The Recurrence of the Evolutionary Epic
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In his 1978 On Human Nature, Edward Wilson defined the evolutionary epic as the scientific story of all life, a linear narrative beginning with the big bang and ending with the story of human history. Since that time several popular science writers have attempted to write that story of life producing such titles as The Universe Story (1992)and The Epic of Evolution (2006). Historians have also gotten into the act under the guise of “Big History,” which has resulted in a series of monographs and is taught at several universities and high schools throughout the world. While the evolutionary epic is often presented as a novel way of bringing the historical insights of modern science into a narrative form that transcends the humanities–natural science divide, the genre itself originates in the nineteenth century, just as new geological and cosmic timescales were being established and new sciences such as biology and anthropology were being formalized. Several German Naturphilosophen and Victorian naturalists imagined the history of life as one, as a “Cosmos,” and produced evolutionary epics that bare significant similarities with their more modern counterparts. By considering the various recurrences of the evolutionary epic, from its origins in early German Romanticism and Victorian naturalism to the degeneration narratives of the fin de siècle and on to the Wilsonian and Big History versions of the late twentieth century and beyond, this essay seeks to map out a shared intellectual genealogy while examining the genre’s conceptual commonalities. What is perhaps most compelling about the history of the genre is the striking persistence of non-Darwinian forms of evolution that are utilized to situate the emergence of humanity in these epic narratives of life.
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1
D. Christian, “The Case for ‘Big History,’ ” Journal of World History, 2, no. 2 (1991), 223–238.
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2
This is the argument of D. Christian, “The Return of Universal History,” History and Theory 49 (December 2010), 6–27.
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4
I. Hesketh, “The Story of Big History,” History of the Present 4, no. 2 (Fall 2014), 172–202.
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5
E. O. Wilson, On Human Nature (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1978), 192.
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6
B. Swimme and T. Berry, The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era – A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos (New York: HarperCollins, 1992); L. Rue, Everybody’s Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution (Albany: suny Press, 2000); and E. Chaisson, Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).
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7
Christian, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (2004; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011); C. S. Brown, Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present (New York: The New Press, 2007); and F. Spier, Big History and the Future of Humanity (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).
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9
R. J. Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
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12
Herder quoted in Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life, 223.
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13
R. J. Richards, The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin’s Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); and P. J. Bowler, “The Changing Meaning of Evolution,” Journal of the History of Ideas 36 (1975), 95–114.
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17
Ibid., 79–80.
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18
Ibid., 55.
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19
Ibid., 61.
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20
Ibid., 73.
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22
Ibid., 37.
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23
Ibid., 25.
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24
Ibid., 24–25.
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25
Ibid., 80.
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26
Ibid., 50.
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27
[R. Chambers], Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (London: John Churchill, 1844), 386.
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28
Ibid., 203–204.
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31
In 1860, for instance, the Origin sold about 5,000 copies whereas Vestiges sold roughly 25,000 copies. See the comparative chart in Secord, Victorian Sensation, 526.
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34
W. Reade to C. Darwin, 19 May 1868, Darwin Correspondence Database, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-6186 (accessed 8 October 2013).
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35
Darwin to Reade, 21 May 1868, Darwin Correspondence Database, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-6754 (accessed on 8 October 2013).
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36
Reade to Darwin, 12 September 1871, Charles Darwin Papers, University Library, Cambridge (hereafter cited as Darwin Papers), 176: 47.
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37
Reade to Darwin, 15 September 1871, Darwin Papers, 176: 48.
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38
Reade to Darwin, 18 September 1871, Darwin Papers 176: 49.
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39
W. Reade, Martyrdom of Man (London: Trübner, & Co., 1872), 521–522.
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40
Ibid., 523.
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41
Ibid., 513.
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42
Ibid., 394.
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43
Ibid., 513.
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44
See, for instance, G. Myers, “Nineteenth-Century Popularizations of Thermodynamics and the Rhetoric of Social Prophecy,” Victorian Studies 29, no. 1 (1985), 36–66.
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47
E. R. Lankester, Degeneration: A Chapter in Darwinism (London: Macmillan, 1880), 36.
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48
Ibid., 45.
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49
Ibid., 45–46.
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50
Ibid., 33.
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51
Ibid., 212.
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52
Ibid., 59–60.
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53
Ibid., 60–61.
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54
Ibid., 61–62.
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64
Ibid., 197.
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67
Ibid., 243.
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68
Ibid., 249.
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69
Ibid., 2–3.
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74
Ibid., 302.
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75
Ibid., 300.
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The Recurrence of the Evolutionary Epic
In: Journal of the Philosophy of HistorySearch for other papers by Ian Hesketh in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
In his 1978 On Human Nature, Edward Wilson defined the evolutionary epic as the scientific story of all life, a linear narrative beginning with the big bang and ending with the story of human history. Since that time several popular science writers have attempted to write that story of life producing such titles as The Universe Story (1992)and The Epic of Evolution (2006). Historians have also gotten into the act under the guise of “Big History,” which has resulted in a series of monographs and is taught at several universities and high schools throughout the world. While the evolutionary epic is often presented as a novel way of bringing the historical insights of modern science into a narrative form that transcends the humanities–natural science divide, the genre itself originates in the nineteenth century, just as new geological and cosmic timescales were being established and new sciences such as biology and anthropology were being formalized. Several German Naturphilosophen and Victorian naturalists imagined the history of life as one, as a “Cosmos,” and produced evolutionary epics that bare significant similarities with their more modern counterparts. By considering the various recurrences of the evolutionary epic, from its origins in early German Romanticism and Victorian naturalism to the degeneration narratives of the fin de siècle and on to the Wilsonian and Big History versions of the late twentieth century and beyond, this essay seeks to map out a shared intellectual genealogy while examining the genre’s conceptual commonalities. What is perhaps most compelling about the history of the genre is the striking persistence of non-Darwinian forms of evolution that are utilized to situate the emergence of humanity in these epic narratives of life.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1518 | 596 | 59 |
| Full Text Views | 249 | 6 | 4 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 119 | 10 | 5 |
