The intellectual world view of the 19th Century
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The intellectual world view of the nineteenth century, particularly perhaps in England, was largely shaped by the science of the era not so much the specific findings of science as the attitudes towards the world and reality in general which at once gave rise to that science and were in turn reinforced by the successes of science. In this chapter it is argued that the world view of the nineteenth century novel closely paralleled the world view of nineteenth century scientists. In particular, it will be argued that novelists of this era tended toward an attitude which can be characterized as moral physics. That is, they held first that moral laws operated in much the same way that Newton's laws of planetary motions and the laws of thermodynamics were: by patterns of action and reaction; and second, that these laws could be observed and their workings determined through objective experiment. Three novels are considered in this chapter as exemplars of the philosophy of moral physics in action. In George Eliot's Adam Bede (1968; orig. pub. 1859) the laws of moral action and reaction are shown to be the logical basis of what may be called conventional morality, and these scientific laws of behavior are shown in operation in a strikingly clearcut way. Seduction, we discover, is not simply a moral sin; it is behavior which leads by natural consequence to an unfortunate outcome. In Robert Louis Stevenson's young readers' classic, Treasure Island (1989; orig. pub. 1883) t
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tier the little huzzy behaved, the prettier she looked." Arthur, likewise, lacks moral substance (pp. 106 7).
In the novel, moral deflection is represented in part as actual physical motion: Arthur, dreaming of military glory, leaves for the army, and Hetty leaves in search of him. This physical deflection symbolizes the moral deflection that has already occured. Hetty, engaged to Adam, lacked the moral mass to resist deflection by the attractive field produced by Arthur, and Arthur is likewise morally deflected by Hetty's presence. Like over light billiards balls, once struck, they fly off across both the moral and physical billiards tables, with disasterous consequences for both.
Hetty's lack of moral mass is so pronounced that, even after admitting her guilt in abandoning her child she ends up caroming out of England entirely: She is sentenced to "transportation," that is, exile to a prison colony such as Australia. In contrast, Arthur ultimately acquires moral mass through accepting self exile in the army, no longer dreaming of glory (pp. 390 94). Indeed, his experience in the army is one of sickness without glory (p. 448). He becomes a sadder but wiser (and, perhaps, somewhat weightier) man, and can
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Approximate Word count = 2963
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)
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