SURVIVAL OF THE (FIT)TEST: A NARRATIVE ANALYSIS OF HOW CHARLES
DARWIN’S MORAL CHARACTER FIT WITH HIS AUDIENCE TO WITHSTAND THE
TEST OF TIME
Miles Clinton Coleman
B.S., California State University, Sacramento, 2008
THESIS
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
COMMUNICATION STUDIES
at
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO
SPRING
2011
SURVIVAL OF THE (FIT)TEST: A NARRATIVE ANALYSIS OF HOW CHARLES
DARWIN’S MORAL CHARACTER FIT WITH HIS AUDIENCE TO WITHSTAND THE
TEST OF TIME
A Thesis
by
Miles Clinton Coleman
Approved by:
__________________________________, Committee Chair
Mark A. E. Williams, Ph.D.
__________________________________, Second Reader
Mark Stoner, Ph.D.
__________________________________, Third Reader
Michele Foss-Snowden, Ph.D.
____________________________
Date
ii
Student: Miles Clinton Coleman
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format
manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for
the thesis.
__________________________, Graduate Coordinator
Michele Foss-Snowden, Ph.D.
Department of Communication Studies
iii
___________________
Date
Abstract
of
SURVIVAL OF THE (FIT)TEST: A NARRATIVE ANALYSIS OF HOW CHARLES
DARWIN’S MORAL CHARACTER FIT WITH HIS AUDIENCE TO WITHSTAND
THE TEST OF TIME
by
Miles Clinton Coleman
When Darwin wrote his famous treatise on evolutionary biology, Origin of Species, he
was arguing from a platform built out of different values than those of his living
tradition. Regardless, today in 2011 Darwin’s theory of natural selection has become
scientific fact. To examine how Darwin was able to shape his scientific theory to better
fit with his audience this thesis describes Darwin’s conception of how one is to live a
rich and full life, and how that conception differed from his living tradition. From here,
how Darwin, in his book Origin of Species, was able to use the stories of his living
tradition to blur the lines of difference between his conception of a good-life and those
of his more reluctant audiences. From the analysis, inferences are drawn regarding how
Darwin used the stories of his living tradition to offer his audiences conclusions that
could more comfortably fit within their value systems. These conclusions are discussed.
_______________________, Committee Chair
Mark A. E. Williams, Ph.D.
_______________________
Date
iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Because I could not realistically and sufficiently express my gratitude to those who
deserve it here in this space, I offer a brief but warm and emphatic thank you to: Dr.
Mark Stoner for keepin’ it dialogic; Dr. Mark Williams for expressing the metaphysical;
Dr. Michele Foss-Snowden for making the abstract grounded; my parents for, well,
being my parents and then some; and, my wonderful (soon to be) wife, Ashley, for
putting up with me and making it so easy to love you.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Acknowledgments...................................................................................................................... v
List of Tables .......................................................................................................................... vii
List of Figures ....................................................................................................................... viii
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1
Eudaimonia (the “Good-Life”) and a Living Tradition ............................................... 7
The Rhetoric of Science and Audience ..................................................................... 12
The Rhetoric of Science and Rhetor .......................................................................... 16
The Rhetoric of Science and Darwin ......................................................................... 19
2. METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................... 24
Narrative, the Rhetoric of Science, and Audience ..................................................... 25
3. BACKGROUND .............................................................................................................. 37
Darwin’s Living Tradition ......................................................................................... 37
Popular Thought during Darwin’s Time ............................................................. 37
The Idea of Evolution .......................................................................................... 45
Darwin’s Victorian Era ....................................................................................... 48
Darwin’s Good-Life ................................................................................................... 50
Darwin, a Gentleman of Science ......................................................................... 51
Darwin’s Beliefs and a Good-life ........................................................................ 56
4. ANALYSIS ....................................................................................................................... 63
Darwin’s Good-Life Meets his Living Tradition ....................................................... 63
The Story of the Great Chain of Being, the Hidden Purposes of a Benevolent God
and Evolution ...................................................................................................... 64
The Story of a Brutal Nature, Accidental Life and Evolution ............................. 72
How Origin of Species Shaped Darwin’s Good-Life to Fit with His (Implied) Living
Tradition..................................................................................................................... 78
Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 95
5. DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................... 98
References ............................................................................................................................. 104
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Page
1.
Table 1 Aristotle’s “Means” of Virtue.…………...………....………………… 10
2.
Table 2 A Description of the Differences in Word Choice between Darwin’s
Earlier Essays on Natural Selection and the First Edition of His Book Origin
of Species...………………………….……………………………………....... 59
3.
Table 3 The Narrative of Darwin’s Living Tradition.………...……………...... 71
4.
Table 4 The Narrative of Darwin’s Good-Life…….....…………………….….. 76
vii
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
1.
Figure 1 Darwin’s Less Harmonious Vision of Eudaimonia.…………………. 5
2.
Figure 2 Values and Transcendent Values in Argument……………........……. 34
viii
1
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Charles Darwin was clearly the “fittest” of all his contemporaries in the emerging
field of evolutionary science in the late nineteenth century. As put by Simpson (1967),
Darwin even “ranks with the greatest heroes of man’s intellectual progress” (p. 268).
When Darwin published the first edition of his book, Origin of Species, in 1859, he and
his ideas were pitted not only against the scientific community of his era, but the general
public as well (Huxely, 2003). Prior to 1859, the deliberations of Western society
operated largely from a platform based on the assumptions of creationism derived from
Christine doctrine (Campbell, 1986). Darwin’s ideas of evolution were contradictory at
fundamental levels to the values in this doctrine, which so happened to dominate popular
thought at the time (Scott, 2004). In the face of this opposition, today in 2010, through
much debate, Darwin’s theory of natural selection has become “entrenched as scientific
knowledge” (Ceccarelli, 2001, p. 13). The fact that there were others positing theories of
evolution, even before Darwin’s time, leads one to ponder just how Darwin’s theory
triumphed through the adversity that his predecessors could not. Subsequently,
understanding how Darwin approached his audiences through rhetorical action is made a
worthwhile venture (Campbell, 1997).
“Darwin makes an eloquent and moving plea for the just claims of limited
knowledge. The rhetorical strategy and tactics of the work grow directly out of this moral
aim and are subservient to it” (Campbell, 1975, p. 589). In other words, Darwin was able
to position his ideas in such a way as to help them “fit” with the audience through
2
rhetorical invention informed by the valuative schema of thought at his time. The “fit”
here is rather interesting when considered alongside an idea such as MacIntyre’s (1984)
notion of a “living tradition” (p. 207). MacIntyre (1984) describes a living tradition as
being a narrative conception of the values that are characteristic of a society at a
particular point in history. Given this, a question arises: how did Darwin adapt his ideas
to “fit” with his particular living tradition?
As Crick (2005) explains, the role of the audience is “evident in the practice of
rhetorical consciousness, which constantly negotiates between individuality and sociality,
conflict and resolution, the new and the familiar, and the radical and the conventional in
the pursuit of rhetorical invention” (p. 344). The ability of a rhetor to discover and
navigate these tensions rests upon “social reasoning,” or the use of the available means of
persuasion as found in “ordinary life, wherein the claims of advocates are affiliated with
the interests of related others and grounded in the generalizable convictions of a
competent audience” (Farell & Goodnight, 1981, p. 273). This is true of scientific
discourse, especially when treated as enthymematic, as opposed to solely syllogistic
(Locke, 2002). Locke (2002), operating from this view of scientific discourse, calls for
larger understandings of the “rhetorical techniques and strategies employed in the
public’s understandings of science” (p. 107). Moreover, by examining how the public
receives scientific discourse, and how that discourse may be socially constitutive (White,
1987), we can better stimulate “social conversation with and about science” (Locke,
2002, p. 107). Locke’s (2002) call will be taken up in this thesis, by examining Darwin’s
Origin of Species.
3
In taking up the call this study will explore how Darwin crafted his book Origin
of Species so as to rhetorically negotiate the tensions between his evolutionary ideas and
the living tradition (MacIntyre, 1981) he was a part of. To better grapple with the values
of Darwin’s ideas as being distinct from his living tradition, Aristotle’s (2007)
eudaimonia (or, “good-life”) will be used. This term will allow for an examination of
Darwin’s theory in regard to valuative implications of his theory upon how one is to live
a rich and full life, to be the best person they can be, to live a “good-life.”
The good-life, or eudaimonia in Aristotle’s (2007) language, is a personal
conception of what constitutes a rich and full life, through practical thinking and virtuous
conduct. Inherent in this is self-preservation. For example, it would be practical to think
that one should look to see if the path is safe to tread before venturing across a busy city
street, for one cannot live a rich and full life if in fact that life is not preserved. Also
incorporated into the good-life is a need to possess sound values. For instance, if one
were to see a small child wandering out into a busy city street and did not take steps to
help that child avoid harm, they would not be living a rich and full life because they
would not be acting virtuously—their value system is flawed. Inherent in the good-life is
the notion that in order to live a rich and full life one must not only attend to one’s own
individual needs but to the needs of others too. To define it briefly, the good-life is a
person’s personal vision of thinking reasonably, while conducting oneself from proper
values. Although the good-life is principally a personalized vision of how one is to live a
rich and full life, it is also largely informed by the social climate in which a particular
vision of the good-life is found: a living tradition.
4
A living tradition is the social climate of a given point in history. The acceptable
preferences of thought as they concern living a rich and full life are the things that
compose a living tradition. The preferences of thought that govern conceptions of the
good-life change from place to place in history. For instance, at one point in history,
“bloodletting” was thought to have been a practical way to go about thwarting disease.
Today, in 2011 though, bloodletting is seen on a normative level to be impractical.
Similarly, today in 2011, it would not be virtuous to enslave another human being.
Conversely, during the days of Ancient Greece it was a widely accepted practice to hold
slaves. Put succinctly, in any given era, there are popular modes of belief and thought
toward how one is to live a rich and full life. These beliefs and thoughts become
intertwined and synthesized to become a living tradition: a popular conception of what it
means to live a good-life.
As will come to be explicated later in this thesis, the living tradition Darwin finds
himself apart of as he is crafting his book Origin of Species is at odds with his personal
conception of how one is to live a rich and full life. In short, Darwin’s conception of how
to live a rich and full life rests upon values that are not consonant with those of his living
tradition (see Figure 1 below). Aware of this, Darwin, through rhetorical means,
attempted to negotiate between his vision of the good-life and the vision had by his living
tradition so as to better get his scientific theories across. By examining Darwin’s
rhetorical consciousness (Crick, 2005) as illustrated by his personal notebooks and
letters, his vision of the good-life will be described and juxtaposed against his living
tradition.
5
Figure 1. Darwin’s less harmonious vision of eudaimonia.
In his discussion of living traditions, MacIntyre (1981) states that humans, in their
“actions and practice…[are] essentially story-telling animal[s]” (p. 201). By telling
stories, humans find “good reasons” from the interweaving of “argument” and the
“aesthetic” to derive “narrative probability” and “narrative fidelity” based on values
(Fisher, 1984, p. 2). Fisher (1989) continues on to posit his narrative paradigm as an
6
approach to exploring human communication so as to yield “interpretations of aspects of
the world occurring in time and shaped by history, culture, and character” (p. 57).
Furthermore, the narrative paradigm gives a mode of analyzing the “historically
extended, socially embodied argument…about the goods which constitute” Darwin’s
living tradition (MacIntyre, 1984, p. 207). So, by using Aristotle’s (2007) eudaimonia
(or, the “good-life”), the valuative character (Campbell, 1975) of Darwin’s narrative
(Fisher, 1984; 1989, MacIntyre, 1981) will be analyzed in respect to that of his living
tradition (MacIntyre, 1984).
Clearly put, in Origin of Species, Darwin is telling his audience a story—a story
that advances a very controversial scientific claim, a claim that posed a threat to the
foundational values of society for many of his audience members. Yet, interestingly,
Darwin’s story overcame adversity, and withstood the test of time (at least an entire
century of debate) to find its way into popular thought today in 2011. In fact, given his
quelling of opposition, some have even argued that Darwin is a hero of scientific pursuit
(Bowler, 1990; Simpson, 1967). In light of this it will be argued that Darwin’s sensitivity
to the valuative schema of his living tradition was significant to the reception of his book
Origin of Species. After all, “case studies of scientific controversy need to be analyzed in
order to begin identifying the ways that scientific discourses and audiences condition one
another” (Lyne & Howe, 1986, p. 143).
To take up Locke’s (2002) proposition to explore public understandings of
science, this thesis will describe how Darwin’s conception of the good-life was received
by his living tradition. Before this though some items must be further explained. As such,
7
Aristotle’s (2007) eudaimonia (“good-life”) will first be examined with regard to
MacIntyre’s (1981) living tradition. Then the relevant literature concerning the rhetoric of
science and Darwin will be reviewed. From here the method of narrative criticism will be
described with special regard to the rhetoric of science. After an explanation of the
necessary background information concerning Darwin’s living tradition and his
conception of the good-life as it concerns Origin of Species, a narrative analysis will then
be carried out. Drawn from this analysis will be conclusions regarding how Darwin
shaped of Origin of Species to better fit his evolutionary theory with his audience by
negotiating the tensions between his personal conception of the good-life and that of his
living tradition. These conclusions will then be discussed.
Eudaimonia (the “Good-Life”) and a Living Tradition
Eudaimonia is an ideal of rightful human conduct, first written about by Aristotle.
Although Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia can be found as a common theme
throughout his various works, he most explicitly deals with the concept in his
Nichomachean Ethics and Eudemian Ethics. In Aristotle’s writings, eudaimonia is
positioned as the ultimate End to human activity (trans. 2004, p. 1219a25-30). In order
for one to achieve eudaimonia, that person must exercise excellence in virtue (arête), or,
acting with courage and modesty and sincerity for instance (Aristotle, trans. 2004, p.
1220b15-1222a5) while also practicing prudence or practical wisdom (phronesis)
(Aristotle, trans. 2004, p. 1214a80). In Aristotle’s system of eudaimonia, “it is by
practical reasoning that, in his view, human beings do, or ought to, work out how best to
implement such a conception in their daily lives” (Cooper & Cooper, 1986, p.xii).
8
Decision making is vital to the achievement of eudaimonia. Thus, to achieve true
eudiamonia a person requires not only a virtuous disposition, but the wisdom and
maturity to deliberately exercise virtuous behavior (Devettere, 2002; Aristotle, trans.
1934).
“Happiness” and “flourishing” are common translations of Aristotle’s
eudaimonia (Hursthouse, 2010). However, these translations are problematic when
considered with respect to Aristotle’s original conception of the term. The word
“happiness” which tends to describe a subjective state of pleasure, does not adequately
describe the exercising of excellence in virtue (arête). “Flourishing” too has problems
with representing eudaimonia (Hursthouse, 2010). “Flourishing” does not appropriately
incorporate practical reasoning (which is of utmost importance to the notion of
eudaimonia), for insects and bacteria can just as easily flourish regardless of their
deficiencies in reasoning (Hursthouse, 2010). As such, to follow in line with Young
(2005), and to use an accessible English term in this thesis, the “good-life” will denote
the concept of eudaimonia. The “good-life” has been chosen because the notion of
“good” designates the valuative schema that composes a vision of eudaimonia and “life”
adds a sense of animation to the values in that schema. This translation has been chosen
because it emphasizes that values are manifested through the habits of action that define
one’s character, rather than being static traits.
Deviating slightly from Aristotle (2007), the good-life will not be treated as the
teleological End to human action. The good-life taken as an ultimate End has been
pointed out by Heinamen (1993) as being a less than realistic interpretation of Aristotle’s
9
Nichomachean Ethics. So, Aristotle’s good-life will be treated here as an extant term to
help break down and understand the valuative schema that undergirds an audience and a
rhetor. Specifically, this thesis is most emphatically not concerned with whether Darwin
was right or wrong. Also important to note is that the way the good-life is conveyed, or
able to gain approbation within a culturally situated audience, will of course change from
one time to the next. In fact, in harmony with Darwin’s theory, Dewey (1910) argues
that, like species, ideas evolve over time, through constant selection and adaptation.
“After Darwin,” then, “invention” has been “liberated from a priori dogmas and allowed
free play within a natural world” that is constantly evolving (Crick, 2005, p. 357).
Therefore, Aristotle’s system is viewed here as a supplemental tool that will prove useful
in grappling with the values conveyed through Darwin’s writings.
To Aristotle (trans. 2004) the good-life is “the best of the things practicable for a
human being” (p. 1217a35). In exploring how to find these things, Aristotle spends a
great deal of time discussing the need for a normative and moderate approach to
expressing one’s values. He states that there are virtues, and juxtaposed against these
virtues are extremes that lay at ends to one another on a continuum. “It must be grasped
that in every continuum that is divisible there is excess and deficiency and a mean…in all
things the mean in relation to us is the best, for that is as knowledge and reason bid”
(Aristotle, p. 1220b20-25, trans. 2004). Aristotle then, quite explicitly, lists fourteen
virtuous means that lie between deficiency and excess in respect to rightful conduct (see
Table 1 below).
10
Table 1
Aristotle’s “Means” of Virtue
Deficiency
Spiritlessness
Cowardice
Diffidence
Insensitiveness
Schadenfreude
Loss
Meanness
Self-deprecation
Surliness
Stubbornness
Endurance
Smallness of
Shabbiness
Spirit
Simpleness
Mean
Gentleness
Courage
Modesty
Temperance
Righteous
The Just
Indignation
Liberality
Sincerity
Friendliness
Dignity
Hardiness
Greatness of Spirit
Magnificence
Wisdom
Excess
Irascibility
Rashness
Shamelessness
Profligacy
Envy
Profit
Prodigality
Boastfulness
Flattery
Subservience
Luxuriousness
Vanity
Extravagance
Rascality
Note. Adapted from Aristotle. (1952). Loeb classical library: Aristotle: The Eudemian
ethics (H. Rackham, Trans.), pp. 1220b3-1221a10. Copyright 1952 by Harvard
University Press.
According to Simpson (2001), “the virtues Aristotle lists, and the descriptions he
gives of them and their possessors, are taken from the common experience and opinions
of the citizens of the day” (p. 95). A person who exhibits an appropriate blending of
beauty, duty, and prudence is called kalokagathia in Aristotle’s terms, or as we might
tend to call in English, a “noble” person (Aristotle, p. 1248b10, trans. 2004). “Everyone
in Aristotle’s Athens knew who the virtuous citizens were; everyone could recognize
courage or magnanimity” (Putnam, 1988, p. 380). With this in mind, it would be fair to
argue that, although largely subject to transformation and redefinition, the recognition of
noble persons can exist in societies other than Aristotle’s. For instance, today in 2011, in
11
the U.S. persons can certainly acknowledge generosity and temperance. Surely no
different is the fact that during Darwin’s time there were formations of the good-life that
influenced whether or not a person would be accepted as being of a noble stature.
Regarding the good-life, MacIntyre (1984) states that people are socially and
culturally bound in their living traditions, that rightful human thought is “contextdependent and tradition-bound” (D’Andrea, 2006, p. 292). A living tradition, at its
essence, is an ongoing, culturally and historically situated argument about the values that
compose a good-life (MacIntyre, 1984). And, over time, through the ongoing exchange
of narratives that pertain to valuative goods, conceptions of the good-life evolve along
with their respective traditions (D’Andrea, 2006; MacIntyre; 1984). So, it is hoped that
this thesis, by investigating the valuative schema of Darwin’s writings will provide
insights regarding his conception of the good-life as conveyed through his narratives and
received by his audience.
When crafting Origin of Species, Darwin had to negotiate between his own
conception of the good-life and that of his living tradition. MacIntyre (1984) elaborates
on the need to cast values consonant with one’s living tradition here:
The virtues find their point and purpose not only in sustaining those relationships
necessary if the variety of goods internal to practices are to be achieved and not
only in sustaining the form of an individual life in which that individual may seek
out his or her good as the good of his or her whole life, but also in sustaining
those traditions which provide both practices and individual lives with their
necessary historical context. (p. 223)
12
In other words, conceptions of virtues, or the acceptable values to comprise a good-life
are in a state of flux between individuals and the whole. MacIntyre (1984) is careful to
point out that this process of negotiating value is never static; it is always ongoing.
Darwin and his writings are certainly no exception to this. He and his living tradition
informed one another to create a conception of the good-life, as will be examined in the
Origin of Species later. Now, to gain a proper foundation from which to deal with
Darwin’s writings and to explicate the expansion of knowledge this study hopes to
accomplish, the relevant rhetoric of science literature will now be surveyed.
The Rhetoric of Science and Audience
Approaching the texts of scientific inquiry as persuasive formulations, crafted
with the intent to persuade, has been commented on by some as nothing more than
“humbug masquerading” (Perutz, 1995, p.58) practiced by “self-deceived fabulists”
(Haak, 2003, p. 221). Regardless, in the face of these harsh criticisms, the rhetoric of
science still maintains strong support within the academic community. Scholars such as
Campbell (1975), Bazerman (1988), Prelli (1989), and Gross (1996) in their various
intellectual pursuits to understand the rhetorical dimensions of scientific discourse, have
established some of the most seminal works of the field. These scholars, among others,
have set in motion and paved the way for a relatively strong and continually growing
body of rhetoric of science literature. Even so, as articulated by Ceccarelli (2001), this
literature, and the authors who write in the realm of rhetoric of science, are still faced
with the need “to prove the ‘hard case’ that the prototypical scientific text, the research
13
report that seeks to establish a scientific truth claim, is amenable to rhetorical scrutiny”
(p. 3).
Before treating scientific discourse as being amenable to rhetorical scrutiny, some
space will be taken first to briefly clarify and define a rhetoric of science. First off, in
science, rhetoric is necessary more so for the shaping of knowledge (e.g. Ceccarelli,
2001; Bazerman, 1988), than it is essential to “knowing” (Scott, 1967; 1976). To be clear,
take gravity for instance. Gravity is a force that exists independent of language, so
although rhetorical influences might shape how someone understands gravity, it does not
change the natural occurrence and nature of gravity itself; thus, although rhetoric can
shape knowledge, it does not necessarily constitute that knowledge. Nonetheless, as put
by Gaonkar (1997), there still remains “an unavoidable rhetorical component” within
scientific texts (p. 39). Harris (1997) elaborates on this stance rather eloquently:
Rhetoric is the study and practice of suasion, per- or dis-, and suasion is
the motive and the meat of all arguments. Science is the study of nature
and the practice of making knowledge about nature (or, in some extremely
mechanistic views, the practice of finding knowledge about nature).
Rhetoric of science is simply, then, the study of how scientists persuade
and dissuade each other and the rest of us about nature—the study of how
scientists argue in the making of knowledge. (p. xii, emphasis in original)
This definition is complementary to Campbell’s (1997) perspective, that in fact, scientists
are rhetors. He goes on to say, that “even scientific discourse must be persuasive to
rescue insight from indifference, misunderstanding, contempt, or rejection” (Campbell,
14
1997, p. 3). Consequently, rhetoric is found not as constituting the truths of nature that
scientists explore, but as a way to examine how those truths may have been shaped by
scientists and received by their varying audiences. Put concisely the rhetoric of science is
the study of how scientists can use suasion to “engage audiences and lure them into
sharing their view of things” (Lyne & Howe, 1986, p. 132).
Science is constructed by way of a “dynamic complex of social processes
permeated with human interests, values, and preferences” (Prelli, 2001, p. 63). What this
means for the rhetoric then, is that when a scientist engages in scientific deliberation, they
are subject to the influences of their varying socially positioned audiences. Both the
scientist and the audience act to shape the discourse (Prelli, 2001). Harris (2005a), in
discussing the rhetoric of science as a mode of study, gives an admonishment, in which
he says that the literature “has attended mainly to the production of scientific discourse”
and has a propensity for neglecting audience reception (p. 249). A study that does
acknowledge the audience and the interaction amongst the other scientific texts present in
a rhetorical situation is Ceccarelli’s (2001) examination of Dobzhansky, Schrodinger, and
Wilson’s works on evolutionary theory. Her analysis, what she coins as “close textualintertextual analysis…connects rhetorical strategies to their effects on historical
audiences” (Ceccarelli, 2001, p. 6). From her analysis insights concerning the rhetorical
nature of overcoming differences in scientific belief are drawn (Ceccarelli, 2001). For
instance, she outlines how Dobzhansky’s use of chiasmus helped Mendelians and
Darwinians, two previously disparate schools of evolutionary thought, synthesize their
views into a more unified evolutionary theory. Ceccarelli (2005) goes on to say that
15
audiences “who are originally opposed to a new theory can be persuaded if the argument
is adapted to respond to their concerns” (p. 280). Thus, the audience, in both their
influence upon the rhetorical creative process, and their receptions of a rhetorical text, are
an important element to be considered when dealing with the effects of rhetoric upon the
scientific claims.
Supporting Ceccarelli (2001) is Harris (2005b) when he argues that
incommensurability, or “the lack of a common standard for taking the measure of two
systems with respect to each other,” offers a useful way to gain understandings of the
clashing of values that can be found in the reception of scientific communication (p.3).
The essays in Harris’ (2005b) book Rhetoric and Incommensurability, all act to advance
the point that “scientific controversy is an excellent site for reception studies” and that
rhetoric can be used to overcome problems of conflicting beliefs of, or about, science
(Gross & Gurak, 2005, p.243). As expressed by Gross (1997), “in science, there are two
sorts of rhetorical masterpieces: those powerful enough to provoke revolution, and those
ingenious enough to avoid it” (p. 19) Necessary for grappling with the rhetorical
processes involved in overcoming, or prolonging, misunderstandings and disjoint
perspectives of science is an awareness of “the force…that a real or imagined audience
can have over the processes of invention and understanding” (Lyne, 1990, p. 51).
In consideration of the audience, Paul, Charney, & Kendall (2001) state that all
too often, rhetoric of science research tends to examine the history of a scientific text up
until the moment of publication while overlooking “how the text is received by its
readers” (p. 372). Even though focusing on the moment can still provide useful insight, it
16
is counter intuitive to study a practical art (like rhetoric) by trading “intuitions about the
efficacy of devices rather than, say, the validity of arguments” to real audiences (Fuller,
p. 310). So, to reap more practical understandings of how scientific discourse functions,
efforts must be made to not just examine the ideal, or imagined audience of a rhetor, but
the actual audiences that may have received a text as well. Paul, Charney, & Kendall
(2001) offer a number of methods for more robustly integrating reception into the
rhetorical study equation. Although the methods they offer are largely empirical (i.e.
correlation, or experimental) they do furnish a form of textual study fashioned to strongly
center upon audience reception, which this thesis will endeavor to do in the coming
analysis of Darwin’s Origin of Species.
The Rhetoric of Science and Rhetor
While concentrating on the audience in the analysis of scientific communication,
one must not lose sight of the role of the rhetor. As Halloran (1984) says, “the job of the
rhetorical critic is to discover what in the particular case were the available means of
persuasion, and judge whether the rhetor managed them well or badly” (p. 70). While the
rhetor still remains here in this thesis, a significant constituent to be included in the realm
of rhetorical function, it would be improvident not to heed the words of Gaonkar (1997)
when he states that “agency-centered” views of “intentional persuasion” act to perpetuate
a disregard for the “social structures that govern human agency” (p. 51). In response to
Gaonkar’s (1997) outlook, Crick (2005) avers that although one might want to remove
the agent altogether, the view of agency is subject to “a curious obstinacy….Deny it in
one place and it re-emerges in another” (Crick, 2005, p. 339). To further address the
17
imprecision of Gaonkar’s (1997) critique of an agency-centered approach Crick (2005)
points to Leff’s (1997) more transactional perspective. In a basic sense, Leff’s (1997)
vision of agency is “something that remains fluid” as the agent is at once influencing,
while being influenced (p. 94).
Crick (2005), in light of the need to acknowledge the affect that social structure
has on human agency, and the inescapable presence of the agent when concerned with
rhetorical invention, gives his notion of rhetorical consciousness. An idea that he defines
as: “the cultivated habit of responding to problematic situations by manipulating and
redeploying meanings intended to persuade an external audience to alter its beliefs and
behavior” (Crick, 2005, 340). This notion of consciousness allows invention to be
“neither public nor private…nor as an objective ‘thing,’ but as a habitual practice in
which one engages in response to problematic situations” (Crick, 2005, p. 340). Crick
(2005), as an expansion of “rhetorical consciousness” gives dissoi logoi, the ancient
Greek Sophistical practice brought forth by Protagorous (Kerferd, 1981) that involves
entertaining the thoughts of “the other side” when formulating an argument. In concern to
invention, dissoi logoi, helps to not only understand one’s own stance, but it clarifies the
powers of invention in the negotiation of “the precarious balance between maintaining
the self and adapting an idea to the needs of another” (Hauser & Blair, 1982, p. 153).
Furthermore, invention as it regards “rhetorical consciousness,” is subject to both private
and public influences, “a kind of collaborative agency for making ongoing judgments”
(Farrell, 1993, p. 69)—an imagined dissoi logoi.
18
An additional ancient concept that Crick (2005) uses to develop his term
“rhetorical consciousness” is imitatio, or what could be likened to what Aristotle called
mimesis. Mimesis to Aristotle is the careful and deliberate observation of, practice of, and
reflection upon, the works of others so as to allow invention to be born of rhetorical
understanding (Whalley, 2003). In different words, the imitation of others’ rhetorical
works, or imitatio, helps to provide a foundation of meanings that can be reshaped “in
order to respond effectively to problematic situations” (Crick, 2005, p. 343). So, in
respect to rhetorical consciousness, over time, habits of invention are not only influenced
by fluctuating collaborations of private and public influences, but the texts of others as
well.
In invention it is found that “selection is necessarily persuasive in its
consequences….choices of words bring into view values, meanings, and purposes….by
not choosing other verbal options, they exclude alternative values, meanings, purposes”
(Prelli, 1989, p. 16). The rhetor’s freedom to choose amongst meanings is not limitless
though. It is restricted by the rhetorical circumstances, for “not any choice of terms will
be functional in a given situation” (Consigny, 1994, p. 66, emphasis in original). In the
practice of rhetorical criticism it is important that the critic recognizes both the
constraints of a given situation and the choices of a rhetor by working from a median
between relativism and realism. Texts, as approached from a rhetorical perspective, are
“neither reducible to ‘mere’ words nor understood as straightforward reflections of some
deeper reality; instead, the scholarly practice of rhetorical criticism always treats texts as
a convergence of discursive opportunities and material constraints” (Ceccarelli, 2001b, p.
19
316). Similarly, this thesis will make an effort to acknowledge the flux between Darwin
and the social influences that may have existed in his rhetorical situation. The manner to
which Darwin and his audience may have informed one another will be recognized while
attempting to describe how his vision of the good-life is shaped in his text Origin of
Species so as to adapt it to his living tradition.
The Rhetoric of Science and Darwin
During Darwin’s lifetime, his ideas were only persuasive to a “small minority of
his peers” (Campbell, 2003, p. 234). Regardless though, he showed that his
“conventionally ‘weak’ case could be strengthened and made intelligible” by rooting that
case in the “larger cultural conversation as well as in the technical conversation of
science” (Campbell, 2003, p. 235).
It is to be expected that those aspects of his theory that the culture of his time
could most readily find intelligible would be assimilated into a kind of
everyman’s evolutionism, while those aspects that were objectionable would be
remembered even when they could not be believed. That Darwin, though too
controversial to be granted the title “Sir,” was buried in Westminster Abbey is an
argument for the power of his ethos—even though that ethos was generated
through an argument that was still in dispute at the time of his death. (Campbell,
2003, p. 235)
The way Darwin seems to have tapped into the acceptable social structures involved in
not only scientific thought at his time, but popular thought as well, is what the coming
analysis will seek to describe.
20
Crick (2005), in examining Darwin’s rhetorical consciousness in his Notebooks,
concluded that Darwin was able to engage the formulation of his theory by liberating
himself from the “a priori dogmas and allowed free play within a natural world that was
in a constant process of adaptation and transition” (Crick, 2005, p. 357). Crick (2005) in
his study is able to reach deep, useful insights into the formulation of Darwin’s scientific
ideas as regarding the possible intellectual influences that may have affected his thinking.
The study does not, however, find its focus upon the valuative constituency of Darwin’s
living tradition as an influence upon his rhetorical consciousness, nor how Darwin’s
audiences received the product of that rhetorical consciousness. In an effort to extend and
add complexity to Crick’s (2005) work, the current study will take into account Darwin’s
living tradition, his personal conception of the good-life and the reception of Darwin’s
portrayal of a good-life as received by living tradition.
The notion of Darwin’s character being, or not being, perceived as acceptable and
appropriate brings about a need to explore his ethos. To do just this, Farnsworth and
Crismore (1991) investigated Darwin’s book The Structure and Distribution of Coral
Reefs. From their analysis it was concluded that Darwin’s use of hedges help to bolster
his ethos as a “cautious scientist,” mindful of the tensions that might be present in his
audiences as they pertain to his theories of nature (Farnsworth & Crismore, 1991, p. 11).
The rhetorical mindfulness of Darwin toward his audience can also be accounted for in
his Origin of Species. In retrospect to the publication and seemingly discontented
reception of the book Darwin says, “I failed to impress my readers” (Barlow, 1969, p.
125). Given this it can be seen that Darwin was thinking not only as a scientist, but as a
21
rhetorician too. Although Farnsworth and Crismore (1991) are correct in viewing Darwin
as a rhetor, they focus mostly upon Darwin as an agent and seem to overlook that
Darwin’s rhetorical consciousness was situated within a larger, social and cultural
narrative. Campbell (1986), on the other hand, does recognize this when he notes that in
Origin of Species, Darwin included apologetics aimed at Christian belief, and
consequentially showed his entrenchment within a “cultural grammar” (p. 386) that
speaks to a valuative schema. Here it is shown that recognizing the social influences upon
Darwin’s writings are integral to understanding how those writings were crafted and
shaped. Although acknowledging the larger social conversation is important, this does
not go to say that the more micro-level rhetorical constructs of Origin of Species are any
less important to understanding the suasive nature of Darwin’s writings.
In Origin of Species, Darwin uses figures of speech and organizational patterns to
strategically present his scientific ideas. For instance, Wynn (2009) made the case that
Darwin employed deductive mathematic “strategies for promoting precision, rigor, and
correctness for arguments which Darwin knew would draw intense critical attention” (p.
96, emphasis in original). Additionally, Darwin’s use of gradatio, or “a series of phrases
or clauses that each, except the first, [and] repeats the end of the previous item….invites
the audience’s participation in its construction or completion” to facilitate rhetorical
identification (Fahnestock, 1996, pp. 16-17). Also, incrementium, or the gradual
ascension of language hierarchically from the least important term to the most important,
as found in Darwin’s Origin of Species, offers a mode of expressing the gradation that
22
functions in the “branching nature of descent,” a major tenet of Darwin’s theory of
natural selection (Fahnestock, 1996, p. 35).
As identified by Campbell (1999) and later treated by Crick (2004), Darwin’s
very use of the phrase “natural selection” is in fact a metaphor. This metaphor though, is
unique in that it “provides a common ground on which imagination and reason can stand
together to form new ways of understanding the world around us” (Crick, 2004, p. 38). In
further detail, the metaphor is not only an imaginary device used by Darwin to offer
clarity to his audience, but also as a proof to help support the very claims that he is
advancing. Darwin’s use of colloquial language and an overall “conversational quality”
while advancing and explaining the metaphor has also been argued as helping to illicit
trust from the reader (Campbell, 1975, p. 386). It is because of his candid tone and
careful and open consideration of the possible problems with his claims that “Darwin
thus invites his reader’s active trust by confessing the very difficulties which might
otherwise prevent him from granting it” (Campbell, 1975, p. 386). Here the figures, small
or large, can be seen as playing a part in Darwin’s theoretical presentation, and the
potential reception thereof.
Given the works of the scholars mentioned in this section thus far, a significant
conclusion to this thesis has become evident: save for Campbell (2003), the studies
surveyed here seem to leave the real audience largely out of the rhetorical situation. They
take up the notion of an “implied” or “ideal” audience more so than how an actual
audience may have received Darwin’s Origin of Species. Conversely, Campbell (2003)
does integrate the real audience into his discussion. He concludes that Darwin’s book
23
may not have been well received at his time because: (a) Darwin’s argument did not
match the burden of proof perceived to be requisite by his audience, and (b) the character
of Darwin’s theory was excessive, given the status of intellectual thought regarding
evolution at the time. In an attempt to extend and add nuance to Campbell’s (2003)
conclusions this thesis will attempt to describe how Darwin attempted to meet the
valuative needs of his living tradition to more effectively advance his scientific theory.
Due to its rhetorical character, Darwin’s Origin of Species is viewed by some as
being at a revolutionary status (Locke, 1992). Darwin was as much a craftsman of
expression as he was a purveyor of the natural truths he perceived through science, as can
be found from this review. His ethos was bolstered by way of hedges and a colloquial,
conversational tone. He employed deductive principles so as to bolster the claims he
foresaw as drawing critical scrutiny. He used gradatio and incrementium to help the
audience make sense of and contemplate the branching and variance of species in his
theory. “Natural selection,” the master metaphor of his theory, helps to offer clarifying
imagery to the audience, but also acts as evidentiary explanation for his claims. On the
whole these conclusions offer great insight and understanding. However, many of these
studies appear to leave Darwin’s actual audience to the wayside. As a result, in an effort
to add to, and expand the current rhetoric of science literature, this thesis will analyze
Darwin’s Origin of Species with special attention to his audience, his living tradition. The
method of analysis will be discussed now in the following chapter.
24
Chapter 2
METHODOLOGY
As explained earlier, a living tradition is a socially situated narrative: an ongoing
argument over the goods that constitute a “noble” person—a person living a good-life.
While crafting his book Origin of Species, Darwin had his own personal conception of
what constitutes a good-life. Darwin’s good-life though as it regards his book Origin of
Species, differed on an elementary level from the narrative of his living tradition. As will
come to be explained, Darwin’s living tradition viewed how to live a rich and full life
from a platform of Christian doctrine, which outlines humans as being made above nature
by a divine Creator. Darwin, conversely, viewed how to live a rich and full life from a
platform of natural occurrence and social responsibility, not Christian doctrine.
Regardless of this difference in belief structure, Darwin’s theories have come to be
regarded today as scientific fact. In the face of significant differences in values, Darwin
was still able to relate to his living tradition and get his ideas across. In concern to just
this sort of phenomenon, Fisher (1987) states that “stories…establish ways of living in
common, in intellectual and spiritual communities in which there is confirmation for the
story that constitutes one’s life” (p. 63). With this in mind, understanding the narrative
that Darwin depicted in his Origin of Species and how that narrative was received by his
living tradition, given their fundamental differences in values, may give useful insights
into how communicative barriers between dissimilar value systems might be overcome to
better engage science in the public sphere.
25
Narrative, the Rhetoric of Science, and Audience
By telling stories, humans negotiate their “common sense” of the world. In
Darwin’s case, he had to negotiate between the “common sense” of his living tradition,
and his own personal conception of a good-life. According to Fisher’s (1984) narrative
paradigm, humans’ most basic reaction to rhetorical demands is to tell a story. It is
through the merger of aesthetics and reasoning that is storytelling that humans relate (or
do not relate) with one another, they evaluate claims, and ultimately they make
judgments (Fisher, 1985). So, to understand how Darwin was able to relate (or not relate)
with his audience, given the substantial differences in values, the narrative paradigm will
be used in this study to explore Darwin’s rhetorical negotiation of the tensions between
his vision of the good-life and that of his living tradition. This will be done by comparing
Darwin’s personal narrative of the good-life to that of his living tradition and how he
navigated the differences between the two so as to better fit Origin of Species with that
living tradition.
Narratives are a means for people to find good reasons and make sense of the
world (Fisher, 1987). In fact, according to Redick & Underwood (2007), “an adequate
account of the argumentative mode of reasoning cannot be constructed without reference
to the narrative” (p. 404). The persuasiveness of a story or its ability to achieve what
Fisher (1987) calls “adherence,” rests upon two tenets: narrative fidelity and probability.
Narrative fidelity concerns whether or not a particular narrative fits with an audience.
That is, does the story resonate with the belief system of the audience? For example, a
Mendelian naturalist in 1865 might have difficulties finding fidelity in a Darwinian social
26
theory, simply because their belief system is not consonant with the narrative
implications of such a theory. Narrative probability, on the other hand, deals with how
the story seems to “make sense” through consistency. For instance, if a character in a
particular narrative has already been established as a hero it would not “make sense” to
then have that character kill an innocent child, or to torture his close friends. In his
inspection of fidelity and probability in Abraham Lincoln’s The House Divided speech,
Pfau (2005), found that Lincoln’s worldview as both a vigilant pluralist and a liberal
pluralist in the midst of the U.S. union between 1854-1860, both strengthened and
undermined his narrative. Because Lincoln was inconsistent in his political worldview
(being both vigilant and liberal), one could find that there is an inconsistency; thus
potentially reaping less probability. The rationality of Lincoln’s worldview, on the hand,
“may have been seen as more reasonable and credible [to his audience] than either liberal
pluralism or civic republicanism alone” (Pfau, 2005, p. 72); thus potentially yielding
more fidelity. Here it can be seen that the effectiveness of a story’s premises to ring true
with an audience can be evaluated by accounting for narrative probability and narrative
fidelity. So, based on these assumptions, when a person is to cast a narrative of the goodlife that narrative should convey both fidelity and probability to an audience if it is to
resonate favorably.
“Central to all stories is character. Whether a story is believable depends on the
reliability of characters, both as narrators and as actors” (Fisher, 1987, p. 47). Fisher
(1987) describes motivation as the criterion for judging whether a particular element
within a narrative is to be considered a character or not. Take for example the stage in a
27
Shakespearean play, it cannot not be considered a character because it lacks motivation to
act. It is without conscience. Therefore it cannot make “decisions” and carry out “actions
that reflect values” (Fisher, 1987, p. 47). Hamlet, on the other hand, could be considered
a character because his actions show his motivations to avenge his father’s death, in turn,
reflecting the value Hamlet places upon being an honorable son. The notion of character
is integral to narrative probability. As touched on briefly in the preceding paragraph
regarding Lincoln’s House Divided speech, a character must act consistently given their
“set of organized actional tendencies” (Fisher, 1987, p. 47). “If these tendencies
contradict one another, change significantly, or alter in ‘strange’ ways, the result is a
questioning of character” (Fisher, 1987, p. 47). If a character’s actions cannot be
considered probable, predictions of that character’s actions are made more difficult.
Without the ability to predict, trust is lost, “and trust is the foundation of belief” (Fisher,
1987, p. 46). So, in regard to the good-life, if an audience has a different conception of
the good-life from that of the one conveyed by a certain character, that audience might
find that character’s actions strange or out of the ordinary. Thus, it would be less familiar
and, consequently less predictable—less believable.
Fisher (1987) describes two other important modes for assessing narrative
probability: (1) argumentative, or structural coherence, (2) material coherence, and (3)
characterological coherence (p. 47). Argumentative coherence deals with how logical a
story might be. That is, does the reasoning of a narrative withstand an assessment of
logical flow? To make use of formal logic for the sake of clarity, take the following
syllogistic argument:
28
All men are mortal
Socrates is mortal
Therefore, Socrates is a man
Looking at this line of reasoning it can be see that an erroneous conclusion has been
drawn due to a flaw in the second premise (Socrates should be a man, and therefore be
mortal). If a narrator were to convey this type of illogical flow in reasoning in their story
it would result in a reduction of narrative probability. After all, if one cannot convey
sound reasoning, it becomes much more difficult to trust the claims advanced by that
reasoning. Material coherence deals with the content of a narrative and how it compares
with the contents of other narratives. Does a story corroborate? Accurately portraying
information and whether or not important pieces of information have been left out are
examples of things that pertain to material coherence in a narrative. Moreover, material
coherence deals with whether or not the facts in a story are harmonious with the facts in
other narrative discourses on the same subject. Characterological coherence deals with
whether or not a character acts “characteristically.” That is, do they act in such a way as
to show consistency, or do they show contradiction.
To describe what constitutes narrative discourse, Foss (2004) gives four defining
characteristics: (1) it has to be composed of occurrences that are either activities or states
or conditions. As a result, if discourse is to count as narrative is must have at least two
such occurrences. (2) The happenings in a given discourse must be ordered
chronologically. (3) A narrative must include relationships of causation that relate to the
occurrences therein. And (4), a narrative “must be about a unified subject” (Foss, 2004, p.
29
334). Foss (2004) additionally gives four dimensions of narrative: audience, theme,
temporal relations, and events. Audience deals with whom the story has been crafted to
attend to and how they may play a part in the creation of that narrative. For instance, in a
study of Christian doctrine as it can be used to craft anti-Semitic narratives, Schamber &
Stroud (2001) show that using language that includes, or acknowledges the audience,
helps to invite them toward an investment of self into that narrative—to identify with it.
To Foss (2004) the narrative dimension of theme is concerned with the overarching
meaning behind the narrative. One such theme is identified in Woodstock’s (2006) study
of self-help literature. The theme recognized is one that deals with the implied
relationship between author and reader. “From a narrative perspective, self-help literature
mirrors the two-person treatment of psychoanalysis; the author acts as therapist and the
reader as patient” (Woodstock, 2006, p. 338).
Events are the “happenings, or changes of state” (Foss, 2004, p. 337) as the plot
unravels. Events involve both kernels (major events within the plotline) and satellites
(minor events in the plotline). Take for example, Porter, Larson, Harthcock, & Nellis’
(2002) examination of the events in the television show NYPD Blue. The kernel scenes
act to expand the plot by functioning as “disturbance, obstacle, confrontation, crisis, and
resolution” (Porter, Larson, Harthcock, & Nellis, 2002, p. 26). And, the satellite events,
although less integral to the plot, nonetheless, still give useful augmentation to the plot,
by functioning to bring about “exposition, dramatic question, introduction of a new
character,” et cetera (Porter, Larson, Harthcock, & Nellis, 2002, p. 26). Temporal
relations describe the aspects of time and sequence as they play a part in the telling of a
30
story. Moreover, is the story linear, or does it jump from time to time (i.e. “flashback”)?
Segal’s (2007) analysis of personal narratives and their role the maintenance of ignorance
about breast cancer, designates the sequence of events of a generic personal breast cancer
narrative: “The story begins, typically, at the moment of discovery of a lump in the
breast, arguing, by the narrative arch itself, that the cancer story begins with the
appearance of unwanted tissue in an individual body” (p. 4). Segal (2007) continues on to
assert that the use of this type of story actually halts critical conversation more than it
helps to strengthen it, simply because it tends to fall into the category of the typical,
mundane, average story (p. 15), and as a result, loses its import.
Causal relations are concerned with the logical link between what has happened in
a story, and what caused those happenings (Foss, 2004). This is an important dimension
to be considered when dealing with scientific texts as evidenced by Journet’s (2009)
examination of Richard Dawkin’s selfish gene metaphor of evolution. Journet (2009)
explains that the ambiguity allowed by Dawkin’s metaphorical explanation allowed him a
space in which to more easily work with ideas that he did not yet have proof for. That is,
by using figurative language, Dawkins was able to contemplate the happenings of
evolution and why that may be without yet having any evidence for his audience, while
still offering good reasons to his audience for consider it in his view.
Carrying out a narrative analysis involves: “(1) identifying the dimensions of the
narrative; and (2) discovering an explanation for the narrative” (Foss, 2004, p. 335). In
discovering an explanation for the narrative the values and ethics of the narrative can be
examined to understand and explain possibilities of audience acceptance or rejection of
31
the premises it advances (Foss, 2004). Humans “make choices about the truth, coherency,
effectiveness of narratives, and whether or not one should adhere to the story, based not
on the arguments advanced, but by the values that the individual holds” and the narrative
probability and fidelity thereof (Young, 2005, p. 135; Fisher, 1988).
Prima facie, because of the objectivity normally championed in scientific
discourses, they tend to be considered as less value laden, and in turn defiant to a
narrative evaluation. Contrarily though, in discussing logic as it has been treated by
scholars such as Toulmin (1958) and Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) who tend to
emphasize formal logic, while ambiguously attempting to account for the “rhetorical
reasoning” in scientific discourse (Prelli, 1990, p. 316), Fisher (1994) states:
Not all discourse necessarily appeals to reason, such as some jokes, phatic
expressions, and consummatory communication, but all discourse is
presented by a fallible human being and is an interpretation of some aspect
of the world occurring in time and shaped by history, culture, and
character. Discourse rarely, if ever, presents an uncontested or
uncontestable truth. It is to such discourse that the narrative paradigm and
narrative rationality are directed, or provide means by which reason can be
assessed. And reason is to be found in those elements that provide
warrants for accepting or adhering to the advice fostered by any form of
communication that can be considered rhetorical. These elements appear
not only in legal, philosophical, political, and historical discourse, they are
also common in aesthetic, religious, and scientific texts as well. Most
32
importantly, however they are formed—as clear-cut inferential or aesthetic
expression—whether discursive or nondiscursive—and whenever they
arise, they will be value-laden. That is why narrative rationality includes
tests of values and ‘reasons.’ (p. 23)
Within narrative rationality are narrative probability and narrative fidelity.
Narrative probability is concerned with a story’s cohesiveness, “but the principle of
fidelity pertains to the individuated components of stories—whether they represent
accurate assertions about social reality and thereby constitute good reasons for belief or
action” (Fisher, 1987, p. 105). In his definition of “good reasons” Fisher (1978) rather
clearly identifies that “humans as rhetorical beings are as much valuing as they are
reasoning animals” (p. 376). Good reasons are value laden affirmations to a particular
belief or action (Fisher, 1987). To understand humans as rhetorical beings one must
account not only for the formal logics of a discourse, but also the informal logics too.
Good reasons are “ruled by matters of history, biography, culture, and character” (Fisher,
1987, p. 65). So, what constitutes a good reason is contextually based. Thus, narrative
fidelity is contingent upon whether or not appropriate accounts of the social climate are
given. Fisher (1987) gives five questions to help in guiding the critic toward a further
account of the role of values as they are socially and personally situated in the utterances
of a rhetor.
The first of Fisher’s (1987) questions is a question of fact. “What are the implicit
and explicit values embedded in a message?” (Fisher, 1987, p. 109). Does the main
character in a narrative explicitly say, “A son should avenge his father’s death in order to
33
maintain his honor!” or does the character speak to this more implicitly by quietly
carrying out the act? The second question is a question of relevance. “Are the values
appropriate to the nature of the decision that the message bears upon? Included in this
question must be concern for omitted, distorted, and misrepresented values” (Fisher,
1987, p. 109). For instance, when a person, who plays a teacher on television, goes on to
do a commercial in which they state, under the guise of an instructor, “You should buy
this type of textbook,” there comes a problem with the values conveyed. It is because the
actor is not an educator that the value of education thus becomes distorted.
The third question is a question of consequence. “What would be the effects of
adhering to the values in regard to one’s concept of oneself, to one’s behavior, to one’s
relationships with others and society, and to the process of rhetorical transaction?”
(Fisher, 1987, p. 109). For example, would it be of positive or negative consequence to be
selfish? To oneself and behavior it might be beneficial to a certain extent. To others and
society though, it might yield more negative consequences. The fourth question is that of
consistency. “Are the values confirmed or validated in one’s personal experience, in the
lives or statements of others whom one admires and respects, and/or in a conception of
the best audience that one can conceive?” (Fisher, 1987, p. 109). If a person were from an
individualistic culture and heard a speech on collectivist values, those values would be
less likely to be confirmed or validated because they are less likely to have resonated
with that person’s prior experiences.
The fifth question deals with notion of a transcendent issue. “Even if a prima
facie case exists or a burden of proof has been established, are the values the message
34
offers those that, in the estimation of the critic, constitute the ideal basis for human
conduct?” (Fisher, 1987, p. 109). In other words, what is the fundamental value at play in
the narrative? This is represented in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Values and transcendent values in argument. Adapted from Fisher, W. R.
(1987). Human communication as narration: toward a philosophy of reason, value, and
action, p. 112. Copyright 1987 by University of South Carolina Press.
In regard to the transcendent value, Fisher (1987) states they are “clearly the
paramount issue that confronts those responsible for decisions that impinge on the nature,
the quality, and the continued existence of human life” (p. 109). The reason for the
transcendent value being so important to understanding narratives is that they are the very
35
foundation upon which a claim is based. Transcendent values “are generally taken for
granted by the arguer, but when brought to the surface, they reveal one’s most
fundamental commitments” (Fisher, 1987, p. 109).
Although Fisher (1987) gives a very useful mode of dealing with the values at
play in a given text, this line of questioning largely treats the audience as an ideal
audience not an actual audience. As discussed earlier, there has been a call to address the
need for studies that find their focus on actual audience receptions of scientific texts. So,
Fisher’s (1978) questions will be used to guide the coming analysis, but they will be used
in respect to both Darwin’s imagined audience (the one at play in his “rhetorical
consciousness”) and his actual audiences, in an attempt to observe Ceccarelli’s (2001b)
proposed vow for rhetorical critics of scientific discourses:
Rather than perpetuate a formalist study of the internal dimension of an
isolated text, the rhetorical critic can vow to make connections between
text and intertext, uncovering fragments of reception that indicate how
audiences interpreted the primary text and fragments of production that
indicate how authors both reproduced and altered the institutional and
cultural resources available to them. (p. 326)
In taking this vow seriously the current study will utilize judiciously chosen selections of
Darwin’s notebooks and letters to account for his conception of the good-life and how
this was negotiated in his Origin of Species to better fit his ideas with his living tradition.
Ultimately the following narrative analysis will seek to answer three questions: (1) what
is the story of Darwin’s living tradition? (2) What is the story of Darwin’s personal
36
conception of the good-life? And, (3) how does Darwin employ rhetorical moves to better
adapt his story of evolution to the stories of his living tradition in his book Origin of
Species?
37
Chapter 3
BACKGROUND
Darwin’s Living Tradition
The major underlying assumptions, or what Baumer (1978) calls a “climate of
opinion,” (p. 5) concerning not only science, but general principle in Darwin’s Victorian
West will be treated here. The Victorian West, like any other era, is not sterile of the
influences passed down from prior epochs. As such, to adequately deal with the ghosts of
thought may have been echoed into Darwin’s time, the following discussion of popular
thought will begin in the Middle Ages. From here evolutionary theory and its
implications toward belief during Darwin’s time will be explained. And finally, an
exploration of Darwin’s specific living tradition will take place.
Popular thought during Darwin’s time. Darwin’s time (the Victorian West)
was one that still largely operated from a platform of Christian doctrine. A sufficient
understanding of this platform requires an account of thought that goes back to the
Middle Ages. The Middle Ages, were a time when the doctrines of Christianity reached a
synthesis with the Aristotelian notion of arche, which Baumer (1978) offers an exemplar
account of:
The universe, as the Christian Aristotelian envisaged it, had an immaterial
cause. God created primary matter and the forms ex nihilo (here the
account in Genesis was preferred to Aristotle). God was ‘the efficient, the
exemplar and the final cause of all things’ who moved creatures to achieve
the several ends or purposes for which they were fitted. God constructed
38
the universe on a hierarchical rather than a democratic model….The
cosmic hierarchy presupposed a psychological hierarchy, the great ‘chain
of being’ stretching from God down through the angels and man to the
animals and inanimate nature. Man represented the nodal link in this
chain; man the microcosm who partook of the nature of both the angels
and animals, man for whom the rest of nature had been created. (p. 24)
Aristotle (trans. 2005) spoke of life spawning from nonorganic matter, also
known as spontaneous generation, a perspective that is very much a materialist account of
evolution (Nelson, 2009). He also briefly spoke of variation being a product of species’
environments (Aristotle, trans. 2005). Although Aristotle conceded to the possibility of
an inorganic origin of life, he was fundamentally a metaphysical and teleological thinker.
Aristotle believed in ultimate Ends (e.g. eudaimonia)—and inherent purpose. He also
viewed the act of exploring and understanding nature as not merely an act of empirically
observing things the way they are on their face. It is behind the empirical that the
teleological “higher realities” can be found (Baumer, 1978, p. 23). The etymology of the
word metaphysic can help in explanation here. For meta in Greek means “past” or
“beyond,” and physika means “physics.” In Aristotle’s view, “sense objects are not
merely what they seem to be, but are symbols of a more real world of Ideas and Forms of
which God[s] [are] the archetype” (Baumer, 1978, p. 23, emphasis added). One does not
look upon a stone seated in the earth below their feet as if it were “just a stone.” This
stone has, just past its physical appearance, an essence, a purpose, an arche.
39
Given the authority of Christian doctrine during the Middle Ages, Aristotle’s
conception of life stemming from inorganic matter was supplanted for the story of
Genesis, the Christian account of a grand Creator, not natural forces, as being responsible
the origin of life (Phillips, 1970). During the Middle Ages though, Aristotle’s notion of
arche was carried on, but in a fashion that was consonant with Christian belief. In other
words one looked past the material to see God. Also, an additional idea carried from
Classical belief into the Middle Ages based on the philosophy of Plato, is the great chain
of being as described above by Baumer (1978), which places nature as a force
subservient to human will.
The view of human superiority over nature, reverberated from the Middle Ages
well into the subsequent Renaissance, but added an increasingly human-centered view of
nature: humanism (Baumer, 1978). That is, an increasingly “individual” stance on
viewing the world was being emphasized at this time (Burckhardt, 1990, p. 98). “The
humanists expressed their basic and, as it were, professional concern for man and his
dignity” (Kristeller, 1979, p. 171). Additionally during this period, classical texts began
to become available. With the recent focus of humanism coupled with these “re-born”
texts, came a “new historical perspective” (Nauert, 1995, p. 21). Garin (1965) describes
the shape of humanistic thinking during the Renaissance as:
[Attempting] to explain Aristotle in terms of the problems and the sciences
of Athens of the fourth century before Christ….for the discovery of
antiquity implied that one had learnt to make a comparison between
antiquity and oneself, to take a detached view of antiquity and to
40
determine one’s relation to it. And all this implied, further, the concept of
time and memory and a sense of human creation, of human work in this
world and of human responsibility….The humanists gave concrete shape
to that crisis which was occasioned by the new awareness of the past as
the new vision of reality as something earthly and by the new attempt to
explain history as the story of men. (pp. 14-15)
As can be surmised from Garin’s (1965) passage, even though humanism was on
the rise, religion was still a major constituent of thought during the Renaissance (Baumer,
1978). Nonetheless the gravitas of Christianity began to take on a new character. After
the protestant movement of the Renaissance achieved successful rebellion against the
Catholic Church, the cohesiveness and ubiquity of the Catholic Church’s influence
became less stable than it once was in the prior era (Hicks, Brandenburg, Gay, 1969).
Adding to the instability of Christian influence was a growing awareness of, and interest
in the natural world. Popular thought became increasingly focused upon nature so as to
give a “confident pronouncement of the scientific movement that God’s Word could be
read not only in the Bible but in the great book of nature” (Baumer, 1978, p. 251). This
movement in thinking would bring about what is now known as the Enlightenment.
Locke’s theory of knowledge could be argued as being representative of the major
shift in thought during the Enlightenment (Hicks, Gay, Brandenburg, 1969). The theory
advances the view that “man is ignorant, and can reduce his ignorance only by first
acknowledging it, and then following the tested methods of the sciences in approaching
the unknown” (Hicks, Gay, Brandenburg, p .746). In order for one to achieve this they
41
must distinguish primary qualities from secondary qualities (Baumer, 1978). Primary
qualities are those things that can be accounted for by way of mathematical
interpretation, and these are the things that compose “knowledge” (Baumer, 1978).
Secondary qualities on the other hand, are those things attributed to primary qualities
such as color and smell, which are considered less real because of their subjectivity
(Morton, 2004). With regard to this outlook, one would not apply the scientific method to
things that do not possess primary characteristics (i.e. theology) simply because it would
not yield “knowledge.” Consequentially, during the Enlightenment, metaphysical inquiry
was largely rejected as not being worthwhile because of its inherent vulnerability to
subjectivity. Take for instance, Condillac’s Treatise on Systems, published in 1749,
which reviews and rebukes the previous century’s philosophical thought for being
overrun with the conjecture of rash persons (Craig, 1998). Furthermore, “the true method,
the only way, was patient empiricism” (Hicks, Gay, Brandenburg, 1969).
The scientific method, “the process by which valid knowledge is obtained about
the natural world” is comprised of “a blending of empiricism, mechanical philosophy,
and mathematics that marked a significant change in the way that scientific problems
were studied and solved” (Wilson & Reill, 2004, p. 542). So, by way of using
experiential data from what one could see, taste, smell, and touch (the secondary
qualities), to better understand the mechanisms behind the qualities of objects that can be
accounted for mathematically (primary qualities) one could systematically gain a grasp
of the characteristics of nature. In 1776 though, the study of ethics, as taken up by Hume
42
(1888), in his Treatise on Human Nature, points out that it is erroneous to apply the
scientific method to human morality. He goes on to say:
In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always
remark’d, that the author proceeds from some time in the ordinary way of
reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations
concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find that
instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with
no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This
change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence….the
distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of
objects, nor is perceiv'd by reason. (Hume, 1888, p. 470).
Hume (1888) provides the clarification that there is a logical disconnect between
the empirical and the moral. What is seen, touched, smelled, heard, or tasted, does not
have an adequate link to what one ought to do. Therefore one cannot derive moral
conclusions from the scientific method. Hume (1902) then leaves the discussion to close
on the notion that morality is simply an innate disposition, and that it would be futile to
move further than this explanation. In other words, acting virtuously is something that is
done, simply because that is the way it should be done. What came from this line of
thinking was the idea that ethicality is found by way of “invoking a higher authority, such
as God or natural law, as the justification of its injunctions” (Rohmann, 1999, p. 100).
This is based on the assumption that although one cannot look to nature to find moral
43
goods, one must find them somewhere else. During this period then Christian doctrine
acted as a source of morality to help one find conclusions regarding ethical conduct.
Another source one could look to was natural law, or the normative, social,
prescription of ethicality. Take for instance Hegel’s (trans. 2005) Phenomenology of
Mind of 1807, when he states that in deliberating virtuous action from natural law, “the
sphere of right takes up every natural form of character as well of existences, and
sanctions and establishes them. The universality which holds good here, however, is one
that has undergone development, and for that reason it is concrete and actual” (p. 514).
By the Victorian era, which started in 1837, developing from natural law, came the
notion of “absolute law.” “The concept [that]…politics, morals, history, economics, art,
education—all were governed, it was thought, by universal laws or principles true for all
times and places” (Houghton, 1957, p. 145).
Science, by the 1840’s, was viewed with a hefty optimism in regard to its
potentials for application to the various unknown principles and laws of the world
(Lightman, 1997). Even though this was a common theme of perspective concerning
science, there were undoubtedly disputes regarding how and to what science should be
applied, as will come to be discussed in the coming pages with specific regard to the idea
of evolution. Before moving to this discussion though, and to give a synthesis of the
general assumptions that under-girded the scientific disputes during this era, the ideas f
man, nature, and the metaphysical will be recapitulated here.
Aristotle’s arche, or the metaphysical stance that higher realities exist just past
the empirical was carried from antiquity into the Middle Ages and adapted to Christian
44
doctrine. During the Middle Ages, one looked past what they could see or taste or smell
so as to better understand God. Also in the Middle Ages Aristotle’s views on the
possibilities of life stemming from non-organic matter were supplanted by the Christian
Biblical account of Genesis, which operates under the assumption of a grand Creator of
life, not the mere natural occurrence of it. Alongside this interpretation of the origin of
life came the theory of the chain of being: the idea that man is the integral link between
the heavens and nature. Later in the Renaissance this mode of thinking was elaborated
upon through the humanist movement, which revered individuality. Moreover, to protect
the dignity of man and his place within the grand hierarchy, one must understand their
own individual place in history and in the natural world, under the heavens.
With a mounting skepticism toward subjectivity, came the Enlightenment’s
tendency to favor empirical over metaphysical reasoning in hopes of yielding more
objective and universal laws and principles of the world. The scientific method then, is
seen by many as a mode of systematically seeking out and testing the truths of nature.
With this view of the scientific method came a minority of secularly oriented
practitioners of science. During the Victorian era though, the manner to which this
method is formulated, applied, and interpreted though, is still largely subject to
controversy, due to the lingering ghosts of thought from past eras. Namely, the echoes of
the chain of being (that humanity is above the animals or nature itself) and an implied
sense of Christian arche that views the empirical as a way of understanding God’s
creations were pervasive thoughts that dominated scientific thought during Darwin’s
time. Most scientific disputes, as will be seen, largely deal with the underlying
45
assumptions that guide scientific practice. Moreover, what does one find by conducting
scientific inquiry? Does one further understand God’s gifts of creation? Or, does one
view nature secularly and practice science to better understand the natural laws without
reference to God? In the subsequent section, particular consideration will be paid to both
Darwin’s evolutionary theory as well as evolutionary theory more generally as it pertains
to the grander scheme of scientific thinking during Darwin’s time.
The Idea of Evolution. 1859 was the year that Darwin’s Origin of Species was
first published. The book was a lengthy treatise that explained his ideas of evolution. The
largest and most significant idea in the book is the natural selection of species. Natural
selection describes that slowly over time species carry traits from one generation to the
next. And, the traits of species that “fit” better with their respective environments would
afford more favorable chances of reproduction. Thus, the traits better suited to the
environment were more likely to be those passed down to successive generations. Species
that did not have those traits, however, were more likely to be those who lost in the
“struggle…for existence” (Darwin, 2003, p. 72).
Although Darwin’s idea of natural selection was his own, evolution was not a new
idea in and of itself (Allen, 1885). For characters such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and even
Charles Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, both wrote earlier works that described
possible explanations for changes in species over time (Acot, Blandin, Drouin, 1989).
While in the thread of other evolutionary theorists, it is important to note here that there
are in fact two types of evolutionary thought: natural (or material) evolution and theistic
evolution (Kennedy, 1985; Rolbiecki, 1921). The prior describes evolution from a
46
standpoint that attributes the origin of life solely to nature. And the latter, is a mode of
evolutionary theory that incorporates the influences of a divine Creator. Although there
are certainly more textured variations of evolutionary theory as concerning the influence
of nature or divine powers, it was the theories that were able to remain more consonant
with the doctrines of Christianity that were most often argued for at the time at which
Darwin was writing (Bowler, 1999).
Before, 1859 though, evolution was not given much credence in the scientific
community. The scientists writing about evolution before 1859 were rejected and ignored
for various reasons. For instance Buffoon wrote his Histoire Naturelle, Generale et
Particuliore, but it was seen as lacking the scientific rigor needed to account for an
evolutionary apparatus. As Packard (1901) states, Buffoon was missing “the spirit or aim
of the true investigator” (p. 201). Drawing from Buffoon, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck wrote
three different treatises that addressed evolution. Lamarck published his first writings of
evolution in 1801, then elaborated upon them in his Philosophie Zoologique in 1809, and
finally in 1815, in his Hist. Nat. des Animaoux sans Vertebres (Huxely, 2003).
“Lamarck’s laws of transformation” though “were responsible for the lack of recognition
that his theories received” (Francis, 2007, p. 105). That, and Georges Cuvier, an adamant
anti-evolutionist, who openly disagreed with Lamarck’s theories, “had more support in
the Academy” at the time (Francis, 2007, p. 105). Robert Chambers on the other hand,
who wrote Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which was originally published
anonymously in 1844, was rejected because he “offended people by linking mankind to
47
the animals but offered no plausible mechanism of evolution” (Bowler, 1990, p. 19). It
went against the notion of a chain of being, in other words.
Even though the scientists who wrote about evolution before 1859 did not achieve
the same amount of recognition as Darwin, their individual ideas in conjuncture to the
progression of science and popular thought in general could be argued as affecting the
reception of Darwin’s Origin of Species. “In the course of the half-century from 18001850, the modern outline of the fossil record had been put together, revealing the ascent
of life from primitive fish and invertebrates through the age of reptiles to the age of
mammals” (Bowler, 1990, p. 19). In light of this, creationism, or the outlook “that the
adaptation of each species to its environment proved the existence of a wise and
benevolent Creator” (Bowler, 1990, p. 18) then had to become increasingly “complex and
sophisticated” so as to account for the origin of life (p. 19). An example of this can be
found in 1855 when Baden Powell wrote his Essays on the Unity of Worlds, which
outlines that “the introduction of new species was a regular, not a casual phenomenon”
(Powell, 1856, p. 376). In different words, as Powell (1856) avers, the introduction of a
new species “is part of a regularly ordained mechanism of the evolution of the existing
world out of former conditions”—design, not chance (p. 376).
With these sacred views came other, more secular conceptions of evolution,
which put an emphasis on natural processes as being responsible for life, not necessarily
a Creator (Rolbiecki, 1921). At any rate, evolution and its implications to Christian
doctrine were well known by the time Darwin had published his book. And, Darwin
48
himself was conscious of the necessity to “accommodate his theory to the preferences of
his time” (Bowler, 1999, p. 19).
Darwin’s Victorian Era. Darwin found himself in a world of civil tensions. By
1839, radical Christian-socialist movements had started. They denounced the Church as
corrupt and needlessly powerful, and along with it, the State to which it was married.
They were calling for a divorce of the state from the Church—to cleanse it. Concurrently,
radical materialists were calling for a cleansing of science. They found the human spirit
to be “a delusion, part of the gentry’s cruel deceit to subjugate working people. The
science of life—biology—lies ruined, prostituted, turned into a Creationist citadel by the
clergy” (Desmond & Moore, 1991, p. xvii). These points of view were seen by many
during Darwin’s period as being the ill begotten outlooks of heathens and heretics,
threatening to jeopardize the very fabric of society. And, Darwin’s family were among
those who “hated the ‘fierce [and] licentious’ radical hooligans” (Desmond & Moore,
1991, p. xvii).
Aware of the potential volatility of his theories on the origin and variation of
species, Darwin kept his ideas to himself for much of the time that he was working
through them. It has been remarked that as early as 1837, twenty two years before the
publication of Origin of Species, Darwin began to suspect life had “originated without
divine agency” (Browne, 2006, p. 40). Although he did not subscribe to Christianity, he
was never atheist in his thinking. Darwin was more of what we might call today, an
agnostic. As stated in Browne’s (2006) discussion of his notebooks, “Darwin had
dispensed with most formal religious structures while still believing in some supernatural
49
force beyond human knowledge” (Browne, 2006, p. 46). The only person who really
knew of Darwin’s beliefs was his wife Emma, who was a devout Christian. Even though
she accepted his views on religion as being careful spiritual hesitation, she still feared
that “science was leading him into ever-greater skepticism” (Browne, 2006, p. 47).
Another person to have an effect in Darwin’s life was Charles Lyell, a well
known geologist, who wrote the influential book Principles of Geology (published
between 1830-1833), which inferred that the earth has been shaped slowly over time by
forces of nature. Lyell was a close friend of Darwin’s. He was very influential to
Darwin’s work. Not only was Lyell important to the scientific theorizing that took place
during the formation of Darwin’s ideas, he was also one of the main characters that urged
Darwin to publish his ideas on natural selection (Costa, 2009). Darwin and Lyell were
both members of the Geological Society, an organization that gave membership to two
other significant characters to Darwin: John Herschel and William Whewell. In his
Autobiography, Darwin (2010a) proclaims that Herschel’s Introduction to the Study of
Natural Philosophy, “stirred up in [him] a burning zeal to add even the most humble
contribution to the noble structure of natural science” (p. 43). And, William Whewell,
although a vehement anti-evolutionist, “seems to have pushed Darwin’s scientific career
strongly” by urging him to publish his ideas and “into accepting a secretaryship of the
Society,” of which Whewell was the president of from 1837-1838 (Ruse, 1989, p. 14).
Regardless of this seemingly affectionate relationship, Whewell would later become an
adversary to Darwin and his ideas (Ruse, 1989).
50
During the period in which Darwin was developing his Origin of Species, he
found himself surrounded by family, friends, and academic colleagues who, to varying
degrees, agreed or disagreed with his beliefs. His family gave him an awareness of the
possibilities of offense that his theories might stir up in the Christian community, which
was largely the popular belief system of Darwin’s time. Darwin’s colleagues and friends
within the scientific community would additionally give him a basis for thoughtful
consideration of the oppositional views that he might run up against within the scientific
community. Ultimately, these person and their beliefs would influence Darwin and his
habits of rhetorical invention.
Darwin’s Good-Life
Before analyzing how Darwin negotiated the significant differences between his
personal conception of how to live a rich and full life and that of his living tradition,
some additional points must be made. Firstly, when deliberating science, according to
Dewey (2008), even though a person, or a group of persons, may have an awareness of a
particular natural phenomenon, it requires the appropriate dealings in order to help that
phenomenon become widely accessible. That is, scientific discovery does not occur in the
mere observation of nature, but in the articulation of nature from “common sense” so that
"people everywhere" can access it. For when physical science is put at odds with the
human affairs of a living tradition, “the ultimate harm is that the understanding by man of
his own affairs and his ability to direct them are sapped at their root” (Dewey, 2008, p.
345).
To achieve scientific discovery, claims of science must employ not merely formal
51
logic, but also informal logic too. Put differently, when scientific ideas are posited, they
must “enter into logical thought at the gate of perception and make their way to the gate
of purposive action” (Peirce, 1998, p. 241). That which does not make its way through
both of these gates “is to be arrested as unauthorized by reason” (Peirce, 1998, p. 241).
Consequently, to achieve reasonable scientific claims one must navigate the objective and
the subjective—physical science and human value.
Darwin, a gentleman of science. Given Darwin’s time, and the close alignment
of science and religion of that period, his writing of Origin of Species is an engagement
that requires rhetorical grace. For his theory of natural selection contradicts the stories of
Christianity by arguing that a Creator did not design life in seven days, but that life has
been spawned over a much longer period of time by way of natural, not necessarily
theistic powers. His theory also suggests that the chain of being is defunct. Darwin’s
theory goes against the chain of being in the sense that humans are not suspended above
nature, as a link to the heavens, but are in fact a product of that nature. Darwin’s (2011a)
views on the notion of a Creationist account of life by design can be seen here, in a letter
to Asa Gray, a friend and intellectual colleague of Darwin’s, who believed that life was,
even in the face of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, inherently subject to God’s
design:
I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I shd wish to do,
evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me
too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent
& omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with
52
the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of
caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see
no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed. On the other
hand I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe &
especially the nature of man, & to conclude that everything is the result of
brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed
laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what
we may call chance. (p.1)
To convey his account of the origin of life convincingly Darwin requires
consideration of his living tradition so as to adequately convey a mode of living a rich
and full life that can be consonant with the value structures of his living tradition. Values,
as found in the realm of scientific inquiry, are largely realized through action, or what
Dewey (1922) would call habit:
All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute
the self. In any intelligible sense of the word will, they are will. They form
our effective desires and they furnish us with our working capacities.
They rule our thoughts, determining which shall appear and be strong and
which shall pass from light into obscurity. (p. 25
The social habits that are practiced unconsciously from day to day are the ones that help
to smooth social commitment. Without them, "there is only irritation and confused
hesitation" (Dewey, 1922, p. 180). Dewey’s (1922) concept of habit is extremely
important when contemplating Crick’s (2005) rhetorical consciousness. “Since rhetorical
53
consciousness is inventive and not merely strategic, this is both natural and necessary for
the development of persuasive arguments” (Crick, 2005, p. 356).
According to Aristotle (trans. 1934) the good-life is composed both from natural
chance and voluntary action. So, when regarding conduct within scientific inquiry there is
an element of the individual agent (the rhetor), the material constraints of their rhetorical
situation, and the social exigencies of their particular epoch. Consequentially, we find
science, or how science should be conducted, in a place that is influenced not by one
person but a constellation of effects assembled from the various material and social
elements involved in a given rhetorical situation.
What this means for Darwin then, is that within his living tradition there was a
"common sense" idea of what constituted a good-life. There were also material
constraints concerning his ideas (he only had a particular type and amount of evidence).
And, Darwin had to negotiate these contextual components through rhetorical means.
Darwin endeavored to attend to the "common sense" understanding of the good-life of his
living tradition (both consciously and unconsciously), which may have helped to
synthesize it with his theory. In due course, as will be examined in the pages to follow, by
acknowledging his living tradition and the conception of a good-life present in that living
tradition, Darwin attempted to transcend his own ideals, to meet the needs of his audience
and facilitate understanding. From a letter answering a call to be included in a “free
thinking” publication in 1880, this can be seen explicitly in Darwin’s (2011b) own words
as regarding the religious implications of his work:
I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me
54
(whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity &
theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought
is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which
follows from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my
object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science. I
may, however, have been unduly biased by the pain, which it would give
some members of my family, if I aided in any way direct attacks on
religion. (p. 1)
Darwin’s good-life was one that found motivation to act with moderation and restraint
from a reluctance to upset his family. Also, as can be seen from the passage above, he
envisions the practical reasoning of a gentleman as being aware of the principle that
minds are not changed through attacks aimed at values, but through the gradual shaping
of those values through scientific discovery. In an earlier letter to Ernst Philip August
Haekel, a fellow evolutionary theorist, in 1867, Darwin (2011b) states that harsh criticism
toward the beliefs of others “lead the reader to take the side of the attacked person” and
“does no good, only causes pain” (p.1).
Treading lightly upon the beliefs of others requires awareness of others’
viewpoints, or in terms of rhetorical consciousness, acknowledging the dissoi logoi of
others beliefs takes a sound estimation of human nature. In describing a practical view of
human nature, Darwin (2011d), in 1830, writes to his second cousin, William Darwin
Fox and alludes to the view that understanding human nature requires the social
experience of others’ points of view:
55
It is quite curious, when thrown into contact with any set of men, how
much they continue improving in ones good opinion, as one gets
ackquainted with them. This was an argument used, in a religious point of
view, by a very clever Clergyman in Shrews. to encourage sociability (he
himself being very fond of society), for he said that the good always
preponderates over the bad in every persons character, & he thought, the
most social men were generally the most benevolent, & had the best
opinion of human nature. I have heard my father mention this as a
remarkably good observation, & I quite agree with him. (p. 1)
Here Darwin conceives a gentleman as a person who obtains a desirable character from
being communally oriented and socially interactive. Darwin (2010c) adds further nuance
to his conception of nobility in his Notebook B by stating that a person should not allow
oneself to look at the world with the notion that man is superior and disparate from the
animals. Such a view, according to Darwin (2010c) only helps to perpetuate a tendency to
ignore that “we all may be netted together” by way of a shared origin from a common
ancestor (p. 232). Moreover, in order to adequately approach the good-life in Darwin’s
conception, one must move toward others and their differences with the respect and
consideration deserved by those who share the same lineage; by not simply entertaining
the dissoi logoi of others’ beliefs, but looking at them as potentially valid. For as said by
Darwin (2011b), with the proportion of “men arriving at opposite conclusions from the
same premises it seems to me doubtful policy to speak to positively on any complex
56
subject however much a man may feel convinced of the truth of his own conclusions”
(p.1).
In a letter to Neil Arnott, a practicing and published physician who wrote on the
topic of human progression, Darwin (2011d) gives a refutation to Arnott’s (1861) view
that “he lower animal is shortsightedly or almost blindly selfish” (p. 51). Darwin (2011e)
goes on to say in a later rebuttal, “to me it seems as clear that we have a conscience as
that the lower animals have a social instinct: indeed I believe they are nearly the same”
(p.1). So, a person of nobility in Darwin’s eyes is one that views humans as having both
conscious and unconscious contemplations of others, not just one’s self. Goodness in
other words, is an innate human disposition (a social instinct) that is guided by
conscientious action towards others—fellow animals who share the same ancestry.
Darwin’s beliefs and a good-life. Among others in his family, Darwin’s wife
Emma would give him a resource from which to discover the beliefs of those he was
interested in avoiding offense with, the dissoi logoi of the Christian believer. Take for
instance the following excerpt from a letter written by Emma to Darwin after he told her
that his religious convictions had lead him to a rejection formalist religious structures:
It is perhaps foolish of me to say this much but my own dear Charley we
now do belong to each other & I cannot help being open with you. Will
you do me a favour? yes I am sure you will, it is to read our Saviours
farewell discourse to his disciples which begins at the end of the 13th
Chap of John. It is so full of love to them & devotion & every beautiful
57
feeling. It is the part of the New Testament I love best. (Wedgwood, 2011,
p. 1)
Additionally, before Darwin’s famous trip to South America to collect specimens (the
very same trip from which Darwin found a large majority of evidence to support his
theory), he was a somewhat orthodox Christian (Ruse, 1999). During his travels though,
his faith in Christian doctrine began “to crumble” (Ruse, 1999, p. 180). He started to find
geological evidence that implicated the Earth was much older than the Old Testament
accounted for (Darwin, 1887). He began to view miracles as not the results of divine
intervention but rather the products of natural laws (Darwin, 1887). Consequentially, he
was lead to a rejection of the stories of Christianity. Regardless of this rejection though,
Darwin was still within a living tradition that largely subscribed to Christian doctrine. He
was aware of, and had an understanding of this belief, not only from his friends and
family, but from his own experiences with the Bible and the Church.
Darwin was educated in the Christian moral philosophy of William Paley, reading
such pieces as Evidences of Christianity and Moral Philosophy during his studies at
Cambridge. In his own words, Paley’s works “gave me as much delight as did Euclid”
(Darwin, 1887, p. 47). “I am convinced that I could have written out the whole of the
‘Evidences’ with perfect correctness…I was charmed and convinced by the long line of
argumentation” (Darwin, 1887, p. 47). Darwin was not only aware of Christian value
structures, but also had in fact, lived within them. He was at one point a subscriber to
Christian doctrine. Over time and through his researches though, Darwin began to find
that science did not allow space for Christian doctrine to ring true in his conception of
58
how to live a rich and full life. Nevertheless, Darwin was aware of the need to attend to
the contradictory tenets of his theory that might deject the value system of his living
tradition and give reason for upset. Take for instance, the following excerpt out of a letter
from Darwin (2011f) to Francis Ellingwood Abbot, a theologian and writer on religious
topics, in which he discusses his views on Christianity and their place in the public
sphere:
I think that you will agree with me that anything which is to be given to
the public ought to be maturely weighed & cautiously put….I feel in some
degree unwilling to express myself publicly on religious subjects. (p. 1)
The nature of Darwin’s theory depicts the world as an ongoing struggle for life. A
world in which “species of plants and animals, including humans, are as they are because
accidental minor variations in the structure of their ancestors conferred on them a fitness
in the contest for food, for mates, for survival in hostile environments” (Parsons &
Moore, 1997, p. 178). When Darwin’s theory is presented in this light, the natural world
becomes diametrically opposed to the benevolent world Darwin read about in Paley’s
Evidences while at Cambridge (Parsons & Moore, 1997).
As pointed out earlier from Darwin’s more private writings (e.g. letters and
notebooks), he was sensitive to those who believed differently than he did. In part, he was
motivated by a reluctance to upset his family, and he felt that it would be ineffective to
argue directly against the values of his audience. The manifestation of this can be seen in
the rhetorical differences between the earlier drafts of Darwin’s theory (which were
written privately) and the first published edition of Origin of Species. For example,
59
Darwin uses terms that directly concern Creationism significantly less in Origin of
Species (Darwin, 1859) than he does in his earlier essays (Darwin, 1909). This is
interesting, especially in consideration of the fact that the amount of content in Origin of
Species is nearly twice that of Darwin’s earlier essays. See Table 2 for the numbers of
each term used.
Table 2
A description of the differences in word choice between Darwin’s (1909) earlier
essays on natural selection and the first edition of his book Origin of Species
Term used
Creation
Essays from 1842 and
1844
60 occurrences
Origin of Species (1st ed.)
52 occurrences
Creator
Creationist
28 occurrences
13 occurrences
7 occurrences
0 occurrences
Note. Data taken from: Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural
selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. Copyright 1859 by
John Murray. Data also taken from: Darwin, C. (1909). The foundations of the origin of
species: two essays written in 1842 and 1844 (F. Darwin, Ed.). Copyright 1909 by
Cambridge University Press.
Darwin’s conscientious crafting of Origin of Species so as to avoid direct attacks
toward Creationists can also be seen in differences of tone. Take for example the
differences between the following two excerpts concerning a correct view on the origins
of life. The first excerpt is from Darwin’s (1909) essays of 1842 and 1844 and the second
excerpt is from his first publication of Origin of Species (Darwin, 1859).
Looking further backwards we see that the past geographical
distribution of organic beings was different from the present; and indeed,
considering that geology shows that all our land was once under water,
60
and that where water now extends land is forming, the reverse could
hardly have been possible.
Now these several facts, though evidently all more or less
connected together, must by the creationist (though the geologist may
explain some of the anomalies) be considered as so many ultimate facts.
He can only say, that it so pleased the Creator that the organic beings of
the plains, deserts, mountains, tropical and temperature forests, of S.
America, should all have some affinity together… But it is absolutely
opposed to every analogy, drawn from the laws imposed by the Creator on
inorganic matter, that facts, when connected, should be considered as
ultimate and not the direct consequences of more general laws. (Darwin,
1909, p. 182, emphasis added)
In the above excerpt Darwin (1909) identifies, examples, and shows contradiction with a
Creationist account of the world—he is speaking of a creationist account as being faulty
thinking. The following excerpt though, from Darwin’s (1859) Origin of Species, seems
to circumvent a direct accusation of the Creationist belief as being flawed. He instead,
seems to leave the conclusion open to a wider interpretation:
During early periods of the earth's history, when the forms of life
were probably fewer and simpler, the rate of change was probably slower;
and at the first dawn of life, when very few forms of the simplest structure
existed, the rate of change may have been slow in an extreme degree. The
whole history of the world, as at present known, although of a length quite
61
incomprehensible by us, will hereafter be recognised as a mere fragment
of time, compared with the ages which have elapsed since the first
creature, the progenitor of innumerable extinct and living descendants,
was created. (Darwin, 1859, p. 488)
Although Darwin (1859) is still asserting that the Earth is very old (older than an
orthodox Creationist account) and that the process of origin works very slowly (slower
than a Creationist’s account), he does not directly address this to a “Creationist.” Rather,
he seems to add further qualification and tentativeness to his claims (Darwin, 1859).
The omission of a direct refutation of Creationism as illustrated above is
representative of a rhetorical manifestation of Darwin’s personal conception of a goodlife. Darwin’s conception of how to live a rich and full life operated from the assumption
that humans are interconnected through a shared descent. As such, one should give their
fellow humans the esteem and contemplation that a person of mutual heritage deserves.
In so doing, one must understand the values of their fellow humans so as to tread lightly
and avoid offence with persons of differing beliefs. Darwin as a rhetor, felt that beliefs
change slowly over time, and that direct attacks do no good for they only cause one to
lose favor amongst an audience. Sociability is a major tenet of Darwin’s vision of how to
live a rich and full life, which requires that one be not only communally aware, but
socially active.
Darwin is showing respect for the beliefs of his fellow humans by not engaging a
straightforward contestation of Creationism. Instead, he chose to advance his claims by
focusing hardily on scientific accounts of nature. Although he is definitely advancing his
62
own values, he is doing so while showing an awareness of the other beliefs that exist
within his living tradition. To Darwin, this is what it takes to live a rich and full life: one
must find virtue from the human connection had through shared lineage and think
practically toward the world by acknowledging that humans are not above nature, but a
part of it. Consequently, they are subject to the same laws. Ultimately, whether it be
canyon walls, pigeon colors, finch beaks, or the beliefs of one’s fellow humans, in
Darwin’s conception of the good-life, things change slowly over time by better fitting
with their environments. Now, in the subsequent section, an analysis of how Darwin
attempted to adapt his ideas to his living tradition will take place.
63
Chapter 4
ANALYSIS
Darwin’s Good-life meets his Living Tradition
The use of a narrative method is quite appropriate for the current undertaking in
that one’s living tradition is a historically and culturally situated argument: a story (or
conglomeration of stories) concerning the values that are to make up what can be
considered a good-life (MacIntyre, 1984). Therefore, to appropriately examine and
describe how Darwin’s conception of a good-life, as conveyed in Origin of Species,
differs from his living tradition, and to further analyze how he negotiated these
differences to resonate with the value system of his audience, Fisher’s (1987) narrative
paradigm will be used.
Before moving into the analysis, some preliminary discussion pertaining to
Darwin’s theory of natural selection must first take place. To be cautious, it must be
admitted that Darwin’s (1859) theory of natural selection is, by itself, not subject to being
examined under a narrative lens. According to Abbott (2003), the theory, of natural
selection, although providing a mechanism by which to explain the variance of species, is
still subject to chance, not motivation or purpose. And, without motivation there is no
discernable character. As discussed earlier in the explanation of Fisher’s (1987) narrative
paradigm, characters are essential to a narrative. Without character, there is simply no
place by which to center a story. Thus, Darwin’s theory of natural selection cannot be
considered a narrative, for both the process and the species produced by that process are
subject to goalless and randomized selection, not motivation (Darwin, 1859).
64
However, when natural selection is viewed as a component of the larger,
overarching narrative of what it means to live a good-life, the possibilities of narrative
inspection are now opened, and motivation can be accounted for. As discussed earlier,
Darwin had his own conception of the good-life, a vision that operated from the
assumptions that guided his theory of natural selection. Darwin envisaged a person of
nobility without regard to Christian doctrine, which was counter-propositional to the
popular conception of a good-life at his time. So, as it will be described in the following
pages, in Origin of Species, Darwin’s theory illustrates a new way to envision the
narrative of how a person can achieve a good-life. As such, the following analysis of
Origin of Species will focus “on the individuated forms that constitute it, and on the
reliability, trustworthiness, and desirability of what is said—evaluated by using the tests
of narrative rationality” (Fisher, 1987, p. 143). Inherent in a narrative is that in order to
achieve narrative probability and narrative fidelity with an audience, a story must not
only be coherent in and of itself, but it must harmonize with the “other stories known to
an audience or other observer” (Fisher, 1987, p. 144). The following analysis will seek to
identify and explore the story of a good-life that Darwin narrates and how this story may
(or may not) correspond with the stories of his living tradition. The points of tension
found between Darwin’s story and that of his living tradition will now be treated directly
starting with Darwin’s living tradition.
The story of the great chain of being, the hidden purposes of a benevolent
creator and evolution. During Darwin’s time, the Victorian west is still largely working
from a standpoint of Orthodox Christianity, of Creationism. As a result, Darwin’s ability
65
to achieve narrative adherence with his audience is contingent upon creating a story that
can in fact “make sense,” and resonate with an audience that believes in Creation, and is
still dealing with the ghosts of past eras, namely, Aristotelian arche and the great chain of
being. Take for instance, Paley’s (1802) discussion of the unfound arches of God’s
design in nature:
Now when this one cause of the appearance of chance, viz. the ignorance
of the observer, comes to be applied to the operations of the Deity, it is
easy to foresee how fruitful it must prove of difficulties, and of seeming
confusion. It is only to think of the Deity to perceive, what variety of
objects, what distance of time, what extent of space and action, his
counsels may, or rather must, comprehend. Can it be wondered at, that, of
the purposes which dwell in such a mind as this, so small a part should be
known to us? It is only necessary therefore to bear in our thought, that, in
proportion to the inadequacies of our information, will the quantity in the
world, of apparent chance. (p. 551)
Paley (1802) describes the apparent occurrence of chance in the world as being the
product of ignorance of the designs of God’s purposes. Inherent in this worldview is that
each creature was created independently, with a specific purpose, given its place in nature
(Paley, 1802). So, in the view of Paley (1802) there is not “chance,” there are only the
unknown purposes of the benevolent Creator. Of import, and inextricably central to this
view is the belief that the Creator’s intentions are benign and of divine perfection (Paley,
1802):
66
Whilst these propositions can be maintained, we are authorized to ascribe
to the deity the character of benevolence: and what is benevolence at all,
must in him be infinite benevolence, by reason of the infinite, that is to
say, the incalculably great, number of objects upon which it is exercised.
(p. 527)
Echoing the belief that nature has, just past its appearances, the hidden purposes
of God, is the notion of the great chain of being. Locke (1824) in his 1690 Essay
Concerning Human Understanding quite eloquently articulates this view here:
In all the visible corporeal world, we see no chasms or gaps. All quite
down from us the descent is by easy steps, and a continued series of
things, that in each remove differ very little one from the other. There are
fishes that have wings, and are not strangers to the airy region; and there
are some birds that are inhabitants of the water, whose blood is cold as
fishes….they are in the middle between both: amphibious animals link the
terrestrial and aquatic together; seals live at land and sea and porpoises
have the warm blood and entrails of a hog….And when we consider the
infinite power and wisdom of the Maker, we have reason to think, that it is
suitable to the magnificent harmony of the universe, and the great design
and infinite goodness of the architect, that the species of creatures should
also, by gentle degrees, ascend upward from us, toward his infinite
perfection, as we see they gradually descend from us downwards: which if
it be probable, we have reason then to be persuaded, that there are far
67
more species of creatures above us, than there are beneath: we being, in
degrees of perfection, much more remote from the infinite being of God,
than we are from the lowest state of being. (pp. 482-483)
Locke’s (1824) view here, is of humanity as poised higher than the lowest forms of
nature, yet not quite totally within the realm of angelic divinity. However, it is heavily
implied that man is of the highest order on Earth. This view is reverberated in the
writings of Addison (1840) when he states that “from a plant to a man…the little
transitions and deviations from one species to another are almost insensible” (p.745). So,
within the inner workings of God’s design are hidden arches, waiting to be discovered
(Powell, 1856). Later, Law (1758) would treat this idea with regard to humanity’s need to
understand the designs of God:
Beings, tho’ for want of an exact knowledge of their several Natures and
Orders, we cannot apprehend the manner of it, or conceive how they affect
one another; only this we are sure of, that neither the Species, nor the
Individuals in each Species, can possibly be Infinite; and that nothing but
an Impossibility in the Nature of the thing, or some greate Inconvenience,
can restrain the Exercise of the Power of God, or hinder him from
producing still more and more beings capable of Felicity. When we begin
to enquire in to the Number of these and the Degrees of their Perfection,
we soon lose ourselves, and can only refer to the Divine Wisdom and
Goodness…we have the highest Reason to conclude that every thing is as
68
perfect as possible in its own kind, and that every system is in itself full
and complete. (pp. 128-129)
Law (1758) is stating here that ultimate understanding cannot be achieved, for what
lies past the appearances is the infinite and the eternal, the unknowable. To grapple with
the unknowable through the appropriate use of science, while still maintaining a
relationship with God, take Bacon’s (1857) discussion of the Advancement of Learning,
from 1605:
Our savior saith, “You err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of
God.”; laying before us two books or volumes to study, if we will be
secured from error; first the scriptures, revealing the will of God, and then
the creatures expressing his power; whereof the latter is a key unto the
former: not only opening our understanding to conceive the true sense of
the scriptures, by the general notions of reason and rules of speech; but
chiefly opening our belief, in drawn us into a due meditation of the
omnipotency of God, which is chiefly signed and engraven upon his
works. (p. 222)
So, one is to practice science to gain a fuller, richer understanding of God by studying
nature in conjuncture to the Holy Scriptures. This view is strongly manifest within the
writings of Whewell (1833):
Indeed, science shows us, far more clearly than the conceptions of every
day reason, at what an immeasurable distance we are from any faculty of
conceiving how the universe, material and moral is the work of the Deity.
69
But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this; we
can perceive that events are brought about, not by insulated interpositions
of divine power exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment
of general laws. (p. 356)
In other words, science is a useful tool, not in attempting to understand each specific
instance of the material or moral world, but rather to understand the laws set in place by
the Creator, that govern the material and moral world (Whewell, 1833).
With specific respect to the scientific study of evolution up to 1859, when Origin
of Species was first published, transmutation (variance among species) was often met
with reluctance because it undermined the story of Genesis (Bowler, 1990). That is,
according to Christian doctrine, everything is a product made by the Creator at the time
of Genesis; anything that exists was created as such, and has, and always will, remain
fixed in perfection (Boorstin, 1985). Also, the amount of time needed to account for the
variance in species as per shared ancestry, was far larger than that accounted for in the
Bible (if it is read literally). Informed by a Baconian (1857) view of how one is to
practice science—by adhering to the Christian Scriptures and further augmenting and
glorifying God’s word with understanding his creations—many biologists had trouble
reconciling variance (which they found in their studies of nature) with the story of
Creation (Boorstin, 1985). To be sure, there were flavors of evolution that acknowledged
the transmutation of species in unison with Christian belief. These perspectives on
evolution though operated from the assumption that evolution progressed forward
70
teleologically, guided by theistic design and driven by divine purpose, not chance
(Bowler, 1990).
An example of such a model of evolution is that of Owen (1849) in his On the
Nature of Limbs, first printed in 1849, in which he describes “secondary causes,” or for
all intents and purposes, environmental influences upon the variance of species. Owen
(1849) though, is careful to attend to the idea that ultimately variance is the product of the
Creator’s will, and also appears to mirror the notion of the great chain of being:
Man must have existed before Man appeared. For the divine mind which
planned the Archetype also foreknew all of its modifications….To what
natural laws or secondary causes the orderly succession and progression of
such organic phenomena may have been committed we as yet are ignorant.
But if, without derogation of the Divine power, we may conceive the
existence of such ministers, and personify them by the term ‘Nature,’ we
learn from the past history of our globe that she has advanced with slow
and stately steps, guided by the archetypal light, amidst the wreck of
worlds, from the first embodiment of the Vertebrate idea under its old
Ichthyic vestment, until became arrayed in the glorious garb of the Human
form. (Owen, 1849, p. 86)
In Owen’s (1849) conception of evolution, the Creator had foreseen and set up the
process of evolution with intent, like a clockmaker setting the gears in place to achieve an
ultimate creation through the passing of time: humanity.
71
From the abovementioned points of the great chain of being, the hidden purposes
of a benevolent Creator, and the role of evolution in the overarching thought of Darwin’s
era, a narrative of Darwin’s living tradition can be illustrated (see Table 3).
Table 3
The narrative of Darwin’s living tradition
Characters
Humans and the divine Creator
Scene
Nature as situated below the angelic
heavens
Species originated from divine
intervention
To appease and glorify the Creator
Plot
Motive
The story of Darwin’s living tradition follows closely with the stories of orthodox
Christianity (Baumer, 1978); that nature, and its inhabitants are the products of God’s
design (Bowler, 1990); that the study of nature should be carried out so as to better
understand the underlying intents inherent in God’s designs, their arche (Powell, 1856).
From this perspective, humans were created as being both above nature and part of it—
humans are not “animals.” The world was created in seven days, and on the sixth day
man was made, positioned as a link between lowly nature and the divine heavens. It is the
duty of humans to uphold their dignity by recognizing the benign gifts of God, which
entails a requisite acknowledgment that each living thing on Earth has been created with
a specific purpose by a benevolent Creator, and thus is also the decisive origin of the
variance in species (Bacon, 1857). The duck is different from the pigeon because God
designed them that way when he created the world. According to the story of Darwin’s
living tradition, in order for one to live a rich and full life, to be the best person one can
72
be, one must recognize the role they play in the Christian narrative: both naturally and
supernaturally. One must carry them self to appease and glorify God, which requires an
awareness of one’s place in the cosmos, as both a mortal and divine being created for a
reason by the Creator. If one can successfully achieve a status of noble character while
recognizing their role in the Christian narrative, they can earn passage into a blissful
afterlife. If one does not adhere to the stories of Christianity however, they will find
eternal damnation.
Darwin’s story, on the other hand, is not rooted in Christian doctrine. That is to
say, with Darwin’s story, one can live a rich and full life without reference to the stories
of Christianity.
The story of a brutal nature, accidental life and evolution. For the sake of
clarity in comparison, Darwin’s (1909) earlier, and more private, essays of 1842 and
1844 and his notebooks will be used here to delineate the oppositional elements of
Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Later, these elements will be described and analyzed
as they appear in his Origin of Species while paying special attention o how he shaped
them to meet the valuative needs of his living tradition. For now, the oppositional points
of natural selection will be taken up.
In his theory of natural selection Darwin challenges the assumptions of his living
tradition by describing nature as being influenced by natural forces, not divine, nor
benevolent purpose, but random chance. Consequently, because nature is not governed by
divine purpose and intervention, species cannot be considered as designed (Darwin,
2011b). In turn, nature, as created for the benefit of humanity (Baumer, 1978), is now at a
73
status of “accident.” So, if the oceans, mountains, canyons, plants, insects, and animals of
the world have not been created in accordance to a plan, but are merely the products of
random chance, then there is less room to entertain the notion of design, for design
requires purpose. In this light, the great chain of being cannot be considered valid. The
careful and deliberate linking of creatures together in sequential order from the lowest
forms in nature, to the highest forms in heaven cannot be valid, at least not without
purpose. As such, the view of humans being the link between the heavens and nature
within Darwin’s scheme, is supplanted by the view that humanity is the result of a natural
process, and the random, purposeless factors involved in that process (Darwin, 1909).
Humans were not “planned,” in other words, they just so happened to have been formed
by their environment. Darwin (1909) explicates the purposelessness of natural selection
here in his own words:
There is much grandeur in looking at the existing animals either as the
lineal descendants of the forms buried under thousand feet of matter, or as
the coheirs of some still more ancient ancestor. It accords with what we
know of the law impressed on matter by the Creator, that the creation and
extinction of forms, like the birth and death of individuals should be the
effect of secondary [laws] means. It is derogatory that the Creator of
countless systems of worlds should have created each of the myriads of
creeping parasites and [slimy] worms which have swarmed each day of
life on land and water <on> [this] one globe. We cease being astonished,
however much we may deplore, that a group of animals should have been
74
directly created to lay their eggs in bowels and flesh of other,—that some
organisms should delight in cruelty,—that animals should be led away by
false instincts,—…life with its powers of growth, assimilation and
reproduction, being originally breathed into matter under one or a few
forms, and that whilst this our planet has gone circling on according to
fixed laws, and land and water, in a cycle of change, have gone on
replacing each other, that from so simple an origin, through the process of
gradual selection of infinitesimal changes, endless forms most beautiful
and most wonderful have been evolved. (pp.51-52)
Although Darwin (1909) speaks of a Creator in the above passage, he is also most
certainly arguing that the means by which species have come to be are not due to design,
but chance—secondary factors. As such, if the elements and creatures found in nature are
the products of chance, not design, then they have no celestial arche; they do not have an
ultimate purpose hidden behind their appearances. This is a fundamental difference
between Darwin and his living tradition, which finds within nature, God’s designs
(Bowler, 1990; Baumer, 1978).
Another fundamental difference can be found in the brutal quality of nature in
Darwin’s theory of natural selection. The seemingly violent “struggle” for existence is
the mechanism by which species are formed in Darwin’s plot, an oppositional outlook to
that of his living tradition, which tends to view the world as the product of a benevolent
Creator’s purposeful design (Parsons & Moore, 1997). Put differently, to Darwin (1909),
75
if a species can successfully fight to obtain sustenance and achieve reproduction, they
will be less likely to perish.
If such were the case the individual and its offspring would have a better
chance of surviving and of beating out its parent form; and if (as is
probable) it and its offspring crossed with the unvaried parent form, yet
the number of the individuals being not very great, there would be a
chance of the new and more serviceable form being nevertheless in some
slight degree preserved. The struggle for existence would go on annually
selecting such individuals until a new race or species was formed.
(emphasis added, p. 188)
Darwin’s (1909) theory points to the conclusion that species are not fixed, that they are
constantly struggling to survive. In Darwin’s theory (1909) species were not created
perfectly, for if they were what need would they have to change? Added to this is the
notion that there is no blueprint of divination, the things on this globe happened
accidentally. This has direct implications for humanity’s place in nature. If species were
not created with a purpose, or a plan, then humanity is merely a byproduct of nature—not
an angelic link in the great chain of being.
Humans are more aptly seen as “animals” in this plot. Here Darwin (2010b;
2010c) speaks directly to this:
Animals whom we have made our slaves we do not like to consider our
equals. — Do not slave holders wish to make the black man other kind —
animals with affections, imitation, fear of death, pain, sorrow for the dead.
76
— respect. We have no more reason to expect the father of mankind, than
Macrauchenia yet it may be found. — We must not compare chances of
embedment in man in present state with what he is as former species. His
arts would not then have taken him over whole world. (Darwin, 2010b, p.
1)
The soul by consent of all is superadded, animals not got it, not
look forward. if we choose to let conjecture run wild then our animals our
fellow brethern in pain, disease, death & suffering, & famine, our slaves in
the most laborious works, our companions in our amusements. they may
partake from our origin in these one common ancestor; we may be all
netted together. (Darwin, 2010c, p. 1)
From the aforesaid points of natural chance, the brutal quality of nature, and humanity’s
origins and place in nature, a narrative of Darwin’s good-life can be demonstrated (see
Table 3).
Table 3
The narrative of Darwin’s Good-Life
Characters
Scene
Plot
Motive
Darwin and the species on Earth
Nature as it appears to be
Species originating from a brutal,
purposeless, law of nature
To better understand one’s place in
nature
As will be seen in more detail in the coming analysis, Darwin’s story is one that
describes the world as created from natural chance, not divine influence. Entrenched in
77
this story is the idea that humanity is not above nature, but part of it. Humans have not
been created with the specific purpose of being the intermediary link in the chain between
nature and the heavens. Rather, humans are in fact more akin to “animals.” The reason
for inquiry into understanding nature is to better understand humanity’s relations to it.
Living things were not brought into existence in seven days by a divine Creator with a
purposeful plan. Instead, different species (humans included) have come to exist and
exhibit variance through a slow moving process of environmental influences. Over time,
species vary from one another by carrying on traits that have been selected by the
environment favorable to a species in a struggle for sustenance and reproduction. That is,
different species have come about because they were able to adapt to their environments
differently so as to avoid starvation and pass their traits on to subsequent generations, not
because the Creator made them that way.
According to Darwin (2010c), and as explicated earlier, all living things must
have come from a common lineage. Consequently we may all be “netted together”
(Darwin, 2010c, p. 232). To Darwin, to live a rich and full life, to be the best person one
can be, one must adhere to the story that everything was not created as distinct, for a
person carries oneself as a person of noble stature by showing their fellow humans the
respect and consideration that fellow sharers of ancestry deserve (Darwin, 2010c). To
Darwin, one strives to live a rich and full life by knowing one’s place in nature without
necessarily referencing God, which is oppositional to the story of living tradition (that
one understands their place in nature under God). Darwin’s (2011g) awareness of, and
trepidation toward, the social implications of telling a story not consonant with doctrines
78
of Christianity are evidenced here in a letter he wrote to Lyell, Darwin’s friend and
fellow scientist, at the time his book Origin of Species was being published:
Would you advise me to tell Murray that my Book is not more unorthodox, than the subject makes inevitable. That I do not discuss origin of
man.— That I do not bring in any discussions about Genesis &c, & only
give facts, & such conclusions from them, as seem to me fair.— Or had I
better say nothing to Murray, & assume that he cannot object to this much
unorthodoxy, which in fact is not more than any Geological Treatise,
which runs slap counter to Genesis.— (p. 1)
Darwin was obviously aware that his good-life ran “slap counter to Genesis” (Darwin,
2010g, p. 1). The following analysis of Origin of Species will focus on how he negotiated
the tensions between his personal conception of the good-life and his living tradition, in
the face of such a counterproposition.
How Origin of Species Shaped Darwin’s Good-life to Fit with his (Implied) Living
Tradition
Darwin’s conception of the good-life does not incorporate Christian doctrine, or
the Aristotelian arche, nor the chain of being, but instead operates from different
assumptions. These assumptions imply that chance, not divine intervention is responsible
for the variance in species. Because Darwin’s good-life is inconsistent with, or even
contradictory to the Christian doctrine subscribed to in his living tradition, he must
employ rhetorical grace so as to meet the valuative needs of his audience, while still
advancing his scientific claims. In the succeeding pages key components of Darwin’s
79
story of the good-life, as it appears in Origin of Species, will be analyzed. How Darwin
attempted to tell a story that would resonate with his real audience will be the focus of
this analysis. Before moving further, some space will be taken here to identify the
narrative elements of Origin of Species by dealing explicitly with Darwin’s story as
juxtaposed against his living tradition.
The story of Darwin’s Origin of Species offers a new way to picture the world and
to think about the variance of species on Earth, making the function of Darwin’s narrative
that of affirming new ideas and images of nature: “to throw some light on the origin of
species” (Darwin, 1859, p. 1). The story advances the idea that the differences in species
found in nature are the products of a common ancestor and an unfathomably old Earth
(Darwin, 1859). Regarding the temporal relations of the story, the unraveling of the plot
of Origin of Species begins at the time of the first spark of life, or as Darwin (1859) puts
it, at the time at which “life was first breathed” (p. 484). This time brought the beginning
of life “from some one primordial form” and with life came the need to battle for its
existence (Darwin, 1859, p. 484). It is from this “struggle for life” that the variance in
species on Earth can be accounted for (Darwin, 1859, p. 61). Slowly over time, from the
first form of life, “any variation” that “be in any degree profitable to an individual of any
species” and “its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external
nature” has helped with “the preservation of that individual” so that it may survive and
pass its traits to “its offspring” (Darwin, 1859, p. 61). The species that did not have the
traits to gain favor within a given environment have subsequently faded away, forced to
give up their ghosts to nature’s selective influences. For instance, those birds that were
80
able to survive birth and break free of their eggshells “had the most powerful and hardest
beaks, for all with weak beaks would inevitably perish” (Darwin, 1859, p. 87) in the
struggle for life.
The main character of the story of Origin of Species is Darwin, for he is the
narrator, “reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings” and how one “might come
to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had
descended, like varieties, from other species” (Darwin, 1859, p. 3). The subsidiary
characters are the species Darwin refers to while explicating the story of origins. For
instance, the “elephant and the rhinoceros” (Darwin, 1859, p. 68) or the extinct long
necked lama from South America, also known as “Macrauchenia” (p. 321). The kernel
plot elements of the story are the original spark of life and the battle of species to adapt to
their various environments (Darwin, 1859). The subsidiary characters are used to
exemplify the more specific points of the story’s plot: the satellite events. The satellite
elements of the plot deal with the smaller intricacies of how, from the first spark of life,
the struggle for existence has played out. For instance, some species have perished
because they were not able to mate and maintain “preservation” (Darwin, 1859, p. 127)
due to various factors such as climate adaptation (p. 133) or failure to accrue traits that
help with food gathering (p. 180).
As noted in the previous section, the assumptions that undergird Darwin’s story
differ from his living tradition at fundamental levels. It is because Darwin’s story
diverges from his living tradition at a foundational level (Bowler, 1999) that his narrative
might not have yielded narrative fidelity or to portrayed a probable account of the world
81
with his living tradition. Namely, the great chain of being and the hidden purposes of
God in nature. Nonetheless, as will be seen, Darwin (1859), and the character he
establishes through his actions, help to blur the lines of difference between his story and
that of his living tradition. The following narrative analysis of Darwin’s Origin of Species
will pay special attention to the foundationally different tenets of Darwin’s story: the
struggle for existence, the purposelessness nature’s forces, and the great chain of being.
Darwin’s (1859) illustration of the struggle for existence in nature is a staunch
example of his ability to navigate the points of discrepancy between his story and his
living tradition:
Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal
struggle for life, or more difficult—at least I have found it so—than
constantly to bear this conclusion in mind. Yet unless it be thoroughly
engrained in the mind, I am convinced that the whole economy of nature,
with every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction, and
variation, will be dimly seen or quite misunderstood. We behold the face
of nature bright with gladness, we often see superabundance of food; we
do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us
mostly live on insects or seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life; or
we forget how largely these songsters, or their eggs, or their nestlings, are
destroyed by birds and beasts of prey; we do not always bear in mind, that
though food may be now superabundant, it is not so at all seasons of each
recurring year. (p. 62)
82
Darwin is essentially narrating the existence of life, not as a part of a benevolent world,
but as part of a savage, brutal world in which its inhabitants must struggle and fight to
live. This is antithetical to the compassionate world of Paley’s (1802) Evidences that
Darwin read at Cambridge, and that his living tradition largely subscribed to (Boorstin,
1985; Bowler, 1990).
Creation, design, and divine intervention on the other hand, as based in the stories
of Christian doctrine, do not concede to chance, for everything has been created with
benign purpose (Paley, 1802). Darwin, aware that his ideas are contradictory to this
perspective, takes space in the above passage to concede that the view of the world as a
struggle for life is difficult to heed, inferring that he understands the opposing view and
has in fact been a subscriber to that view. Darwin claims he himself has lived this
difficulty, for he explicitly says that it is “difficult—at least I have found it so” (Darwin,
1859, p. 62). In showing that he understands how this may be difficult Darwin
acknowledges and demonstrates an understanding of the Christian perspective. When he
states “we behold the face of nature bright with gladness” (Darwin, 1859, p. 62), he is
showing recognition of the happiness and awe one is to behold from a perfectly and
purposefully planned world. This seems to echo a perspective very similar to Paley’s
(1802), in which nature is viewed as created by a “character of benevolence: and what is
benevolence at all, must in him be infinite benevolence” (p.527). Darwin is showing that
he understands Paley’s (1802) perspective of a benign nature. This incorporation of the
audience’s beliefs into the narrative helps to bring them into the story and avoid a
characterization of Darwin as a thoughtless monster, destroying the beauty of life. It
83
shows commonality between Darwin and those who believe in the worldview of a
benevolently created nature.
According to Fisher (1987) “Character…is a generalized perception of a person’s
fundamental value orientation….an extension of oneself in the community” (p. 148). In
the above example, Darwin is acknowledging the values of his audience, and as a result,
shows himself as an extension of the community, offering an expansion of the values of
his audience, in that “we behold the face of nature bright with gladness,” however, at the
same time, “we do not see, or we forget” about the “universal struggle for life” (Darwin,
1859, p. 62). It is through his actions as a narrator, in acknowledging the beliefs of his
audience, that Darwin is able to establish himself as an extension of that community—not
an outsider. And as such he is now in a position from which to offer an expanded sense of
nature: one can certainly behold the beauty and joy in nature, but on the same token, one
must not overlook the vicious struggle for life that perpetuates its wonders, if one wishes
to truly understand nature.
Although Darwin is acknowledging the stories of his living tradition to help
establish a character worthy of trust (a probable character) he is still advancing values
that contradict those very stories. The view of a world filled with struggle that Darwin is
advancing does not corroborate well with the stories of Paley (1802)—the very same
story he seems to be playing off of to establish a larger incidence of characterlogical
probability with his audience. However, even though the plot within Darwin’s narrative is
not necessarily consonant with the stories of his time, the scene he sets up helps to
counter this and gain probability. That is, Darwin (1859), through his example choices,
84
takes his story from the abstract metaphor of a “struggle,” which if interpreted at a
figurative level is very disparate from the stories of his living tradition, and makes his
examples much more concrete—more probable. Instead of using abstraction, Darwin uses
very real examples. Take for instance, Darwin’s use of the eating behaviors and lifestyles
of birds: “the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects or seeds, and
are thus constantly destroying life” (Darwin, 1859, p. 62). Surely those at Darwin’s time
had seen a bird eating a worm or a seed, or at least were aware that this is what a bird
consumes; this was part of the scene of day-to-day life. Darwin’s use of these examples
takes the notion of a struggle for existence out from the nebulous cloud of abstraction and
situates it within a scene familiar to his living tradition. Here, through his example usage,
and his acknowledgement of the stories of Christianity, Darwin helps to take a major
event in his narrative, the struggle for existence, and frame it in such a way as to better fit
with the stories of his living tradition.
Closely tied to the struggle for existence, is Darwin’s attribution of chance, not
purpose, to the forces of nature, which act to select favorable traits in species and
ultimately account for the variance in species. Darwin offers the reader purposelessness
and chance as the mechanisms by which to account for how selection operates on species
so as to better explain what could be considered “strange” variances in species. In
explaining this he starts out by taking up the validity of natural selection as viewed from
the perspective of a person that believes in the fixity and distinctness of species as created
separately:
85
Why this should be a law of nature if each species has been independently
created, no man can explain. Many other facts are, as it seems to me,
explicable on this theory. How strange it is that a bird, under the form of
woodpecker, should have been created to prey on insects on the ground;
that upland geese, which never or rarely swim, should have been created
with webbed feet; that a thrush should have been created to dive and feed
on sub-aquatic insects; and that a petrel should have been created with
habits and structure fitting it for the life of an auk or grebe! and so on in
endless other cases. But on the view of each species constantly trying to
increase in number, with natural selection always ready to adapt the
slowly varying descendants of each to any unoccupied or ill-occupied
place in nature, these facts cease to be strange, or perhaps might even have
been anticipated. (pp. 471-472)
Darwin is describing a contradiction within the Christian vision of his living
tradition (Boorstin, 1985; Bowler, 1990). His living tradition states that an infallible and
benevolent God purposely and perfectly created all species independent and separate
from one another (Paley, 1802; Boorstin, 1985). As such, because they were created
perfect they have no need to adapt or progress. Thus, according to this account of
Christian doctrine, species were perfectly formed to live within their place in nature
(Boorstin, 1985). In Darwin’s account though, the qualities of some species are in fact
not what could be considered perfect, but are rather strange, given their places in nature.
As a result, a contradiction in the narrative of Darwin’s living tradition is shown to the
86
reader. The inconsistency that Darwin draws out here is that species, the creations of an
infallible and benevolent God, acting from divine purpose, indeed show blemishes in
their various forms when considered alongside their respective environments. For why
would a woodpecker, a bird, a flying creature that makes its home in a tree, “have been
created to prey on insects on the ground” (Darwin, 1859, p. 471)?
Darwin, after showing the contradiction within the story of his living tradition
(Paley, 1802), offers natural selection as a solution to understanding and accounting for
these incongruities; that the effects of chance over time on a species, in turn, produce
variations. Therefore, to Darwin the different species that exist now must have stemmed
from some shared ancestry, and slowly but surely, differentiated from one another over
the passing of time. If a species shows traits that are inconsistent with their environment,
those traits must be the remnants of some previous state not yet selected out of the
species. With this view, comes the notion that imperfections in nature are not the
discordant mistakes of an infallible Creator, but merely the products of random forces of
nature. In Darwin’s account, with “natural selection always ready to adapt the slowly
varying descendants of each to any unoccupied or ill-occupied place in nature, these facts
cease to be strange” (Darwin, 1859, p. 472).
Darwin is certainly giving an account of nature that directly refutes the stories of
his living tradition, which could surely lead to less of an instance of narrative fidelity.
However, Darwin does not explicitly portray a Christian worldview as completely
defunct, nor does he directly refute the Christian perspective. He alternatively plays off of
the story of Bacon’s (1857) interpretation of nature, carried over into Darwin’s living
87
tradition from the enlightenment (Baumer, 1978), so as to depict the contradictions of
independent creation as “blind spots” in the reading of God’s Word.
According to Bacon (1857) both the Holy Scriptures and nature offer insight into
the Creator’s purposes. With regard to reading into these two sources of understanding,
Bacon (1857) says, “if we will be secured from error; first the scriptures, revealing the
will of God, and then the creatures expressing his power; whereof the latter is a key unto
the former” (p. 222). In Bacon’s (1857) narrative scheme, humans are fallible, make
mistakes, and are subject to error in their various readings of the scriptures as well as in
their understanding of nature. The manner to which Darwin narrates his account of nature
portrays the belief in independent creation as one that can lead to “blind spots” in
understanding species and their places in nature. With respect to a Baconian worldview
this is not desirable, for understanding species is key unto understanding the scriptures.
So, Darwin offers natural selection as a way to better understand species. And, in a
circuitous manner, this lends itself to be interpreted not as an outright argument against
the doctrines of Christianity, but as a way to better understand God’s Word written in
nature. By appending one’s beliefs to incorporate natural selection, one might be better
equipped to understand God’s will and power. Certainly, given the previous discussions
of Darwin’s good-life, this was not necessarily his belief. However, it seems as if Darwin
is attempting to meet the valuative needs of his audience by leaving his story of the
variation of species open to interpretation so that it would not seem “more un-orthodox,
than the subject makes inevitable” (Darwin, 2011g, p. 1). After all, “direct arguments
88
against Christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public” (Darwin, 2011b, p.
1).
Another instance, in which Darwin seems to be attempting to present a story that
can better fit with his living tradition, is in the beginnings of Origin of Species, when he
cites Whewell’s (1833) famous Bridgewater Treatises. In Whewell’s (1833) words, “we
can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine
power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws” (p. 356).
In other words, although God has “ceased from creating since the first Sabbath…he doth
accomplish and fulfil his divine will…though his working be not immediate and direct,
but by compass; not violating Nature, which is his own law upon the creature” (Whewell,
1833, p. 358). This is not fully what Darwin believed. Darwin (2011a) conceded to the
notion that natural law may be the product of a Creator. However, Darwin was not a
subscriber to the Christian faith, or any formal religious doctrine for that matter, as was
found earlier in this research from Darwin’s personal correspondence. Although he
conceded that natural law may be the products of some deistic Creator, he envisioned
“the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance”
(Darwin, 2011a, p. 1), not divine law per se.
Darwin seems to be using a depiction of nature and God similar to that of
Whewell (1833) because it is a Christian story that allows space for Darwin’s theory of
natural selection to be admitted. Thus, a vision of both Christian doctrine and natural
selection can be had the same scheme. By inserting his theory into the frame of
Whewell’s (1833) natural theology, the theory itself is much more likely to achieve
89
probability and, in turn, attain fidelity with Darwin’s living tradition. In this light, when
coupled with a Baconian perspective of science (which is also cited in the beginnings of
Origin of Species), the theory is not as much an argument against the stories of Christian
doctrine, as much as it is a means to better understand and affirm that doctrine by gaining
further understandings of its intricacies in nature.
In the following example, Darwin (1859) shows a more explicit instance in which
he appears to be using the stories of Christian doctrine to better adapt his story to his
living tradition:
Many naturalists think that something more is meant by the Natural
System [the classification of species]; they believe that it reveals the plan
of the Creator; but unless it be specified whether order in time or space, or
what else is meant by the plan of the Creator, it seems to me that nothing
is thus added to our knowledge. Such expressions as that famous one of
Linnæus, and which we often meet with in a more or less concealed form,
that the characters do not make the genus, but that the genus gives the
characters, seem to imply that something more is included in our
classification, than mere resemblance. I believe that something more is
included; and that propinquity of descent,—the only known cause of the
similarity of organic beings,—is the bond, hidden as it is by various
degrees of modification, which is partially revealed to us by our
classifications. (p. 413)
90
Darwin in this example, is playing off of Paley’s (1802) depiction of chance in nature as
being merely the ignorance of the scientist in observing the hidden designs of the Creator:
“It is only to think of the Deity to perceive, what variety of objects, what distance of time,
what extent of space and action, his counsels may, or rather must, comprehend” to
understand the Creator’s purposes (Paley, 1802, p. 551). In fact, Darwin’s wording is
very similar to that of Paley’s (1802). This can be seen from the above example when he
states “unless it be specified whether order in time or space, or what else is meant by the
plan of the Creator, it seems to me that nothing is thus added to our knowledge” (Darwin,
1859, p. 413). Interestingly, Darwin does not specify what he means by the “knowledge”
to be added.
Holding in mind Darwin’s (2011f) view that information “to be given to the
public ought to be maturely weighed & cautiously put” it can be inferred here that the
ambiguity of his wordage might have been strategic. Strengthening this inference are
Darwin’s (2011h) own words from a few years after the publication of Origin of Species
when he states, “I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion & used the
Pentateuchal term of creation, by which I really meant ‘appeared’ by some wholly
unknown process” (p. 1, emphasis added). Darwin (2011a) goes on to state, “I cannot
persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly
created…with…intention” (p. 1). So, even though Darwin did not believe in the Creator
as described by Christian doctrine, or believe in the doctrines of creationism for that
matter, Darwin is not explicit about this. Conversely, in the above excerpt Darwin seems
to be strategically employing ambiguity to allow a larger instance of which his story can
91
be interpreted as being, not a displacement of the stories of Christian doctrine, but as an
expansion of those stories. For it could be that by added to our knowledge Darwin means
a richer understanding of the purposeless and material processes of nature, without
reference to God. Or, on the flipside, by added to our knowledge, it could be interpreted
that Darwin means an achievement of a better and more intricate understanding of God’s
designs. Regardless, in the end, this conclusion is left to the reader.
In the following excerpt, Darwin is not merely leaving interpretation open to the
reader as much as he is directly playing to the beliefs of his living tradition. The great
chain of being, as portrayed by Locke (1824), envisions humans as the nodal link
between nature and the heavens. As such, humans are the highest form on Earth. As can
be seen from Darwin’s (2010c) Notebook B, this is not what he believed: On behalf of the
“animals our fellow brethren….they may partake from our origin in these one common
ancestor; we may be all netted together” (p.1). Darwin was aware that his belief was in
distinct opposition to that of his living tradition concerning the great chain of being and
humanity’s place in nature. That is, he believed that humans all share lineage with the
animals, and have not been created with the purpose of linking nature and heaven.
Darwin’s awareness of the oppositional nature of the view of humans and their place in
nature, not as the incarnation of both the divine spirit and natural form, but as “animals”
seems to be his reasoning for the omission of any direct discussion of the origin of
humanity in the story of Origin of Species. In short, in an attempt to avoid having to tell
an unorthodox story, Darwin (2011g) does “not discuss origin of man” (p. 1).
92
In Darwin’s living tradition, humans are viewed as dignified by their place in the
cosmos (Bacon, 1857). They are both natural and supernatural at once (Baumer, 1978). In
order for a human to live a rich and full life they must glorify and appease God (Bowler,
1990; Boorstin, 1985) by understanding the hidden arches of the Creator’s designs
(Bacon, 1857; Whewell, 1833). In the Origin of Species the only direct discussion of
humans as pertaining to the implications of natural selection are those on the topic of
domestic breeding with regard to the selection of hereditary traits. Nowhere in the book
are the implications of natural selection directly considered as concerning humans. This
omission, on the whole, throughout the Origin of Species, gives an indirect speech act
that implies humans transcend the forces of natural selection, and therefore would not
logically fall under a discussion of the phenomenon. Thus, the story of natural selection is
cast in such a way as to acknowledge and play into the belief in the story of the great
chain of being: humans are of the highest and most divine orders in nature, and as a
consequence are impervious to the forces of natural selection.
Darwin (1859) even seems to depict humans as having the ability to manipulate
the powers of natural selection:
Man does not actually produce variability; he only unintentionally exposes
organic beings to new conditions of life, and then nature acts on the
organisation, and causes variability. But man can and does select the
variations given to him by nature, and thus accumulate them in any
desired manner. He thus adapts animals and plants for his own benefit or
pleasure. He may do this methodically, or he may do it unconsciously by
93
preserving the individuals most useful to him at the time, without any
thought of altering the breed. It is certain that he can largely influence the
character of a breed by selecting, in each successive generation, individual
differences so slight as to be quite inappreciable by an uneducated eye.
This process of selection has been the great agency in the production of
the most distinct and useful domestic breeds. (p. 466-467)
In this portrayal of humans and their place in nature, Darwin is allowing for an
interpretation of humans that places them above the influences of natural selection. Not
only do they transcend the forces of nature, they in fact have the ability to manipulate
those forces for their “own benefit or pleasure”, to produce “the most distinct and useful
domestic breeds” (Darwin, 1859, p. 467). This depiction of humans and their place in
nature allows for a probable interpretation of Darwin’s theory with regard to those in his
living tradition that subscribe to Locke’s (1824) story of the great chain of being. That is,
because humans are of the of the uppermost angelic orders of nature, because they are
both natural and supernatural, they are impervious to natural selection and, as such, can
actually wield power over it. Such a depiction allows for humans to remain at the highest
rungs of the natural ladder, even in the face of a theory like natural selection. For, the
animals and plants are subject to natural selection, not humans. In turn, because the
dignity of humans and their place toward the top of the great chain of being (Lock, 1824)
is not necessarily jeopardized by Darwin’s depiction of nature and humanity’s place
within nature, the picture he illustrates in the above passage may yield more fidelity with
those who adhere to the story of the great chain of being.
94
Throughout the entirety of the Origin of Species, Darwin is careful to tread lightly
around the story of the great chain of being. Apparently as a strategic move, Darwin
chose to omit any discussion of humans and their origins, and instead, chose to cast them
in a light that portrays humans as holding power over the process of natural selection.
The only instance in which Darwin (1859) says anything regarding humans and their
relationship to his theory of evolution is not even broached until the very end of the
Origin of Species when Darwin (1859) says:
In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches.
Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary
acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will
be thrown on the origin of man and his history. (p. 488)
The Origin of Species is devoid of direct discussions of humans and the implications of
natural selection upon their origins. In this one instance though, Darwin is obviously
implying that natural selection will help with the achievement of insights regarding “the
origin of man and his history” (Darwin, 1859, p. 488). However, he takes this comment
no further. As can be found from the prior discussions of Darwin’s (2010b) beliefs, he
felt that humans, just like animals, are subject to the influences of natural selection.
Darwin, aware of the valuative needs of his living tradition, circumvented any discussion
of his belief in the origins of man. Even in the two sentences he takes to allude to this
belief, out of the 490 page content of Origin of Species, he is not absolute. Darwin is not
offering a depiction of humans and their place in nature to supplant the great chain of
95
being (Lock, 1824) or the notion of divine purpose (Paley, 1802). Darwin is instead
suggesting that the origins of man are not fully known as of yet.
The tentative and cautious tone of Darwin in relating humans to natural selection
might help in blurring the lines between his story and that of his living tradition.
However, regardless of how nebulous Darwin’s connection of humanity to random,
purposeless, natural origins is, he is still nonetheless making a connection between them.
Thus, some who adhere to the stories of the great chain of being will inevitably be less
likely to find fidelity with Darwin’s (1859) portrayal. This is not surprising, for Darwin
(2011g) knew full well that “the subject makes inevitable…unorthodoxy” (p.1). His
attention to the stories of his living tradition, nonetheless, helped to strengthen his claims.
Conclusion. From this analysis it has been found that Darwin’s conception of a
good-life was in opposition to that of his living tradition in foundational and fundamental
ways. Aware of this opposition, Darwin was sensitive to and considerate of, the stories of
his living tradition and the values they withheld. As such, in his Origin of Species,
Darwin is able to depict a story of the origin of the variance in species in such a way as to
avoid a direct refutation of the stories of his living tradition, and instead, offer his theory
of natural selection as an expansion of those extant stories.
Through the acknowledgement of the benevolent worldview of his living
tradition, Darwin was able to establish a more probable character. In tapping into the
story of Baconian science, he is able to offer natural selection as a way to better
understand the Holy Scriptures. Darwin offers ambiguous terms to his living tradition so
as to allow for interpretations that are more consonant with the values embedded in its
96
stories. For instance, instead of asserting that natural selection is only useful for
understanding unconscious, random natural forces, he leaves this explanation open to
interpretation, which in turn, allows for understandings of these forces as being the
products of divine design, a creationist outlook.
And, throughout the Origin of Species, Darwin is careful to circumvent any direct
discussions of the origin of humans as implicated by the theory of natural selection. In so
doing, he actually depicts humans as transcending the powers of natural selection. This
helps him gain the ability to convey his theory convincingly to a living tradition that
views humanity as dignified by its place at the highest, most divine, rungs of the natural
ladder. In fact, his only mention of the relationship of humans to natural selection is
incredibly vague and tentative, again, allowing for interpretations that are more
harmonious with his living tradition. By and large, Darwin was able to take his
oppositional story, and through various rhetorical moves, tell that story in such a way as
to not outright displace the stories of his living tradition, but rather to help fit it to those
stories—he took his story and fit it to his environment, his living tradition.
Darwin’s story was one that described a good-life as being lived by knowing
one’s place in nature, as an extension within the tree of life. Understanding what may lie
beyond nature was not of priority in Darwin’s story. Thus conclusions about the world, in
Darwin’s scheme, are not absolute, they are constantly updated through the gathering of
empirical data. One derives understandings of how one is to live a rich and full life by
understanding one’s place in nature, not necessarily one’s role in the Christian story. One
does not live a good-life in Darwin’s narrative if one’s conclusions are absolute. So, in
97
Darwin’s story, one’s conclusions must be acknowledged as tentative; they are subject to
chance. Although the implications for living a good-life in Darwin’s story seem to
undermine the value systems of his living tradition he is still able to tell a story that
permits interpretations that could yield a harmonious view of a good-life. By adapting his
theory to the stories of his living tradition, and appealing to the values of those stories, he
is offering his audience a place in which they can in fact live a good-life, while
embracing to the story of the Origin of Species.
98
Chapter 5
DISCUSSION
After the 1859 publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species came different instances
of audience reception. Although it is extremely difficult to account for true audience
reception of Darwin’s book during his time, some indications of audience reception exist
nonetheless. For instance, in a letter to Darwin, Charles Kingsley (2011), a clergyman
and author at Cambridge, said the following about Darwin’s work:
From two common superstitions, at least, I shall be free, while judging of
your book. 1) I have long since, from watching the crossing of
domesticated animals & plants, learnt to disbelieve the dogma of the
permanence of species. 2). I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as
noble a conception of Deity, to believe that he created primal forms
capable of self development into all forms needful pro tempore & pro
loco. (p. 1)
Kingsley’s (2011) response here seems to indicate that Darwin’s story was at least
partially successful in achieving a fit with his living tradition. Specifically, the story of
natural selection seems to have achieved fidelity with Kingsley (2011), in turn allowing
for an adherence to Darwin’s story, at least in part; this shows that some segment of the
audience was in fact awakening to and aware of the very tensions that led to Darwin’s
rejection of the prevailing narrative. Oppositely On the other hand, though, there are of
course other examples of audience reception that give a more mixed assessment, such as
that from Sedgwick (2011), a famous geologist from Darwin’s era:
99
As to your grand principle—natural selection—what is it but a secondary
consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts. Development is a
better word because more close to the cause of the fact. For you do not
deny causation. I call (in the abstract) causation the will of God: & I can
prove that He acts for the good of His creatures. He also acts by laws
which we can study & comprehend—Acting by law, & under what is
called final cause, comprehends, I think, your whole principle. You write
of “natural selection” as if it were done consciously by the selecting agent.
‘Tis but a consequence of the presupposed development, & the subsequent
battle for life. (p.1)
Sedgwick (2011), given his response above, has apparently made use of the strategic
ambiguity of Darwin’s depictions of natural selection and the origin of the variance in
species. That is, Sedgwick (2011) is interpreting the phenomenon of natural selection as
being governed by divine intervention, not random purposeless chance. Regardless, even
if Sedgwick (2011) is not fully adhering to Darwin’s story he is showing a small
occurrence of successful persuasion on the part of Darwin. This to Darwin (2011b) would
prove to be a small triumph, because, after all, the shaping of “thought is best promoted
by the gradual illumination of men's minds” (p. 1, emphasis added).
Sedgwick (2011) also comments on a tenet of Darwin’s story that he found to be
troublesome:
Lastly then, I greatly dislike the concluding chapter—not as a summary—
for in that light it appears good—but I dislike it from the tone of
100
triumphant confidence in which you appeal to the rising generation (in a
tone I condemned in the author of the Vestiges), & prophesy of things not
yet in the womb of time; nor, (if we are to trust the accumulated
experience of human sense & the inferences of its logic) ever likely to be
found any where but in the fertile womb of man’s imagination. (p.1)
Sedgwick (2011) is of course speaking about Darwin’s (1859) statement that “light will
be thrown on the origin of man” (p. 488). Obviously Sedgwick (2011) does not find
fidelity with Darwin’s portrayal of humans and their place in the natural ladder.
Sedgwick (2011) even equates Darwin’s work with that of Robert Chambers, the author
of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, the evolutionary book that failed
miserably 15 years before Darwin’s attempt in 1859 (Bowler, 1990). Thus, in the above
passage, adherence is not evident with Sedgwick (2011).
Even though gauging audience reception of an artifact that is over 250 years old is
quite difficult, one thing is certain, today in 2011, Darwin’s natural selection is known as
scientific fact. With this and the prior discussions and analysis in mind, a conclusion can
be drawn: that the persuasiveness of scientific claims, regardless of the facts, the
methods, and the objectivity employed, is subject to values. The good-life, whether it is
on the part of the individual or a living tradition, is composed of the stories that speak to
values. So, if a scientific claim is advanced, and that claim is contradictory to what it
means to live a rich and full life for an audience, that claim will yield less probability,
and ultimately less fidelity with an audience—the audience will find it much harder to
adhere to such a story. As such, in order to better invigorate “social conversation with
101
and about science” (Locke, 2002, p. 107) both rhetors of science and audiences must be
informed of “rhetorical techniques and strategies employed in the public’s understandings
of science” (Locke, 2002, p. 107).
This thesis has studied the rhetorical techniques and strategies employed by
Darwin in his attempts to negotiate the tensions between his personal conception of the
good-life and that of his living tradition. In so doing, this thesis has described Darwin’s
personal conception of the good-life and that of his living tradition. As a consequence it
has been found that in both of these visions there are different implications for what it
means to be the best person one can be. To Darwin, one strives to live a rich and full life
by knowing one’s place in nature. Conversely, in his living tradition one achieves a goodlife by understanding their place in the cosmos—not only nature, but the heavens too.
From here the stories of Darwin’s living tradition were retraced, with specific attention to
the story of the hidden purposes of a benevolent God and the great chain of being. Then
the contradictory and potentially volatile elements of Darwin’s theory of natural selection
as per their implications to the stories of his living tradition were discussed. From this it
was found that Darwin’s theory could be interpreted as a threat to the integrity of the
stories within his living tradition.
Aware of the unorthodox nature of his theory, Darwin attempted to frame it in
such a way as to play off of and tap into the stories of his living tradition so as to better
achieve probability and fidelity with his audience. From an analysis of the rhetorical
moves that Darwin employed to better fit his theory with his living tradition a conclusion
was drawn: Darwin’s consideration and sensitivity toward the stories of his living
102
tradition helped him to shape his ideas in such a way as yield more narrative probability
and fidelity with his audience.
It is hoped that the descriptions of Darwin’s good-life and his living tradition, and
how Darwin navigated the points of contention between his story and that of his living
tradition can be used hermeneutically to approach barriers of scientific communication
perched upon values. That is, in order for a public to make informed and rational
decisions they need to have all sides of the debate. This is difficult given the contents of
some scientific discussions. In order for a healthy democracy to be achieved, scientists
must be able to convey their findings to the public in such a way as to allow for that
public to understand, or “make sense” of them. On the other hand, to defend against
exploitations of their values, citizens need to be aware that public figures can shape
science with rhetoric. In this light, studying the stories of the good-life and their
relationship to scientific discourse can be carried on into future research.
There are certainly modern day occurrences of scientific understandings being
complicated by values. However, these instances differ from that of Darwin’s time in that
science is much more secular today. The separation of religion and science in the West
came directly after Darwin, and as a consequence, lead to a view of science that does not
necessarily deem it appropriate for dealings of morality. In other words, science is no
longer used to better understand the substance of God, just past the appearances. That
would be inappropriate. Instead, science is used to understand the empirical, the physical,
not the transcendent or the infinite. Today in 2011, science is generally used to describe
how something is, while philosophy is used to describe why that is—science talks about
103
things, not values. Regardless, in the face of this, topics such as abortion, stem cell
research, eugenics, and medical testing on animals are all subjects in the public sphere
riddled with values. Interestingly, although these topics are based on moral values they
tend to be argued from scientific platforms. It is this intermixing of the scientific with the
moral that analyses of the good-life and the narratives of a living tradition can be used to
break apart the rational and the valuative. Breaking these apart can help to get to the roots
of what it means to adhere to a scientific claim that could possibly undermine the stories
of what it means to be the best person one can be.
In the final analysis, Darwin’s conception of a rich and full life was contradictory
to that of his living tradition in fundamental ways. However, by being sensitive to the
stories of his living tradition and employing rhetorical moves that acknowledged them, he
was able to gain more audience adherence than the evolutionary theorists that wrote
before him. It is hoped that from this study the reader is able to take with them, useful
insights regarding science, values, and the stories that help make sense of the world; that,
like the species in Darwin’s story, scientists too, must adapt their findings to their
environments. In the end, there are no absolute conclusions, just those that allow room to
live a rich and full life.
104
REFERENCES
Abbott, H. P. (2003). Unnarratable knowledge: the difficulty of understanding evolution
by natural selection. In Narrative theory and the cognitive sciences (D. Herman,
Ed.). Stanford, CA: Center for the study of Language and Information.
Acot, P., Blandin, P., & Drouin, J. (1998). The European origins of scientific ecology
(1800-1901). Amsterdam: The Netherlands: Gordon and Breach Publishers.
Addison, J. (1840). No. 519, Saturday, October 25, 1712. In The spectator; complete in
one volume. London: Jones and Co.
Allen, G. (1885). Charles Darwin. New York: D. Appleton and Co.
Aristotle. (1934). Loeb classical library: Aristotle: Nicomachean ethics (H. Rackham,
Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Aristotle. (1952). Loeb classical library: Aristotle: The Eudemian ethics (H. Rackham,
Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Aristotle. (2004). Rhetoric. Retrieved from http://www2.iastate.edu/~honeyl/Rhetoric/
index.html
Aristotle. (2005). Aristotle’s history of animals. (H. G. Bohn, Trans.). Chestnut Hill, MA:
Adamant Media.
Aristotle. (2007). Aristotle: on rhetoric: a theory of civic discourse (2nd ed.) (G. A.
Kennedy, Trans.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Arnott, N. (1861). A survey of human progress: from the savage state to the highest
civilization yet attained. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts.
Bacon, F. (1857). The works of Francis Bacon (J. Spedding, Ed.). London: Longman and
105
Co.
Baumer, F. L. V. (1978). Main currents of western thought: readings in western
European intellectual history from the middle ages to the present. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
Boorstin, D. J. (1985). The discoverers: a history of man’s search to know his world and
himself. New York: Random House.
Bowler, P. J. (1990). Charles Darwin: the man and his influence. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Browne, J. (2002). Charles Darwin: the power of place. Princeton, NJ: Random House.
Browne, J. (2006). Darwin’s origin of species: a biography. New York: Atlantic Books.
Burckhardt, J. (1990). The civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. London: Penguin
Books.
Campbell, J. A. (1975). The polemical Mr. Darwin. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 61(4),
375-390.
Campbell, J. A. (1984). A rhetorical interpretation of history. Rhetorica: A Journal of the
History of Rhetoric, 2(3), 227-266.
Campbell, J. A. (1986). Scientific revolution and the grammar of culture: the case of
Darwin’s Origin. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 72(4), 531-376.
Campbell, J. A. (1997). Charles Darwin: rhetorician of science. In Landmark essays on
rhetoric of science: case studies (R. A. Harris ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
Campbell, J. A. (1990). On the way to the origin: Darwin’s evolutionary insight and its
106
rhetorical transformation. Evanston, IL: School of Speech at Northwestern
University.
Campbell, J. A. (2003). Why was Darwin believed? Darwin’s Origin and the problem of
intellectual revolution. Configurations, 11(2), 203-237.
Ceccarelli, L. (2001a). Shaping science with rhetoric: the cases of Dobzhansky,
Schrodinger, and Wilson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ceccarelli, L. (2001b). Rhetorical criticism and the rhetoric of science. Western Journal
of Communication, 65(3), 314-329.
Ceccarelli, L. (2005). Science and civil debate: the case of sociobiology. In Rhetoric and
incommensurability (R. A. Harris Ed.). West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press.
Costa, J. T. (Ed.). (2009). The annotated origin: A facsimile of the first edition of on the
origin of species. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Consigny, S. (1994). Rhetoric and its situations. In Landmark essays on rhetorical
invention and writing (R. E. Young and Y. Liu, Eds.). Davis, CA: Hermagoras
Press.
Cooper, J. M. & Cooper, J. M. (1986). Reason and human good in Aristotle. Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett Publishing.
Craig, E. (Ed.) (1998). Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy: volume 10. New York:
Routledge.
Crick, N. (2004). Conquering our imagination: thought experiments and enthymemes in
scientific argument. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 37(1), 21-41.
Crick, N. (2005). “A capital and novel argument”: Charles Darwin’s notebooks and the
107
productivity of rhetorical consciousness. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 91(4), 337364.
D’Andrea, T. D. (2006). Tradition, rationality, and virtue: the thought of Alasdair
MacIntyre. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing.
Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the
preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. London: John Murray.
Darwin, C. (1887). The life and letters of Charles Darwin (F. Darwin, Ed.). London: John
Murray, Albemarle Street.
Darwin, C. (1909). The foundations of the origin of species: two essays written in 1842
and 1844 (F. Darwin, Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Darwin, C. (1969). The autobiography of Charles Darwin (N. Barlow, Ed.). New York:
Norton
Darwin, C. (2003). The origin of species. London: Penguin Books.
Darwin, C. (2010a). The autobiography of Charles Darwin. London: Bibliolis books.
Darwin, C. (2010b). Notebook b, 1837-1838: entry 231. The Complete Work of Charles
Darwin Online. Retrieved from http://darwinonline.org.uk/content/frameset?
viewtype= side&itemID=CUL-DAR121.-&pageseq=234
Darwin, C. (2010c). Notebook b, 1837-1838: entry 232. The Complete Work of Charles
Darwin Online. Retrieved from http://darwinonline.org.uk/content/frameset?
viewtype=side&itemID=CUL-DAR121.-&pageseq=234
Darwin, C (2011a). Letter 2814: Darwin, C. R. to Gray, a. 22 May 1860. Darwin
Correspondence Project Database. Retrieved from http://www.darwinproject.ac.
108
uk/entry-2814
Darwin, C. (2011b). Letter 12757: Darwin, C. R. to Aveling, E. B. 13 October 1880.
Darwin Correspondence Project Database. Retrieved from http://www.darwin
project.ac.uk/entry-12757
Darwin, C. (2011c). Letter 5500: Darwin, C. R. to Haekel, E. 12 April 1867. Darwin
Correspondence Project Database. Retrieved from http://www.darwinproject.
ac.uk/entry-5500
Darwin, C. (2011d). Letter 76: Darwin, C. to Fox, W. D. 13 January 1830. Darwin
Correspondence Project Database. Retrieved from http://www.darwinproject.ac
.uk/ entry-76
Darwin, C. (2011e). Letter 2677: Darwin, C. R. to Arnott, N. 16 February 1860. Darwin
Correspondence Project Database. Retrieved from http://www.darwin
project.ac.uk/entry-2677
Darwin, C. (2011f). Letter 7924: Darwin, C. R. to Abbot, F. E. Darwin Correspondence
Project Database. Retrieved from http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-7924
Darwin, C. (2011g). Letter 2437—Darwin, C. R. to Lyell, C. 28 March 1859. Darwin
Correspondence Project Database. Retrieved from http://www.darwinproject
.ac.uk/entry- 2437
Darwin, C. (2011h). Letter 4065—Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. D. 29 March 1863.
Darwin Correspondence Project Database. Retrieved from http://www.
darwinproject.ac .uk /entry-4065
Desmond, A. & Moore, J. (1991). The life of a tormented evolutionist: Darwin. New
109
York: Warner Books.
Devettere, R. J. (2002). Introduction to virtue ethics: insights of the ancient Greeks.
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Dewey, J. (1910). The influence of Darwin on philosophy: and other essays in
contemporary thought. New York: Henry Holt.
Dewey, J. (1922). Human nature and conduct: an instruction to social psychology. New
York: Carlton House.
Dewey, J. (2008). The later works of John Dewey: Vol 2. (J. A. Boydston, Ed.).
Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Fahnestock, J. (1996). Series reasoning in scientific argument: incrementium and gradatio
and the case of Darwin. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 32(1), 13-40.
Farell, T. (1993). Norms of rhetorical culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Farnsworth, R. & Crismore, A. (1991). On the reefs: the verbal and visual rhetoric of
Darwin’s other big theory. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 21(2), 11-25.
Farrell, T. B. & Goodnight, G. T. (1981). Accidental rhetoric: The root metaphors of
Three Mile Island. Communications Monographs, 48, 271-300.
Fisher, W. R. (1978). Toward a logic of good reasons. The Quarterly Journal of Speech,
64, 376-384.
Fisher, W. R. (1984). Narration as human communication paradigm: the case of public
moral argument. Communication Monographs, 51(1), 1-22.
Fisher, W. (1985). The narrative paradigm: in the beginning. Journal of Communication,
35(Autumn), 74-89.
110
Fisher, W. R. (1987). Human communication as narration: toward a philosophy of
reason, value, and action. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
Fisher, W. R. (1988). The narrative paradigm and the interpretation and assessment of
historical texts. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 25, 49-53.
Fisher, W. R. (1989). Clarifying the narrative paradigm. Communication Monographs,
56(1), 55-58.
Fisher, W. (1994). Narrative rationality and the logic of scientific discourse.
Argumentation, 8, 21-24.
Foss, S. K. (2004). Rhetorical Criticism: exploration and practice (3rd ed.). Long Grove,
IL: Waveland Press.
Francis, K. (2007). Charles Darwin and The origin of species. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press.
Fuller. S. (1993). “Rhetoric of science”: a doubly vexed expression. Southern
Communication Journal, 58, 306-311.
Gaonkar, D. P. (1997). The idea of rhetoric in the rhetoric of science. In Rhetorical
hermeneutics: invention and interpretation in the age of science (A. G. Gross &
W. M. Keith). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Garin, E. (1965). Italian humanism: philosophy and civic life in the renaissance (P.
Munz, Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Gross, A. G. (1996). The rhetoric of science (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Gross, A. G. (1997). On the shoulders of giants: seventeenth-century optics as an
111
argument field. In Landmark essays on rhetoric of science: case studies (R. A.
Harris Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Gross, A. G. & Gurak, L. J. (2005). Guest editor’s introduction. Technical
Communication Quarterly, 14(3), 241-247.
Gunn, A. M. (2004). Evolution and creationism in the public schools: a handbook for
educators. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.
Haack, S. (2003). Defending science—within reason: between science and cynicism. New
York: Prometheus.
Halloran, M. S. (1984). The birth of molecular biology: an essay in the rhetorical
criticism of scientific discourse. Rhetoric Review, 3(1), 70-83.
Harris, R. A. (2005a). Reception studies in the rhetoric of science. Technical
Communication Quarterly, 14(3), 249.
Harris, R. A. (2005b). Introduction. In Rhetoric and incommensurability (R. A. Harris
Ed.). West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press.
Hauser, G. & Blair, C. (1982). Rhetorical antecedents to the public. Pre/Text, 3, 139-167.
Hegel, G.W.F. (2005). The phenomenology of mind: volume II (J.B. Baillie, Trans.). New
York: Cosimo Inc.
Heinaman, R. (1993). Rationality, eudaimonia, and kakodaimonia in Aristotle. Phronesis,
38(1), 31-56.
Hicks, D. L., Brandenburg, D. J., & Gay, P. (1969). (2nd ed.). Lexington, MA: D. C.
Heath and Co.
Houghton, W. E. (1957). The Victorian frame of mind, 1830-1870. Newhaven, CT: Yale
112
University Press.
Hume, D. (1888). A treatise on human nature (L. A. Selby-Bigge, Ed.). Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Hume, D. (1902). David Hume: an inquiry concerning the principles of morals (L.A.
Selby-Bigge, Ed.). London: Oxford University Press.
Hursthouse, R. (2010). Virtue ethics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of
philosophy (Spring 2009 ed.). Retrieved from http//plato.stanford.edu/
archives/win2010/entries/ethics-virtue/
Huxely, J. (2003). Introduction. In C. Darwin, The origin of species (pp. x-xviii).
London: Penguin Books.
Journet, D. (2009). The resources of ambiguity: context, narrative, and metaphor in
Richard Dawkin’s the selfish gene. Journal of Business and Technical
Communication, 24, 29-59. doi: 10.1177/1050651909346930
Kennedy, K. A. R. (1985). The dawn of evolutionary theory. In What Darwin began (L.
R. Godfrey Ed.). Newton, MA: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.
Kerferd, G. B. (1981). The Sophistic movement. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University
Press.
Kingsley, C. (2011). Letter 2534: Kingsley, Charles to Darwin, C. R. 18 November 1859.
Darwin Correspondence Project Database. Retrieved from http://www.darwin
project.ac.uk/entry-2534
Kristeller, P. O. (1979). Renaissance thought and its sources. New York: Columbia
University Press.
113
Law, E. (Ed.). (1758). An essay on the origin of evil. London: Cambridge.
Leff, M. (1997). The idea of rhetoric as interpretive practice: a humanist’s response to
Gaonkar. In Rhetorical hermeneutics:invention and interpretation in the age of
science (A. G. Gross & W. M. Keith). Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press.
Lightman, B. (1997). Victorian science in context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Locke, D. M. (1992). Science as writing. Chelsea, MI: Yale University
Locke, J. (1824). The works of John Locke in nine volumes: Vol. 1. London: C. Baldwin.
Locke, S. (2002). The public understanding of science—a rhetorical invention. Science,
Technology, & Human Values, 27(1), 87-111.
Lyne, J. & Howe, H. F. (1986). “Punctuated equilibria”: rhetorical dynamics of a
scientific controversy. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 72, 132-147.
Lyne, J. (1990). Bio-rhetorics: moralizing the life sciences. In The rhetorical turn:
invention and persuasion in the conduct of inquiry (H. W. Simons Ed.). Chicago,
IL: The University of Chicago Press.
MacIntyre, A. C. (1981). After virtue: a study in moral theory. Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press.
Morton, A. (2004). Philosophy in practice: an introduction to the main questions (2nd
ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Naurert, C. G. (1995). Humanism and the culture of Renaissance Europe. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
114
Owen, R. (1849). On the nature of limbs: a discourse. London: John Van Voorst,
Paternoster Row.
Packard, A. S. (1901). Lamarck, the founder of evolution: his life and work. Astor Place,
NY: Longmans, Green, and CO.
Paley, W. (1802). Natural theology: or, evidences of the existence and attributes of the
deity (2nd ed.). London: Taylor and Wilks, Chancery-Lane.
Parsons, G. & Moore, J. R. (1997). Religion in Victorian Britain: controversies. New
York, NY: Manchester University Press.
Paul, D., Charney, D., & Kendall, A. (2001). Moving beyond the moment: reception
studies in the rhetoric of science. Journal of Business Communication, 15(3), 72399.
Peirce, C. (1998). The essential Peirce: selected philosophical writings. (Peirce Edition
Project Ed.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Perelman, C. & Olbrechts-Tyteca. (1969). The new rhetoric: a treatise on argumentation
(J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver, Trans.). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press.
Perutz, M. F. (1995, December 21). The pioneer defended. The New York Review of
Books. Retrieved from http://www.nybooks.com
Pfau, M. W. (2005). Evaluating conspiracy: narrative, argument, and ideology in
Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech. Argumentation & Advocacy, 42, 57-73.
Phillips, J. (1970). Exploring the scriptures: an overview of the Bible from Genesis to
Revelation. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.
115
Porter, M. J., Larson, D. L., Harthcock, A., & Nellis, B. (2002). Re(de)fining narrative
events: examining television narrative structure. Journal of Popular Film &
Television, 30(1), 23-31.
Powell, B. (1856). The unity of worlds and of nature: three essays (2nd ed.). London:
Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts.
Prelli, L. J. (1989). A rhetoric of science: inventing scientific discourse. Columbia, SC:
University of South Carolina.
Prelli, L. J. (1990). Rhetorical logic and the integration of rhetoric and science.
Communication Monographs, 57, 315-322.
Prelli, L. J. (2001). Topical perspective and the rhetorical grounds of practical reason in
arguments about science. In Science communication in theory and practice (S.
Staklmayer Ed.). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Putnam, R. A. (1988). Reciprocity and virtue ethics. Ethics, 98, 379-389.
Redick, K. & Underwood, L. (2007). Rationality and narrative: a relationship of priority.
Philosophy and Rhetoric, 40(4), 394-405.
Rohmann, C. (1999). A world of ideas: a dictionary of important theories, concepts,
beliefs, and thinkers. New York: Random House.
Rolbiecki, J. J. (1921). The political philosophy of Dante Alighieri. (Doctoral
dissertation). Washington, DC: Salve Regina Press.
Rowland, R. C. (1987). Narrative: mode of discourse or paradigm? Communication
Monographs, 54, 264-275.
Ruse, M. (1989). The Darwinian paradigm: essays on its history, philosophy, and
116
religious implications. New York: Routledge.
Ruse, M. (1999). The Darwinian revolution: science red in tooth and claw. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Schamber, J. F. & Stroud, S. R. (2001). Mystical anti-Semitism and the Christian identity
movement: a narrative criticism of Dan Gayman’s The Two Seeds of Genesis
3:15. Journal of Communication and Religion, 24(2), 175-201.
Sedgwick, A. (2011). Letter 2548: Sedgick, Adam to Darwin, C. R. 24 November 1859.
Darwin Correspondence Project Database. Retrieved from http://www.darwin
project.ac.uk /entry-2548
Scott, E. C. (2004). Evolution vs. creationism: an introduction. Los Angeles: University
of California Press
Scott, R. L. (1967). On viewing rhetoric as epistemic. Central States Speech Journal, 18,
9-16.
Scott, R. L. (1976). On viewing rhetoric as epistemic: ten years later. Central States
Speech Journal, 18, 9-16.
Segal, J. Z. (2007). Breast cancer narratives as public rhetoric: genre itself and the
maintenance of ignorance. Linguistics & the Human Sciences, 3(1), 3-23. doi:
10.1558/lhs.v3i1.3
Simpson, P (2001). Vices, virtues, and consequences: essays in moral and political
philosophy. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.
Simpson, G. G. (1967). (Rev. ed.). The meaning of evolution: a study of the history of life
and the significance for man. Fredericksburg, VA: Yale University.
117
Toulmin, S. (1958). The uses of argument. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Warnick, B. (1987). The narrative paradigm: another story. Quarterly Journal of Speech,
73, 172-182.
Wedgwood. E. (2011). Letter 441-Wedgwood, Emma (Darwin, Emma) to Darwin, C. R.
21-22 November 1838. Darwin Correspondence Project Database. Retrieved from
http:// www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-441
Whalley, G. (2003). Whalley and recent study of the poetics. In Aristotle’s poetics (G.
Walley trans.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Whewell, W. (1833). The Bridgewater treatises: on the power wisdom and goodness of
God as manifested in the creations: Treatise III: Astronomy and general physics
considered with reference to natural Theology (2nd ed.). London: William
Pickering.
White, J. B. (1987). The arts of cultural and communal life. In The rhetoric of the human
sciences: language and argument in scholarship and public affairs, J. S. Nelson,
A. Megill, & N. D. McCloskey (eds.). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin
Press.
Wilson, J. & Reill, P. H. (2004). Encyclopedia of the enlightenment (Rev. ed.). New
York: Book Builders Inc.
Woodstock, L. (2006). All about me, I mean, you: the trouble with narrative authority in
self-help literature. The Communication Review, 9, 321-346.
Wynn, J. (2009). Arithmetic of the species: Darwin and the role of mathematics in his
argumentation. Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric, 27(1), 76-97.
118
Young, C. (2005). Contemporary native American rhetoric: a narrative criticism of the
Cherokee rally. Texas Speech Communication Journal, 29(2), 131-141.
Young, M. A. (2005). Negotiating the good life: Aristotle and the civil society.
Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing.