
10 References to Vestiges are given in this unsatisfactory way because of the great number and variation of early editions, and the comparative difficulty of access of the first. I am working from the pirated edition of Collyer (New York, 1846), in which this passage occurs on pp. 54-55.
11 Several systems for the “reconciliation” of modern science with Scripture were current during the century. See C. C. Gillispie, Genesis and Geology (1951), Chs. iii-viii passim, and my own article, “The Scriptural Geologists,” Osiris, xi.
12 Vestiges (New York: Collyer, 1846), pp. 80, 85. The Princess' speech is further linked to the general idea of “development” by a passage a few lines earlier in which she says that the future man will compare to the present as the present does to the extinct saurians (iii.277 ff.).
13 Potter (see n. 4), xvi, 322 ff.
14 Humboldt's Kosmos was available in English translation in 1845, but it did not excite anything like the controversy Vestiges did, and its tone is descriptive rather than boldly speculative. It might have encouraged lines of thought excited by Vestiges, or corrected some of its extravagances, but its impact upon a mind already familiar with science would have been far less dramatic.
15 Mattes (see n. 1), p. 124.
16 Vestiges, 13th chap. (“Particular Considerations”), pp. 86 ff. of the Crowell 1845 ed. On p. 281 of the same ed. is a reference to the same idea in the sequel, Explanations. Tennyson had already used “lime” in something like this connection in “The Two Voices,” 1. 327, but without the present materialistic overtones.
17 Ibid., 13th chap., pp. 87, 96 ff.; 17th chap. (“Mental Constitution of Animals”), pp. 171-172; Explanations, pp. 262, 289-290, 298-303; also 253 n. Many of these passages refer to the famous artificially “created” arachnid, “Acarus electricus.” On p. 172, the identity of magnetism with electricity is assumed.
18 Ibid., 18th chap. (“Purpose and General Condition of the Animated Creation”), throughout.
19 Ibid., 18th chap., p. 194.
20 Ibid., 15th chap., p. 142.
21 Miss Mattes, p. 84, points out the parallel between this phrase and Tennyson's “crowning race.” In this connection it might be noted that the suggestion that “throned races may degrade” (in Sec. cxxviii) apparently refers not to evolution but to human history. It is indirectly related to Vestiges, however. Chambers, arguing for progress, had to contend with the conservative opinion that human history presents a steady course of degradation since Eden. He adverts to it in his 16th chap. (“Early History of Mankind”), pp. 153 ff.; it was also much debated by his critics. Tennyson's position—over-all progress despite occasional regression—agrees with that of Chambers.