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Romanticism and Rationalism Romanticism began in the mid-18th century and
reached its height in the 19th century. The Romantic literature of the
nineteenth century holds in its topics the ideals of the time period,
concentrating on emotion, nature, and the expression of nothing. The Romantic
era was one that focused on the commonality of humankind and, while using
emotion and nature; the poets and their works shed light on people's universal
natures. Romanticism as a movement declined in the late 19th century and early
20th century with the growing dominance of Realism in the literature and the
rapid advancement of science and technology. However, Romanticism was very
impressionative on most individuals during its time. Rationalism or Realism was
erected during the mid 19th century. Realism are ideas that are brought up in
philosophical thinking. The realistic movement of the late 19th century saw
authors accurately depict life and it's problems. Realists attempted to give a
comprehensive picture of modern life by presenting the entire picture.
They did
not try to give one view of life but instead attempted to show the different
classes, manners, and stratification of life. The Rationalist recognizes that
they must master their own destiny, using their unique powers of reason and the
scientific method to solve problems. Such authors that represent these two eras
are Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William Wordsworth and Charles
Darwin. Romantics believed that one needed to understand nature to understand
oneself. In other words, only through nature could one discover who they are.
Emerson shows this in his writing called Nature. In the exert …man beholds
somewhat as beautiful as his own nature. This depicts Emerson's feelings toward
nature; view nature as you view yourself. If one views nature as caring and
compassionate, one will also see themselves as caring and compassionate.
Similarly if you understand nature you will know yourself better. As one gains
wisdom from nature, one begins to realize that understanding is a gate way to
the divine as well as to oneself. Other writers also agreed with this notion of
nature. In the essay Walden by Thoreau, Thoreau had left society to move into a
shelter outside of his town. By living on only the necessities he lived his life
as simple as he could, thus finding the divine within himself. By being separate
from society and being one with yourself are the only ways one can find the
divine. Thoreau felt by doing this society would have a harder time to mold him
into what it wanted him to think.
Thoreau left a life of luxury for voluntary
poverty. Even though he was poorer in his outward riches he was wealthy in his
inward riches. A good number of romantic views of Nature suggested using Nature
as ones tool to learn. This is evident in William Wordsworth's poem The Tables
Turned. In the poem The Tables Turned Wordsworth states to quit your books [for
it is] a dull and endless strife[;] enough of Science; close up those barren
leaves. Wordsworth believed piece that books were useless to learn from. He
believed that we should Let Nature be [our] Teacher [for it]…may teach you more
of man [and] moral good and evil[, more] than all the sages can. Wordsworth
agreed with the previous notion that to understand the divine and oneself, they
must first start with understanding Nature. This View of studying Nature is
taken one step further by Charles Darwin. Perhaps the most appealing quality of
Darwin's work was that it accounted for phenomenon in a purely naturalistic
manner. It was the most scientific explanation yet, completely removing the
supernatural explanation, and setting him apart from the theorists before him.
The major unsettled scientific question of Darwin's Theory was be in regards to
natural selection as the mechanism for change, which became the issue among the
general public as well. It took several years for the idea of natural selection
to become accepted within the scientific community. Darwin's work was not
immediately accepted as science. In a sense, he was revolutionary, not just for
proposing an explanation of evolution that removed the supernatural element, but
also for the fact that he was able to present his ideas to the scientific
community in an unconventional manner, through speculative thought. The
essential idea in Darwinian evolutionary thought is that species are not
immutable.
The prevailing assumption prior to Darwin was that species were
immutable ( i.e. fixed in their characteristics). This idea was held in
opposition to the evidence that humans had been doing selective breeding on
cattle, horses, birds, fruit and cereal crops for millennia. It was held for
perhaps two distinct reasons. The first was the fact that in spite of centuries
of breeding - cattle, horses, birds, etc. retained their 'essential'
characteristics. Cattle did not become fish and horses did not become snakes.
The characteristics which breeders could modify were seen as inessential and
incapable of transforming one species in to another.. The second reason was the
Bible. Species were equated with the kinds mentioned in Genesis and it was
simply assumed that only God could create new species. If Darwin's hypothesis
was true, then the Bible must be an unbearable fiction. Darwin's theory required
people to disbelieve the authoritative word of the Creator. Every idea of the
Holy Scriptures, from the first to the last page stood in diametrical opposition
to the Darwinian theory. Many people of the time strongly felt that the idea of
creation belongs to religion and not to natural science. The whole
superstructure of personal religion was built on the doctrine of creation. The
rationalist attitude is characterized by the importance it attaches to argument
and experience. But neither logical argument nor experience can establish the
rationalist attitude; for only those who are ready to consider argument and
experience, and who have therefore adopted this stance already are likely to be
impressed by them. In other words, a rationalist stance must first be adopted if
any argument or experience is to be effective, and it cannot therefore be based
upon argument or experience. No rational argument will have a rational effect on
somebody who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.
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