Naturalism Research Paper
English 4
5 April 2013
Naturalism
The rise of the violent and radical Montagnards signaled an important moment in British, American, and French social thought. The late eighteenth century had been characterized by optimism, progressivism, rationalism, and secularism. The violent over-throw of the French Revolution and the increasing disorder and poverty of urban life in England, led to a retreat from these values. The result was a revival of religion and deep questioning of the notion of progress. There had been advances in technology and for many the standard of living had improved. However, the French Revolution and turbulence among the British lower classes suggested that optimism for humanity's future might not be justified. Clearly, …show more content…
Explorers' accounts of the flora and fauna of new lands challenged the biblical view of life, which had been based largely on the book of Genesis and the story of the flood. Long before Darwin, naturalists were confronted with different plants and animals that could not be explained in biblical terms. Scholars also struggled to explain evidence of human antiquity that did not correspond to biblical chronologies. This evidence became more widely available in the early nineteenth century as large-scale, engineering projects, such as the construction of canal and railroad systems, exposed fossils, and human artifacts to the study of naturalists and geologists. Scientists were confronted with questions such as why objects made by humans were found in association with extinct …show more content…
The publication by the English biological naturalist Charles Darwin of the Origin of Species in 1859 provided biology with its fundamental theory of natural selection: that all species have been derived from a common, single-cell ancestor by a process of random mutation and differential reproductive success (Darwin). In conjunction with the development of modern genetics, Darwin’s theory unified the life sciences with the rest of the natural sciences and ended the need to use supernatural causes in order to explain the order and diversity of nature. Then, as now, Darwin’s theory of evolution was viewed by the popular culture as a threat to certain religiously inspired beliefs, most centrally the belief that the fact and nature of human existence is explained by the purposes of a
5 April 2013
Naturalism
The rise of the violent and radical Montagnards signaled an important moment in British, American, and French social thought. The late eighteenth century had been characterized by optimism, progressivism, rationalism, and secularism. The violent over-throw of the French Revolution and the increasing disorder and poverty of urban life in England, led to a retreat from these values. The result was a revival of religion and deep questioning of the notion of progress. There had been advances in technology and for many the standard of living had improved. However, the French Revolution and turbulence among the British lower classes suggested that optimism for humanity's future might not be justified. Clearly, …show more content…
Explorers' accounts of the flora and fauna of new lands challenged the biblical view of life, which had been based largely on the book of Genesis and the story of the flood. Long before Darwin, naturalists were confronted with different plants and animals that could not be explained in biblical terms. Scholars also struggled to explain evidence of human antiquity that did not correspond to biblical chronologies. This evidence became more widely available in the early nineteenth century as large-scale, engineering projects, such as the construction of canal and railroad systems, exposed fossils, and human artifacts to the study of naturalists and geologists. Scientists were confronted with questions such as why objects made by humans were found in association with extinct …show more content…
The publication by the English biological naturalist Charles Darwin of the Origin of Species in 1859 provided biology with its fundamental theory of natural selection: that all species have been derived from a common, single-cell ancestor by a process of random mutation and differential reproductive success (Darwin). In conjunction with the development of modern genetics, Darwin’s theory unified the life sciences with the rest of the natural sciences and ended the need to use supernatural causes in order to explain the order and diversity of nature. Then, as now, Darwin’s theory of evolution was viewed by the popular culture as a threat to certain religiously inspired beliefs, most centrally the belief that the fact and nature of human existence is explained by the purposes of a