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George Henry Lewes' Evolutionism In The Fiction Of George Eliot
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George Henry Lewes' Evolutionism In The Fiction Of George Eliot
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GEORGE HENRY LEW ES* EVOLUTIONISM
IN THE FICTION OF GEORGE ELIOT
by
Stew art M artin Hudson
A D is s e rta tio n P resented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In P a r t i a l F u lfillm e n t of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(E nglish)
August 1970
I
I
71-12,394
HUDSON, Stew art M artin, 1929-
G E O R G E H E N R Y LEW ES' EVOLUTIONISM IN T H E
FICTION OF G E O R G E ELIOT.
U n iv e r sity o f Southern C a lifo r n ia , Ph.D., 1970
Language and L ite r a tu r e , modern
University Microfilms, A X E R O X Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan
C o p y rig h t O by
ST E W A R T M A R T IN HUDSON
1971
THIS DISSERTATION H A S BEEN M ICRO FILM ED EX A C T L Y AS RECEIVED
UNIVERSITY O F SO UTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALI FORNIA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, written by
................... Stew.axt..Max*ijx.HudbB.cm.......................
under the direction of his Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The Gradu
ate School, in partial fulfillment of require
ments of the deyree of
D O C T O R OF P H I L O S O P H Y
' 7 t ?‘
......
Dean
Date A u g .u a t.19. 7.0............
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Uma...th k h r j j i a , > .....
A > , / ^ Chainnftn I
CONTENTS
Chapter
I . THE M ONISM OF GEORGE HENRY LEW ES A N D GEORGE
ELIOT .......................................................................................
I I . LEWES' EVOLUTIONARY PHILOSOPHY ............................
! I I I . LEWES1 EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY ............................
i
i IV. LEWES' EVOLUTIONISM A N D THE FICTION OF GEORGE
| ELIOT .......................................................................................
V. THE EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY IN THE FICTION OF
GEORGE ELIOT .....................................................................
VI. GRANDCOURT— -THE EXEM PLAR OF THE RUDIM ENTARY
ORGANISM ..............................................................................
V II. LEWES' PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINISM--WILL A N D
HABIT .......................................................................................
V III. THE GENERAL MIND ............................................................
BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................
CHAPTER I
THE M ONISM OF GEORGE H EN RY
LEW ES A N D GEORGE ELIOT
I
Even a s u p e r f ic ia l reading of George Henry Lewes'
f i c t i o n a l works w ill a ssu re us th a t the novels of h is more
famous companion, George E l i o t , could not have been in any
i
[ s ig n if ic a n t degree the product of h is l i t e r a r y v e n t r i l o
quism. Indeed, Lewes was w ell aware of h is d e fic ie n c ie s as
a n o v e li s t , as we might expect of a w rite r whose re p u ta tio n
p rim a rily su rv iv e s fo r our g en eratio n in l i t e r a r y c r itic is m ,
in s o fa r as i t does su rvive as more than a dim r e f le c tio n of
Marian E van's l u s t e r . He p re fa c e s h is f i r s t n o v e l, Ran-
thorne (18^3)* w ith a d if f id e n t explanation of " c e r ta in
f a u l t s of c o n stru c tio n and s in s a g a in s t l ' a r t de c o n te r ."
and c lo ses the n a rra tio n w ith a somewhat p re s c ie n t apology:
Were mine a fe m a le 's pen, I would d e lig h t you with
a minute and v ivacious account of the whole [wedding]
ceremony, d re sse s and a l l . I would t e l l you how every
one behaved, from the b rid e down to the pew-opener. I
would in tro d u ce you to the b r e a k f a s t, and i t s e x h ila r a
tin g f e s t i v i t y . In a word, I would place befo re you,
im aginative re a d e r, a l l th a t I must now leave to your
im ag in atio n . But my pen has no such power."*
^ (New York, 1881), p. 321*. (H e re in a fte r r e f e r r e d to
as Ran.)
1
2
Lewes' e v a lu a tio n of h is f i c t i o n a l works i s even more
se v e re , when, n ear the end of h is c a r e e r , he r e p l i e s to
|W illiam Blackwood's pro p o sal th a t two of h is e a r l i e r works
be re p r in te d .
1 cannot have any o b je c tio n to the proposed honor of
r e p r in tin g my two l i t t l e s t o r i e s , but I have the stro n g e s t
o b je c tio n to avowing t h e i r a u th o rs h ip , as I have so long
seen th a t F ic tio n i s n o t my F o rte ; and moreover the w r ite r
of heavy p h ilo s o p h ic a l works ought not to appear in p u b lic
as a w r ite r of l i g h t t a l e s . 2
Not only a re George E l i o t 's c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s tr e n g th s —
!concrete d e s c r ip tiv e power, rounded c h a r a c te r iz a tio n s , be-
i
lie v a b le d ia lo g u e , and dram atic i n t e n s i t y —la rg e ly lack in g
in the f ic tio n of Lewes, b u t where she i s sometimes weak, he
i s uniform ly lu d ic ro u s . Where she i s d id a c tic he i s dead-
en ingly c e r e b r a l, and where she i s se n tim e n ta l he i s p ain
f u lly m elodram atic and mawkish. F urtherm ore, where she o f
ten c re a te s liv in g v a ria tio n s on common l i t e r a r y ty p es— the
pedant, the c o q u e tte , the s e lf -in d u lg e n t bounder—he c re a te s
only a c r i t i c ' s a b s tr a c t p re c is of the same s te re o ty p e s .
S t i l l , when we have f u lly recognized Lewes' c re a tiv e
d e fic ie n c ie s and have given due weight to h is companion's
unique c re a tiv e f a c u lty , i t may be th a t th e re has been a
tendency to underestim ate Lewes' i n d ir e c t c o n trib u tio n to
the f i c t io n of George E l i o t . The e v alu atio n of in flu e n c e s
i s , of c o u rse, among the most problem atic and la b y rin th in e
2
The George E lio t L e t t e r s , ed. Gordon S. Haight (New
Haven, 1955), v l l , i+3 • 17 J u ly , 1878. (H e re in a fte r r e
fe rre d to as L e t t e r s . )
3
of c r i t i c a l ta s k s . There i s , m oreover, a n a tu r a l tendency—
a tendency of which both Lewes and George E lio t h e a rte d ly
i
disapproved—to unconsciously d e n ig ra te only s l i g h t l y i n
f e r i o r contemporary accomplishments in g iv in g j u s t re c o g n i
tio n to the a d m itte d ly su p e rio r achievem ents of "g e n iu s."
So, i t i s p re d ic ta b le th a t the v e r s a t i l e Lewes' s o lid Vic
to ria n re p u ta tio n as l i t e r a r y and dram atic c r i t i c , p h y sio l
o g i s t , p h ilo so p h e r, b io g ra p h e r, and "th e p rin ce of J o u rn a l
i s t s " ^ should have sunk in the p re se n t time to th a t of the
js h ie ld in g , sym pathetic companion of a p e rs o n a lly and p ro -
j
f e s s io n a lly d if f id e n t George E li o t . Bernard P a r is , in h is
1963 volume, Experim ents in L i f e .^ has gone some d ista n c e
in evening the balance by showing th a t the p h ilo s o p h ic a l
framework from which George E lio t works corresponds in i t s
g e n e ra l o u tlin e s to the philosophy of Lewes. The burden of
my work i s to f u r th e r encourage a more evenhanded e v alu atio n
of Lewes' in flu e n c e on George E lio t by a clo se study of the
p h ilo s o p h ic a l, s c i e n t i f i c , and a e s th e tic d o c trin e s and the
|c o n c re te f i c t i o n a l p r a c tic e of Lewes, no tin g any s ig n if ic a n t
p a ra lle lis m s w ith the th eo ry or p r a c tic e of George E lio t.
I t i s , of co u rse, n ecessary to approach such a ta s k w ith
due c a u tio n , b earin g in mind th a t where two w r ite r s are
^F ran cis E sp in asse , L ite ra ry R e c o lle c tio n s and Sketches
(New York, 1893), p. 282.
D e t r o i t , 1965.
working in a common t r a d i ti o n and m ilie u the in flu e n c e s may
be derived n o t from each o th e r , b ut from th a t shared l i t e r
ary environm ent. So i t i s not s u r p r is in g , fo r example,
th a t M eredith Vynor of Lewes* 18if8 n o v e l, Rose. B lanche,
and V i o l e t . " i s somewhat rem in iscen t of the s tu f f y pedant
of Middlemarch. I t would be alm ost su p erero g ato ry to
p o in t out th a t we would n o t be j u s t i f i e d in c a llin g Casau-
bon the progeny of Vynor u n le ss we could id e n tif y t r a i t s
unique to th ese two c h a r a c te r iz a tio n s which were n o t shared
jw ith the o th e r members of t h i s a n c ie n t and numerous l i t e r
ary fam ily , the p ed an ts. And even then the s ig n ific a n c e of
the correspondence would be lim ite d i f the t r a i t s not held
in common were q u a n tita tiv e ly or q u a li t a t iv e l y more impor
ta n t than those which were held in common.^
In tra c in g in flu e n c e s in the p re se n t case th e re i s
an other equivocal and f i n a l l y n o t t o t a l l y re s o lv a b le e l e
ment: the p o s s i b i l i t y th a t in flu e n c e may work both ways.
Even when i t has been e s ta b lis h e d th a t a d o c trin e i s held
in common by Lewes and George E li o t we cannot always know
w ith c e r ta in ty to what e x te n t she in flu e n ce d i t s form ula
tio n even when he i s the p r in c ip a l sy stem atic e x p o sito r of
5
A lice R. Kaminsky, George Henry Lewes as L ite ra ry
C r itic (S yracuse, 1968), p. 7o.
c
A ccordingly A lice Kaminsky has ju d ic io u s ly observed
th a t M eredith Vynor " i s a more humorous and k in d ly Casau-
bon" (p. 78).
5
the d o c trin e . F o r tu n a te ly , Lewes' philosophy and psychology
are la rg e ly homogenous and even r e p e t i t i v e , and much of i t
e x is te d a t l e a s t in embryo in h is work before the novels of
George E lio t were w r itte n .
George E l i o t 's account of the g e n esis of h e r f i r s t
f i c t i o n a l work, "The Sad F ortun es of the Reverend Amos Bar
ton" i s often quoted. Lewes' encouragem ent, as she gener
ously n o te s , was the proxim ate p ro g e n ito r of h e r f i c t i o n a l
c a re e r. Her account makes c le a r th a t he recognized in her
w ritin g p re c is e ly th a t a b i l i t y whose absence in h is own case
he had lamented in R anthorpe: the power to ^ren d er a "min-
7
ute and vivacious account" of concrete d e t a i l s :
September 1856 made a new e ra in my l i f e , fo r i t was
then I began to w rite F i c tio n . I t had always been a
vague dream of mine th a t some time or o th er I might w rite
a n o v e l, and my shadowy conception of what the novel was
to b e , v a rie d , of c o u rse , from one epoch of my l i f e to
a n o th e r. But I never went f a r th e r toward the a c tu a l
w ritin g of the novel than an in tro d u c to ry ch ap ter des
c rib in g a S ta f fo rd s h ire v illa g e and the l i f e of the
neighbouring farm h ouses, and as the years passed on
I l o s t any hope th a t I should ever be able to w rite a
n o v e l, ju s t as I desponded about everythin g e ls e in my
fu tu re l i f e . I always thought I was d e f ic ie n t in d ra
m atic power, both of c o n stru c tio n and d ia lo g u e , but I
f e l t I should be a t my ease in the d e s c rip tiv e p a rts
of a novel. M y " in tro d u c to ry chapter" was pure d e s c rip
tio n though th e re were good m a te ria ls in i t fo r dram atic
p re s e n ta tio n . I t happened to be among the papers I had
w ith me in Germany and one evening a t B e rlin , something
led me to read i t to George. He was stru c k w ith i t as
7
In Sea-Side S tu d ies a t Ilfraco m b e. Tenby, the S c i ll y
I s l e s , and Je rse y (Edinburgh, 1858). p. 5. (H e re in a fte r
r e f e r r e d to as SSS.) Lewes re p e a ts h is con viction " I have
no d e s c rip tiv e power," and then launches in to a d e ta ile d
landscape d e s c rip tio n .
6
a b i t of co n crete d e s c r ip tio n , and i t suggested to him the
p o s s i b i l i t y of my being a b le to w rite a n o v e l, though he
d i s t r u s t e d —indeed d isb e lie v e d i n , my po ssession of any
dram atic power. 3t i l l , he began to th in k th a t I m ight as
w ell t r y , some tim e, what I could do in f i c t i o n , and by
and bye when we came back to England and I had g r e a te r
success than he had ever expected in o th e r k in d s of w r i t
in g , h is im pression t h a t i t was worth w hile to see how
f a r my m ental power would go towards th e production of
a n o v e l, was stre n g th e n e d . He began to say very p o s i
t i v e l y , "You must t r y and w rite a s to r y ," and when we
were a t Tenby he urged me to begin a t once. I d e fe rre d
i t , however, a f t e r my u su a l fa s h io n , w ith work th a t does
n o t p re se n t i t s e l f as an a b so lu te duty. But one morning
a s I was ly in g in bed, th in k in g what should be the sub
j e c t of my f i r s t s to r y , my thoughts merged them selves
in to a dreamy doze, and I imagined m yself w ritin g a s to ry
I of which th e t i t l e was—"The Sad F ortunes of the Reverend
; Amos B a rto n ." I was soon wide awake a g a in , and to ld G.
He s a id , "0 what a c a p i ta l t i t l e ! " and from th a t tim e I
had s e t t l e d in my mind th a t t h i s should be my f i r s t s to r y .
George used to sa y , " I t may be a f a i l u r e —i t may be th a t
you a re unable to w rite f i c t i o n . Or p erh ap s, i t may be
ju s t good enough to w arrant your try in g a g a in ." A gain,
"You may w rite a c h ef-d 'o e u rv e a t once—t h e r e ’s no t e l l
in g ." But h is p re v a le n t im pression was th a t though I
could h a rd ly w rite a -poor n o v e l, my e f f o r t would want
th e h ig h e s t q u a lity of f i c t i o n —dram atic p r e s e n ta tio n .
He used to sa y , "You have w it, d e s c rip tio n and p h ilo s o
phy— those go a good way towards the production of a nov
e l . I t i s worth w hile fo r you to tr y the exp erim ent."8
I t has g e n e ra lly been assumed th a t Lewes’ in flu e n c e on
th e work of George E lio t went l i t t l e f u r th e r than t h i s con
s t a n t sympathy and encouragem ent, and, c e r t a i n l y , i f we
l
ilook fo r in flu e n c e in the more obvious l i t e r a r y c a te g o rie s
of p lo t s i m i l a r i t i e s , coincidences of d e s c r ip tiv e p assa g es,
and equivalence of s t y l i s t i c mannerisms we w i l l f in d , to
say the l e a s t , a n e g lig ib le or n o n e x iste n t c o r r e la tio n . The
^ L e tte r s , I I , Z f06-W .
7
!th e s is of t h i s work i s th a t the in f lu e n c e , where i t e x is ts
I
I i s to be found p rim a rily in the le s s obvious, but sometimes
t
more s ig n if ic a n t a re a of b a sic philosophy and psychology,
and, fu rth erm o re, th a t many of George E l i o t 's c h a r a c te r i
z a tio n s can be b e t t e r understood in term s of t h i s th e o r e tic
u n d e rg ird in g . Indeed, to go a s te p f u r t h e r , we hope to dem
o n s tr a te th a t n o t only do Lewes' e a rly f i c t i o n a l c h a r a c te r i
z a tio n s embody the p sy c h o lo g ic al theo ry and schem atization
which he was to e la b o ra te over th e next t h i r t y y e a rs , but
!th a t many of George E l i o t 's c h a ra c te rs have something of a
I
foreshadow ing, altho ugh o ften in a rudim entary and even
lu d ic ro u s form, in the two e a r l i e r , and on the whole un
su c c e ss fu l novels of Lewes, Ranthorne and Rose. B lanche,
and V io le t. P a ra d o x ic a lly , the a r t i s t i c a l l y u n a tt r a c t iv e ,
t h e o r e t i c a l , s k e l e t a l n a tu re of h is c h a r a c te riz a tio n s makes
them a l l the more u s e fu l fo r our c r i t i c a l purpose.
But before tu rn in g to a d e ta ile d a n a ly s is and schema
t iz a t i o n of c h a ra c te r ty p es i t w ill be necessary to summa-
|r i z e the philosophy and psychology of George Henry Lewes.
jIndeed, because of the n a tu re of h is view s, the p hysiology,
psychology, philosoph y, and a e s th e tic s and f i c t i o n a l p e r
formance of Lewes a re in s e p a ra b le . The philosophy of Lewes,
even a t the most a b s tr a c t l e v e l , has a c e rta in a p p lic a tio n
on the more concrete a re a s of s c i e n t i f i c experim ent and f i c
tio n p re c is e ly because of the m o n is tic , homogeneous n a tu re
of th a t philosophy. The u n iv erse fo r him i s a seam less
8
garm ent. T ruths about human c h a ra c te r or a e s th e tic s a re of
a piece w ith t r u th s about the s e n s i b i l i t y and c o n t r a c t i l i t y
i
of fro g s o r sea anemones. His philosophy i s rig o ro u s ly
m o n is tic , e v o lu tio n a ry , h u m an istic, e m p iric a l, and a s s o c i-
a t i o n i s t i c . For many a modern mind t h i s V ic to ria n melding
of em piricism and humanism may seem forced and in c o n s is te n t,
but th e re i s no in c o n g ru ity fo r Lewes. The c h a r a c t e r i s t i c
th r u s t of h is mind i s toward s y n th e s is , toward the search
fo r u n ity in d i v e r s it y , fo r th e one in th e many, fo r the
hidden r e l a ti o n s lin k in g a l l th in g s .
I I
In h is 1868 review of Darwin’s O rigin of S p e c ie s .
Lewes contended in extension of S c h le g e l’ s dictum th a t
"every man i s born e ith e r a P l a to n i s t or an A r i s t o t e l i a n ,"
th a t "every man i s somewhat by h is t r a i n in g , and s t i l l more
by h is o r g a n iz a tio n , pred isposed toward th e M onistic or the
D u a lis tic conception . . . and t h a t , in consequence of t h is
n a tiv e b i a s , we may g e n e ra lly p r e d ic t what w ill be h is
views in R e lig io n , Philosophy, and A rt—to a g re a t e x te n t
even in S c ie n c e ." ^ Indeed Lewes' own work b ears him o u t,
fo r so homogenous i s h is philosophy th a t th e re a re few po
s i t i o n s he espouses in a p r o l i f i c and many-sided fo rty -y e a r
w ritin g c a r e e r, which a re not obvious sequents of h is monis-
^"Mr. D arw in's H ypotheses," F o rtn ig h tly Review. I l l ,
n . s . (A p ril 1, 1868), 35k.
9
t i c prem ises. Even the b a sic p h ilo s o p h ic a l term inology i s
tra n s fe ra b le a t w i l l to such d iv e rse a re a s as l i t e r a r y
I
c ritic is m or p o l i t i c s .
Lewes' s t a r t i n g p o in t i s the assum ption of an o v e ra ll
organic u n ity in a l l l i f e , wherein even the sm a lle st u n it
i s of i n te g r a l s ig n if ic a n c e , fo r "th e g re a t Whole i s i n d i s
so lu b ly connected w ith i t s m in u test p a r ts " :
l The simple germ ination of a lic h e n i s , i f we apprehend
i t r i g h t l y , d i r e c tl y lin k e d w ith the g ran d est astronom i
c a l phenomena; nor could even an in fu so ry anim alcule be
! a n n ih ila te d w ithout a lt e r i n g the e q u ilib riu m of the u n i
verse .
"Nothing in t h i s world i s s in g le ;
A ll th in g s by a lav; d iv in e
In one a n o th e r 's being m ingle."
P la to had some dim fo r e c a s t of t h i s when he tau g h t th a t
the world was a huge anim al; and o th e r s , sin ce P la to ,
when they conceived the u n iv erse to be the m an ife sta tio n
of some tran sce n d en t L if e , w ith which each se p a ra te i n d i
v id u a l l i f e was r e l a t e d , as p a rts a re to the whole. (SSS,
p. 360)
T his r a d ic a l monism i s , however, somewhat unique in
being lin k e d to an eq u ally r a d i c a l m a t e r i a l i s t i c a s s o c ia -
t i o n i s t i c em piricism . Indeed the groundnote of Lewes'
popular The H isto ry of P hilosophy^ i s h is rep e ate d denun
c ia tio n of a l l m etaphysical system s spun from u n v e r i f i a b l e ,
m etaphorical a b s tr a c tio n s . S t i l l t h i s alm ost monomaniacal
monism perm eates a l l of Lewes' tho ught. So the d o c trin e of
sympathy which had long been an im po rtant emphasis of empir
i c a l l i t e r a r y c r i t i c s i s j u s t i f i e d by Lewes' m onistic doc-
^ L o n d o n , 1867* (H e re in a fte r r e f e r r e d to as HP.)
10
t r i n e of organic in terd ep en d en ce, and n o t by the t r a d i ti o n a l
a s s o c i a t io n i s t i c d o c trin e of i m i t a t i o n . ^
W e are dependent on the a i r , the e a r th , the sun, l i g h t ,
the flo w e rs, th e p la n ts , the an im als, and a l l c re ate d
th in g s , d i r e c tl y or i n d ir e c t l y . Nor i s th e m oral depen
dence le s s than the p h y sic a l. W e cannot i s o l a t e ourselves
i f we would. The thoughts of o th e r s , th e sym pathies of
o th e r s , the needs of o th e rs —th ese two [sic ] make up our
l i f e ; w ithout th ese we should q u ick ly p e ris h .
At tim es Lewes' expression of the organic u n ity of a l l
i th in g s tak es on, in i t s f e r v o r, the tin g e of a rhapsodic
pantheism , and, in f a c t , he speaks of a period when th e re
! was some danger of ap o stasy in to m etaphysical b e l i e f . ^
Even the rocks "grow, and change, and d ie , and give up t h e i r
substances to the g re a t ALL, re tu rn in g whence they came"
(SSS, p. 190); a l l growing th in g s a re "airwoven ch ild ren of
l i g h t , " and a l l human beings are r e la te d through "th e b la z
ing p iv o t of l i f e , " the su n , "w ith a l l liv in g th in g s" (p.
233)• This s o r t of th in g i s e a s ily m is in te rp re te d w ithout
the a p p ro p ria te codebook, and the same d i f f i c u l t y i s th e re ,
as we w ill s e e , fo r the unwary re a d e r of George E l i o t 's
|n o v e ls . Lewes, fo r in sta n c e i s m erely rh ap so d izin g about
11
See W alter Jackson B a te 's sp len d id d isc u ssio n of the
p h ilo s o p h ic a l bases of the Augustan d o c trin e of sympathy in
h is ch ap ter "The Premise of F eeling " in From C la ssic to
Romantic (New York, 1961 ), pp. 129-160.
12
S tu d ie s .in Animal L ife (London, 1862), pp. 180-181.
(H e re in a fte r r e f e r r e d to as ffAL. )
1 3
■^"Spiritualism and M a te ria lism ," The F o rtn ig h tly
Reviev;. XIX, n . s . (A p ril 1 , 1876), k83.
11
the dynamic e c o lo g ic a l b alance in n a tu re when he speaks of
"th e g re a t A ll" and h is paean to the sun i s an in tro d u c tio n
to h is d iscu ssio n of r e s p ir a tio n and p h o to sy n th e sis. The
same caution must be e x erc ise d when Lewes (o r George E lio t)
ta lk s about th e s o u l, or i n t u i t i o n , o r conscience or con
sc io u sn e ss— touchstone term s of Romantic philosophy—or fo r
th a t m atter when George E lio t d isc u sse s Maggie’ s i n t e r e s t
in Thomas & Kempis o r Romola’ s in Fra Luca’ s or S a v o n a ro la 's
■prophetic v is io n s .
i
j Lewes, then w hile i n s i s t i n g on organic u n ity and even
pro g ressiv ism in c re a tio n , r e j e c t s any te le o lo g y . He con
s i s t e n t l y denies th e e x is te n c e o f any e x te r n a l, u n d e rly in g ,
or in te r f u s e d p e rso n al or im personal force p ro p e llin g th e
"huge anim al" of n a tu re . Such.p e rs o n ific a tio n or a b s tr a c
tio n s belong to the th e o lo g ic a l or m etaphysical sp e cu la
tio n s of p r e - p o s i t i v i s t ages (using the Comtian te rm in o l
ogy) . There i s no motor in the u n iv erse w hether c a lle d God
or a V ita l P r i n c i p l e . ^ V/hat we see in a c tio n i s merely
the p rin c ip le of u n ifo rm itarian ism : the same or s im ila r
I
causes w ill r e s u l t in the same or s im ila r r e s u l t s (SSS,
p. 222). I d e n tic a l forms w ill fu n ctio n in i d e n t i c a l ways.
There i s , in d eed , a g e n eral progressivism in n a tu re , but
i t s im pulse i s m erely the uniform working of e v o lu tio n a ry
^ P ro b lem s of L ife and Mind. F i r s t S e rie s : Founda
tio n s of a C reed. I (London. 1874). 10Zf. (H e re in a fte r
r e f e r r e d to as T lm. i .)
12
laws of organic growth. Even the u t i l i t a r i a n p rin c ip le of
accomodation—p le a su re and p a in —i s only of lim ite d s e r v ic e ,
fo r those lower c re a tu re s on th e e v o lu tio n a ry s c a le a re not
conscious of p a in , and th e duty of those human beings on
th e h ig h e st le v e l i s to accep t pain as s o c ia lly and i n d i -
1 5
v id u a lly a m e lio ra tiv e . ^
There i s , in Lewes' system , a wonderful a d a p ta tio n of
each of the p a rts to th e organic whole. There i s community
in d iv e r s ity , c o n tin u ity in d is c o n tin u ity ( f o r w ithout d i s
c o n tin u ity how would th e re be d i v e r s i t y ? ) , dependence in
16
independence, i d e n t i t y in com plexity. So in the organism ,
owing to th e s o l i d a r i t y which u n d e rlie s a l l d i f f e r e n t i a
t io n , and perm its of r e i n t e g r a ti o n , the in d iv id u a liz e d
p a rts are a l l connected, a l l in te rd e p e n d e n t. Thus each
p a rt i s a new power, and because subordinated to the
whole, enhances the power of the whole, and i s in tu rn
enhanced by i t . As in s o c ia l l i f e , p e rfe c t a c tio n i s
secured by the co -o p eratio n of independent a g e n ts—F re e
dom i s subo rd in ated to Law, and Law secu res Freedom. In
m ental l i f e the r e s u l t of in c e s s a n t stim u la tio n would be
incoherence and im b e c ility , were i t not fo r th e r e s t r a i n t
of "o rg an ised e x p e rie n c e s," which a s s im ila te to them
se lv e s the new m a te r ia l. I t i s by the ev o lu tio n of o r
gans th a t the organism ad ap ts i t s e l f more and more to
the e x te rn a l medium. I t i s by th e o rg a n is a tio n of i t s
i experiences th a t the organism e n la rg es i t s powers. ( PLM.
v , 10/f)
SSS, p. 329; Problems of L ife and Mind. Third
S e rie s : The 3tudy oT~Psychology . IV (London. 1879), 1^6.
(H e re in a fte r r e f e r r e d to as PlM. IV .)
^ H P , I , ix x iv ; Problems of L ife and K ind. Third
S e rie s : Mind as a Function of the Organism. IT (London,
1879). 33” (H e re in a fte r r e f e r r e d to as PLk. V .); SSS,
p. 358.
13
T his s o r t of m o n istic emphasis i s , as we w ill see when
we turn to Lewes' e v o lu tio n a ry th e o ry , markedly d if f e r e n t
in tone and tendency from the evolutionism of Darwin.
Whereas D arw in's e v o lu tio n a ry mechanism i s c a re le s s of con
sequences and works by an e s s e n t ia ll y a d v e n titio u s random
s e le c tio n , Lewes' " s tru g g le fo r e x iste n c e " im p lies some
th in g approaching a p e rfe c t co o rd in atio n of p a r ts . Nothing
i s wasted or l e f t over in t h i s c re a tio n (SSS, p. 360); "in
c re a tio n th e re i s n e ith e r high nor low; th e re a re only com
plex and sim ple o rg a n is a tio n s , one as p e rfe c t as the o th er
(p . 355).
W e have h e re , th e n , th e c la s s ic m onistic c o n fro n ta tio n
w ith th e problem of e v i l , fo r i f n a tu re i s e s s e n t ia ll y
homogeneous th e re i s no e x te rn a l p erso n al or im personal
force to blame, as in dualism . And Lewes' answer i s not
g r e a tly d i f f e r e n t from th a t of Pope, Goethe, Emerson, or
D. H. Lawrence. I f human beings would view th e o v e ra ll
cosmic p ro c e ss, divorced from t h e i r in d iv id u a l concerns,
|th e y should be a b le to recognize the i n ju s ti c e of t h e i r
p e tty , e g o is tic com plaints a g a in s t the workings of the u n i
v e rs e . Lewes p u ts i t t h i s way:
. . . E v il i s e s s e n t ia ll y a narrow , f i n i t e th in g , thrown
in to o b sc u rity on any comprehensive view of the Uni
v e rse ; . . . th e amount of e v il massed to g e th e r from
every q u a rte r must be held as sm all compared with the
broad beneficen ce of N a tu re .1'
^ The L ife of Goethe (New York, 1965), p. 21. (H ere-
i n a f t e r r e f e r r e d to as LG.)
14
Indeed, Auguste Comte, whose d o c trin e s are the founda
tio n of much of Lewes' th o u g h t, i s reprim anded w ith a ra re
a c e rb ity fo r su ggesting th a t th e elem ents of the universe
a re not arranged in the most advantageous manner, as i f the
cosmos should be arranged in a more sim ple plan fo r human
convenience: "Science has no knowledge of these th in g s .
To assume such a competence i s to assume th a t 'man i s the
measure of a l l , ' and th a t I n t e l l e c t i s the f i n a l a r b i t e r of
L i f e . " 18
| I I I
When we turn to the novels of George E lio t we fin d
th a t e s s e n t ia ll y th e same d o c trin e s underly them. At t h is
th e o r e ti c a l le v e l the e x p o sitio n of th ese concepts i s , as
we would ex p ect, only fragm entary and p e rip h e ra l. She
v o ices these concepts fo r the most p a rt m erely as a sid e s
or a n a lo g ie s, and indeed, many of her re a d e rs must be g r a te
f u l th a t they have been spared any a d d itio n a l weight of
d id a c tic m a te ria l. However, th e homogeneity of Lewes' (and
| George E l i o t 's ) philosophy i s such th a t i t i s necessary to
la y t h i s fo u n d atio n , to tra c e her views on the most a b s tr a c t
l e v e ls , in order to f u lly understand them on the more con
c re te le v e ls of a e s th e tic s and psychology, where they d ie -
18
Comte's Philosophy of th e S cien ces: Being an Ex
p o sitio n of the P rin c ip le s of the Cours de P hilosophie
P o s itiv e of Auguste Comte (London, 1853)« P. 91♦ (H erein
a f t e r r e f e r r e d to as CP.)
15
t a t e c h a ra c te r m otiv ation and p lo t. W e w i l l , a c c o rd in g ly ,
I move as a g e n e ra l plan from the a b s tr a c t to the concrete in
[
the e x p o sitio n of George Henry Lewes* philosophy and i t s
correspondence in the work of George E l i o t , b rin g in g our
d isc u ssio n down in th e f i n a l ch ap ters to a d e ta ile d c r i t i
c a l d iscu ssio n of her (and, con com itantly, h is ) c h a r a c te r i
z a tio n s . The q u a li t a t iv e and q u a n tita tiv e weight of these
correspondences i s such th a t we b e lie v e the re a d e r must con
clude th a t th ere i s a g r e a te r in te r p e n e tra tio n (and even
I
unanim ity) in the th in k in g of th ese two rem arkable people
than has g e n e ra lly been supposed. Indeed, we hope to dem
o n s tra te th a t the in flu e n c e of Lewes’ e v o lu tio n ary p h ilo so -
j
phy and psychology i s p erv asiv e in George E l i o t 's f i c t i o n .
At the same tim e, we must always bear in mind th a t the em
p i r i c a l , a s s o c i a t i o n i s t i c , p o s itiv e , e v o lu tio n a ry d o c trin e s
h eld in common by Lewes and George E lio t were n o t, a t l e a s t
in t h e i r g e n eral o u tlin e s , t h e i r e x clu siv e p o ssessio n .
They were working in a t r a d i ti o n which extended from t h e i r
J contem poraries and frie n d s H erbert Spencer, John S tu a rt
| M ill, Auguste Comte, and Darwin back to Erasmus Darwin,
H a rtle y , John Locke, and beyond. W e a re f i n a l l y i n te r e s te d ,
of c o u rse, in the s p e c ific a p p lic a tio n to th e f ic tio n of
George E lio t of th a t unique blend of th ese d o c trin e s of
Lewes and George E li o t .
George E lio t i s , lik e Lewes, and in h is term s, a con-
J g e n ita l m onist. She found, as he d id , an a tt r a c t io n in
16
p a n th e is tic monism, but sh e , u n lik e Lewes, succumbed to i t s
se d u c tio n s. B ut, as Bernard P a ris n o te s , "by 1852, and
I
1 9
probably b e fo re , she had r e je c te d pantheism ." 7 The monism
rem ains, but now i s tr a n s la te d in to c la s s if a c to r y e m p iric a l
term s as in th e headnote poem to Chapter 11 of Middlemarch:
P a rty i s N a tu re , to o , and you s h a l l see
By fo rce of Logic how they both agree:
The Many in the One, and One in Many:
A ll i s not Some, nor Some the same as any:
Genus holds s p e c ie s , both a re g re a t or sm all;
One genus h ig h e s t, one not high a t a l l ;
Each sp e c ie s has i t s d i f f e r e n t i a to o ,
This i s not T h at, and He was never You,
Though t h i s and th a t a re AYES, and you and he
Are l ik e as one to one, or th re e to th re e .
The incongruously rhapsodic note c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of t h is
brand of e m p iric a l monism i s a ls o p re se n t in the d iscu ssio n
of L y d g ate's s c i e n t i f i c sp e c u la tio n s w ith i t s " a fte r-g lo w
of excitem ent when thought la p s e s from exam ination of a
s p e c if ic o b je c t in to a su ffu s iv e sense of i t s connections
20
w ith a l l th e r e s t of our e x is te n c e ." Ezra Lapidoth l e c
tu r e s h is s i s t e r Mirah on the d o c trin e of organic indepen
dence w ith in mankind: "Now, in a complete u n ity a p a rt
| p o ssesses the whole, as th e whole possesses every p a rt:
I and in t h i s way human l i f e i s tending toward the image of
1Q
^Experim ents in L i f e , p . 14.
^ Vliddlemarch (B oston, 1900), p. 168, ch. XVI, bk. I I .
(H e re in a fte r r e f e r r e d to as Md.) A ll subsequent re fe re n c e s
to George E l i o t 's f i c t io n a re d ire c te d to t h i s e d itio n .
17
21
the Supreme U n ity ." But t h is "d iv in e u n ity " must not be
thought of as the p a n th e is tic in fu sio n of the One in to the
Many, but as e v o lu tio n a ry p ro g ressio n of th e race by the
development of the uniquely human, conceptual powers.
The problem of e v il i s solved in the c h a r a c t e r i s t i c
m onistic manner. She ir o n ic a l l y r e f e r s to the rampant
d u a li s t i c Manicheism of Mr. T u lliv e r , which perm its him to
22
blame " r a t s , w e a v ils, and law yers" on "Old H arry ," but
then in a passage p a r a lle lin g Lewes' more system atic j u s t i -
|
jf ic a tio n of the u n iv e rs a l p a ra sitis m of n a tu re : " . . . and
one cannot be good-natured a l l ro und. N ature h e r s e lf oc
c a s io n a lly q u a rte rs an inconvenient p a r a s ite on an animal
toward whom she has otherw ise no i l l w i l l. What then? W e
2"*
admire h e r care fo r the p a r a s i t e ." ^
^ D aniel Deronda. pp. 738-739, bk. V III, ch. LXI.
(H e re in a fte r r e f e r r e d to as DP.)
22M ill on the F l o s s , p. 20/f, bk. I I , ch. V II. (Here
i n a f t e r r e f e r r e d to as MF.)
23
■'This i s only one of se v e ra l re fe re n c e s in George
E l i o t 's novels to the i d y l l i c period recorded in Sea-Side
S tu d ie s and S tu d ies in Animal L ife when she accompanied
Lewes on n a tu r a l h is to r y e x p e d itio n s. In the spring and
summer of 1856 in Ilfracom be and Tenby, and the sp rin g of
1857 in S c illy I s l e s and J e rs e y , the mornings under the
summer sun were given over to " la b o rio u s search in g s on the
rocks (SSS, p. 39) or in deep-w ater tra w lin g (SSS, p. 276)
and the a ftern o o n s of Lewes to p a tie n t labour w ith the mi
croscope" (SSS, p. 39). And a f t e r a morning of specimen
hunting when "quick female eyes" might "have d iscern ed and
nimble fin g e rs have secured one of the l o v e l i e s t of se a -
chim aeras" a p o c k e t-p is to l of sh e rry and a bag of b is c u its "
(SSS, p. 26) i s brought o u t. A llu sio n s to specimen hunting
and m icroscopic experim ent occur in h e r l a t e r n o v e ls, p e r-
18
S im ila rly Lewes argues in S tu d ie s in Animal L ife ^
I th a t the organic c o o rd in atio n of n a tu r e 's p a rts d ecrees th a t
I
l i f e should l iv e on l i f e , but t h i s u n iv e rs a l p a ra s itis m i s
n ot d e c rie d , fo r th e l i f e of one epoch or organism forms
the "prelude to a h ig h er L ife ."
L ife c ra d le s w ithin L ife . The bodies of anim als and
| men a re l i t t l e w orlds, having t h e i r own anim als and
p la n ts . . . . In the f lu id s and t i s s u e s , in the eye, in
the l i v e r , in the stomach, in the b ra in , in the m uscles,
a re found p a r a s ite s ; and th ese p a ra s ite s have o ften t h e i r
p a r a s ite s liv in g in them! (SAL, p. 7)
i
'F o r George E l i o t , then as fo r Lewes, the organic harmony of
l i f e means th a t a l l c re a tu re s feed on o th e rs . N u tritio n i s
h ap s, we may sp e c u la te as memory gave n o s ta lg ia to th ose
happy days when under " th e b la z in g p iv o t of l i f e " —the bene-
f i c i e n t sun— (SSS, p. 233) " l i f e culm inates" and Lewes r e
fused to murmur a t th e " s u l t r y splendor" though he wrote in
a "permanent vapour-bath" (SSS, p. 323). This was a time
when they could p la y fu lly b a n te r each o th er on th e r e l a t i v e
s u p e r io r ity of the male and female sp e c ie s among the lower
forms of l i f e (SAL, pp. 55-58). There are re fe re n c e s to
fre sh -w a te r polypes (F e lix H o lt, p. 363, ch. XXXVIII
[ h e r e in a f te r r e f e r r e d to as FHj; SSS. pp. 281-296) anece-
phalous m onsters (Md., p. 1757 bk. I I , ch X V II), j e l l y f is h
(M d., p. 27^, bk. TV, ch. XXVII; SSS. p. 360), sea anemones
(J5T5, p. 81, bk. I , ch. V II; SSS. p. 185), and b e a u tif u l
j g lo b u le s of the sea (DD, p. bk. IV, ch. XXXII—p o s s i
b ly those " th a t quick female eyes have d is c e r n e d " ? ) , and
shrimp pool and deeper w ater (Md., p. 60, bk. I , ch V I),
experim ents on liv e anim als (FlTT p. ^17, ch. X L III), the
d o c trin e th a t a l l p o s s i b i l i t i e s a re not rev e a le d in embryos
(e p ig e n is is ) (Md., p. 151, bk. I I , ch. XV)—a l l s u b je c ts
which s e rio u s ly occupied Lewes a t th a t p e rio d .
^ P la n n in g work was being done on M ill on the F lo ss as
e a rly as 12 January 1859 (L e t t e r s . I l l , 33)• Lewes' plans
fo r S tu d ies in Animal L ife a re f i r s t mentioned on 10 Novem
b er ," T 8 5 T l^ ^ ^ e r £ 7 ^ I l7 ~ ^ 9 5 ) although the s c i e n t i f i c and
p hilo so p h ic bases fo r th e a r t i c l e s were la i d in h is e a r l i e r
re s e a rc h e s . S tu d ie s in Animal L ife i s e s s e n t ia ll y a more
popular e x p o sitio n of th e e v o lu tio n ary and b io lo g ic a l doc
t r i n e s espoused in Sea-Side S tu d ie s .
19
by d e f i n i t i o n ~ i n the o n e - c e llu la r c re a tu re or in m an--the
process of a b so rp tio n , whether of in o rg an ic m atter (as w ith
p la n ts ) or o th e r c re a tu re s (SSS, p. 178). A ll c re a tu re s
a r e , l ik e th e m icroscopic a s c id ia n s , " liv in g harm oniously
to g e th e r, each fed by a l l " (p . 281). L ife i s , by d e f i n i
t io n , the t r i p l e u n ity of " N u tr itio n , R eproduction, and De
cay" where each c re a tu re "grows, rep ro d u ces, and d ies" in
in tim a te harmony w ith the whole of c re a tio n (p. 58). Growth
and Reproduction i s , however, e s s e n t ia ll y the same law (p.
;31 2). So, as George E li o t s u c c in c tly puts i t , " l i f e i s
bound in to one by a zone of dependence in growth and de-
25
cay," ' c h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y u sing w ith p re c isio n the te rm i
nology of Lewes (w hether i t i s b io lo g ic a l, p sy c h o lo g ic al,
or p h ilo s o p h ic a l) . A somewhat p a r a l l e l passage by Lewes
expands t h i s fo u n d a tio n a l concept of the u n ity of the one
w ith the many through th e n a tu r a l b io lo g ic a l p ro cesses of
growth and decay:
What we c a l l grow th, i s i t not a p e rp e tu a l ab so rp tio n
of N atu re, the i d e n t i f i c a t i o n of the in d iv id u a l w ith th e
i u n iv e rs a l? And may we not in sp e c u la tiv e moods co n sid er
Death as the grand im patience of the so u l to fre e i t s e l f
from the c i r c l e of in d iv id u a l a c t i v i t y , the yearnin g of
the c re a tu re to be u n ite d w ith the C reator? (SSS, pp.
218-219)
N u tritio n i s a p e rf e c t p ro c e ss, where nothing i s
wasted or l e f t o v er, though, as George E lio t i r o n ic a l l y
o b serv es, n a tu re "cannot be good natu red a l l round," and i t
25Md. , p. 619, bk. V I, ch. LXI.
20
may be •'inconvenient1 1 fo r th e c re a tu re upon whom th e p a ra
s i t e i s feed in g . S im ila r ly , Lewes muses q u ix o tic a lly on
j
lio n s who p re fe r "man-beef" (SSS, pp. 177-178) w hile being
unable to r e s t r a i n h is own u rg en t carn ivo rous need fo r cow-
beef when among the v e g e ta ria n S c i l l y is la n d e r s (p . 195).
An answer to the problem of e v il in more c h a r a c t e r i s t i c
m onistic form i s th e u nderstan din g Maggie T u lliv e r gains
from Thomas h Kempis th a t
a l l the m is e rie s of h er young l i f e had come from fix in g
her h e a rt on h e r own p le a s u re , as i f th a t were th e cen
t r a l n e c e s s ity of th e u n iv e rse ; and fo r th e f i r s t time
she saw the p o s s i b i l i t y o f s h i f t in g th e p o s itio n from
which she looked a t the g r a t i f i c a t i o n of h e r own d e s i r e s —
of tak in g her stan d out of h e r s e l f , and looking a t her
own l i f e as an i n s i g n i f i c a n t p a rt of a d iv in e ly guided
w hole.2°
But Lewes rec o g n ize s th a t an understand in of the
o v e ra ll harmony of n a tu re does n ot r e lie v e man of "th e
g re a t sadness of th e world" im p lic it fo r him in the b a sic
iro n y in n a tu re of growth and decay " l i f e and death—beauty
and deform ity—enjoyment and t o r tu r e (R an., p. 293). Su
p e rio r a r t , as w e ll as n a tu re , embodies t h i s u n d erlying
| sadness. So the h ero in e of R anthorne. I s o l a , p a in ts a
landscape which to d isc e rn in g eyes re v e a ls t h i s " iro n y ,
which d isplayed th e sk e leto n beneath the beauteous form ,"
en sh rin in g not only the u n iv e rs a l sorrow , but the p e rso n al
sadness of the a r t i s t .
26MF, p. 305, bk. IV, ch. I I I .
21
No clump o f moss but had i t s meaning; no blade of
g ra ss ro se h ig h e r than i t s n eighbors w ithout some i r o n i
c a l in te n tio n . The very masses o f rock which encumbered
the v a lle y bore in one way or a n o th e r the im press of
t h i s iro n y ; h e re , one fragm ent was r i c h l y covered w ith
lic h e n s , w hile i t s S id e , p a r t l y exposed, was black and
scath ed ; th e r e , an o th er fragm ent, rugged and b a rre n ,
had green and speckled l iz a r d s crowding from i t s f i s
s u re s . (p. 293)
S u ffe rin g , fo r such a c o n s is te n t m onist as Lewes, i s
only " d iso rd e r" and i s thus " p e ris h a b le " in th e l i g h t of
the o v e ra ll organic p e rfe c tio n o f th e n a tu r a l scheme (p .
293). The uniquely human s e n s i b i l i t y to pain and the p e r
v asiv e iro n y , f o r man, of th e n a tu r a l pro cesses of growth
and decay, re p re s e n tin g though i t does only a p a r t i a l view
of the g re a t scheme of c r e a t i o n , s t i l l r e s u l t s in t h i s
u n iv e rs a l sa d n ess, and i s
of deepest meaning fo r th e g r e a te s t a r t i s t s : . . . sad
n ess i s everywhere w ritte n on t h e i r works as i t was en
graven on t h e i r h e a r ts . What sorrow i s im plied in the
e v e r-p re s e n t iro n y of Shakespears! What sorrow ren d e rs
touching the measured s t a t e l i n e s s o f M ilton! (p. 294)
For Lewes, as fo r George E l i o t , pain i s pro ductive and
d e s ir a b le . In f a c t , I s o la argues f o r Lewes th a t we need
s u f fe r in g " c o n s ta n tly w ith u s , to tea ch us c h a r ity —we
need i t to teach us f o r t it u d e (p . 293). G reat a r t teach es
us to channel our own s u ffe rin g in to t h i s s p i r i t of s e l f -
re n u n c ia tio n and enlargem ent of sym pathies. This a r t i s t i c
program i s c o n s is te n t, as we s h a l l s e e , w ith th e p ra c tic e
of George E li o t .
T his fundam ental iro n y —th a t th e harm onious, immutable
laws of growth and decay a re "in co n v en ien t" fo r the in d iv id -
22
u a l s u ffe rin g human being sin c e "one cannot be good-natured
a l l round"—i s a p tly sym bolized by th e sun. The s i g n i f i -
t
cance fo r Lewes of the sun, the " g re a t c e n tre of l i f e "
which connects us " n e a rly and momentarily . . . with a l l
liv in g th in g s" (SSS, p. 233), has been p rev io u sly noted.
Symbolic as i t i s , of the overarching harmony and u n ifo rm ity
of the n a tu r a l p ro c e ss e s , though expressed in rh ap so d ic,
alm ost m y stic a l term s, i t se rv es as the id e a l ir o n ic back
drop fo r in d iv id u a l human sorrow s. Though t h i s type of
ir o n ic symbolism i s h a rd ly unique w ith Lewes or George
E l i o t , i t has a co n cen trated s ig n ific a n c e fo r them in i t s
conscious p h ilo so p h ic and emotive a s s o c ia tio n s .
Adam Bede, begun only a few months a f t e r the re tu rn
from th e S c i ll y I s l e s , whose sun-drenched days had in s p ire d
Lewes' n a t u r a l i s t i c hymns to "th e g re a t p iv o t of l i f e , " i s ,
a p p ro p ria te ly enough, a ls o s u n - f i l l e d . The l y r i c a l tone
of h y lic su n -a p o th eo sis c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of Lewes' Sea-Side
S tu d ie s i s p erv asiv e in Adam Bede:
The low w esterin g sun shone r i g h t on the shoulders of
the old Binton H i l l s , tu rn in g the unconscious sheep in to
b r ig h t sp o ts of l i g h t ; shone on th e windows of the c o t
tage to o , and made them aflame w ith a g lo ry beyond th a t
amber or am ethyst. I t was enough to make Adam f e e l th a t
he was in a g re a t tem ple, and th a t the d i s t a n t chant (o f
"H arvest Home!") was a sacred song. '
W . J . Harvey has noted the i n t r i c a t e and f a u l t l e s s manage-
^ P . 520, bk. V I, ch. L I II . (Adam Bede i s h e r e in a f te r
r e f e r r e d to as AB.)
23
po
ment of the time p a tte rn in Adam Bede. The sun se rv es as
a conspicuous a d ju n c t to t h i s p a tte rn in g : the r e l a t i v e
p o sitio n and b rig h tn e s s of the sun in i t s r e l e n tl e s s c i r
c u it i s u su a lly d e ta ile d in s e ttin g new s c e n e s . ^ But
th e re i s l i t t l e correspondence between th e w eather of the
o u te r landscape and the in n e r human landscape (as in Wuther-
ing H e ig h ts, fo r in s ta n c e ) . So the sun o r b its in sublim e,
i r o n ic in d iffe re n c e to th e p i t i f u l , e r r a t i c h e g ira of H etty
S o r r e l l . The fundam ental irony of human d e s ir e , p a th e tic
in i t s g o o d -in te n tio n e d , f i t f u l egoism, in c o n f lic t w ith
r e l e n t l e s s n a tu r a l law pervades a l l of George E l i o t 's f i c
t i o n , b ut in no o th e r novel i s i t so r e l e n t l e s s l y a sso c ia te d
w ith the sun symbolism. S eren e, i d y l l i c n a tu re sta n d s
throughout in ir o n ic ju x ta p o s itio n to the tragedy of A rthur
Donnithorne and H etty:
I t was a s t i l l a fte rn o o n —th e golden l i g h t was l in g e r
in g la n g u id ly among the upper boughs, only glancin g down
here and th e re on the purple pathway and i t s edge of
f a i n t l y sp rin k le d moss: an afternoo n in which d e stin y
d is g u is e s h e r cold aw ful face behind a hazy ra d ia n t v e i l ,
en clo ses us in warm downy wings, and poisons us w ith
v io le t-s c e n te d b r e a t h .30
^ The Art of George E lio t (London, 1963)> PP. 117-121.
^ S p e c i f i c a l l y in ch ap ters I , I I , I I I , IV, V, VI, V II,
X, XI, X II, XIV, XV, XV III, XIX, XXII, XXV, XXVII, XXVIII,
XXIX, XXXI, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI, XXXVII, XLI, X L III,
XLVII, XLIX, L I, L I I I , LV, and th e E pilogue.
5 ° P . 132, bk. I , ch. X II.
2 k
The iro n y i s even more e x p l i c i t when a pregnant H etty begins
h e r foredoomed journey in search of A rth u r, as e x p li c i t as
I
Lewes' c o n tra s t of the r a d ia n t sunshine and in d iv id u a l hu
man sorrow in R anthorpe: "T he'm arriage b e l l s were p ealin g ;
th e day was b rig h t and sunny . . . . The day was hideously
g la rin g : I thought i t a ls o a mockery of my inward gloom"
(p. 8 9 ). S im ila rly , H e tty 's p erso n al trag edy begins to
play i t s e l f out under " th e mild ra y s of the sun" on " b rig h t
I February days" which "have a stro n g e r charm of hope abo'ut
|them than any o th er days in the y e a r . " ^ Such in d iv id u a l
j agonies a re "sometimes hidden among the sunny f i e l d s and
behind the blossoming orchards . . . . A t r a v e le r to t h is
world who knew nothing of the s to ry of m an's l i f e upon i t "
could not understand t h i s in c o n g ru ity , symbolized fo r us in
the agony of the C ross, nor our need fo r a " s u ffe rin g
G o d ." ^ H e tty , " ta s tin g the b i t t e r e s t of l i f e ' s b i t t e r
n ess" and "u nderstanding no more of t h i s l i f e of ours than
a fo o lis h l o s t lamb wandering f a r t h e r and f a r t h e r in the
n i g h t f a l l on the lo n ely heath " of course i s in cap ab le of i n
t e r p r e tin g h e r in d iv id u a l sorrows in l i g h t of the o v e ra ll
cosmic scheme. This in c o n g ru ity which we la b e l the prob
lem of e v il i s again symbolized in the courtroom , where she
31AB, p. 368, bk. IV, ch. XXXV.
32Pp. 368-369, bk. IV, ch. XXXV.
25
i s sentenced to d e a th , by "th e mid-day l ig h t" which stream s
in "through a lin e of h ig h -p o in ted windows, v a rie g a te d with
the mellow t i n t s of old p a in ted g la s s " and s e t s the "grim
dusty armor . . . in high r e l i e f ." ^ - ' High philosophy being
u n a v aila b le to lim ite d l i t t l e H e tty , she has turned to a
54
"hard d e sp airin g o b s t i n a c y S h e could n o t, of course,
comprehend the organic interdependence of t h i s world which
r e s u l t s in men having " to s u f f e r fo r each o t h e r 's s i n s , so
in e v ita b ly d if fu s iv e i s human s u f f e r in g , th a t even ju s tic e
makes i t s v ic tim s , and we can conceive no r e tr ib u tio n th a t
does not spread beyond i t s mark in p u ls a tio n s of unm erited
p a in ." - ^ C e rta in ly H etty w ith " th e lu x u rio u s n a tu re of a
56
round, s o f t coated p e t animal"-' could not reach the h e ig h ts
of s e lf-re n u n c ia tio n of a Maggie T u lliv e r , who, r e a liz in g
th a t n atu re has "not lea rn ed the s e c r e t of how to b le s s im-
57
p a r t i a l l y " ^ ' was enabled to give up a l l claim s fo r p erso n al
happiness in re c o g n itio n of the organic n a tu re of human r e
l a t i o n s . Obviously H etty i s not capable of t h i s kind of
m o n istic overview, f o r she " i s l ik e an anim al th a t g azes,
35P. 436, bk. V, ch. XVIII.
3ZfP. 437, bk. V, ch. XVIII.
35MF, p. 257, bk. I l l , ch. V II.
36AB, p. 383, bk. V, ch. XXXVII.
37MF. p. 162, bk. I I , ch. I I .
26
zO
and g a ze s, and keeps a l o o f s h e i s immured in e g o is tic
sep aratism : " . . . w on't nobody do anything fo r me?"-^
i
She i s in cap ab le of a f f e c tio n a te resp o n siv en ess to o th e r s ,
but when she con fesses her g u i l t to Dinah M orris she le a rn s
to " c lin g ," to lean on o th e rs f o r h e l p . ^ This confession
experience i s c lo th ed in C h ristia n r h e t o r i c , but t h i s ap
p a re n tly overblown emphasis on s a lv a tio n by confession can
only be understood in term s of Lewes' and George E l i o t 's
p erv asiv e organic m ate ria lism . The conventional C h ristia n
d o c trin e of conversion by humble acceptance of God's saving
mercy i s p resen te d only p e r f u n c to r ily .**^ What counts i s
the t a c i t adm ission of human fe llo w sh ip and th e rudim entary
development of human sympathy in t h i s dark l i t t l e s o u l . ^
H etty i s th u s , as we w ill see l a t e r in d e t a i l , moving up
the e v o lu tio n a ry la d d e r to the p o in t where she can e x h ib it
an in ch o a te sense of organic interdependence; she i s no
lo n g er liv in g in e g o is tic i s o l a t i o n , m otivated only by an
a n im a l-lik e re p u lsio n to p a in . ^
38AB, p. Zf53, bk. V, ch. XLV.
39P. bk. V, ch. XLV.
**°Pp. 462-463, bk. V, ch. XLV.
* * 1P. i+61 , bk. V, ch. XLVI.
^ P p . b62-^63, bk. V, ch. XLVI.
^ P . 383, bk. V, ch. XXXVII.
27
S im ila r ly , Maggie T u l l i v e r 's r e je c tio n of P h ilip Wakem
land Stephen Guest in The M ill on th e F l o s s , can only be
! 1
f u l ly understood in the l i g h t of t h i s om nipresent organic
monism. Maggie, of c o u rse, moves to a much h ig h e r le v e l on
th e e v o lu tio n a ry sc a le in re c o g n itio n of th e organic i n t e r
dependence of human beings and the re n u n c ia tio n of personal
p le a s u re . What we have here i s th e c la s s ic m onist answer
to the problem of e v il c o n c re te ly worked out in f i c t i o n . In
tak in g the la r g e r view , in rec o g n izin g t h a t in d iv id u a l liv e s
and in d iv id u a l pain must be viewed a s "an i n s i g n if i c a n t
p a rt of a d iv in e ly guided w h o l e , M a g g i e sh a res the deep
un d erlying sadness of those who l i k e Lewes' I s o l a , "had
peered too c u rio u sly in to her own h e a rt" (R a n ., p. 292)
w hile engaged in the i n t e r n a l s tru g g le between "mere p e r-
so n al enjoyment" and " th e sacred n ess of l i f e " ^ gained by
subm ission to the organic im p e ra tiv e s. But t h i s "h ard e st
inward c o n f l i c t " ^ had, as w ith I s o l a , been b e n e fic e n t in
tea ch in g sympathy and f o r titu d e in th e a c c ep tan c e, even the
c o u rtin g , of pain from which anim als and an unredeemed Het
ty could only a u to m a tic a lly sh rin k . There i s , of course,
no re p rie v e from pain in response to in d iv id u a l d e s ire —
p. 305, bk. IV, ch. I I I .
^M F, p. 481, bk. V I, ch. X III.
^ P . 532, bk. V II, ch. IV.
28
the uniform o p eratio n of n a tu r a l law , cannot be rep ealed to
s u i t in d iv id u a l convenience. U ltim a te ly the only happy
ending in th e u n iv erse of Lewes and George E li o t i s the
i
p a ra d o x ica l one of sad subm ission and calm s e lf - r e n u n c ia
tio n .
The problem o f e v i l , w hile re c e iv in g th e most concen
t r a t e d a tte n tio n in th ese two e a r l i e r n o v e ls, in the numer
ous e x p l i c i t e d i t o r i a l d isc u ssio n s (and in th e ir o n ic
n a tu re symbolism in Adam Bede) i s an i n te r m itte n t to p ic
throughout h e r n o v e ls. In Romola the sun symbolism i s r e
d ire c te d in to c h a r a c te r iz a tio n , but rem ains i r o n ic . An
unredeemed Romola, w ith a l l h e r p o s s i b i l i t i e s of moral
grow th, but as y e t only capable of a p a ro c h ia l form of
sympathy, p lay s Aurora to T i t o 's D ionysian n a tu re d e i t y . ^
The golden h a ire d Romola, in tu rn in g away from the "tw i
l i g h t f a n ta s ie s " of h er b ro th e r which d e s p ite t h e i r P la
to n ic tra p p in g s embody George E l i o t 's key d o c trin e s of
u n iv e rs a l sympathy and d u t if u l acceptance of p a in , moves
back in to the "warm s u n lig h t she saw in the r i c h dark
beauty" of T ito , i r o n i c a l l y p e rso n ify in g n a tu r a l "images
of joy —purple v in es festooned between the elm s, the stro n g
corn p e rfe c tin g i t s e l f under the v ib r a tin g h e a t, a b r ig h t
winged c re a tu re h u rry in g and r e s tin g among th e flo w ers,
^ P . 189, bk. I , ch. XVII. (Romola i s h e r e in a f te r
r e f e r r e d to as Rm.)
29
round lim bs b e a tin g the e a rth . . . —a l l o b je c ts and a l l
sounds th a t t e l l of N ature r e v e llin g in h er f o r c e . " ^ T i
t o , w ith h is " b r ig h t sm ile and y o u th fu ln e ss . . . a sun-
god -who knew nothing of n ig h t" i s c o n tra ste d w ith the "p ale
images of sorrow and death" a s s o c ia te d w ith her dying bro
t h e r . ^ Not only i s George E lio t sym bolizing the (ap parent)
paradox in n a tu re of growth and decay, but i s p o in tin g out
i r o n ic a l l y th a t T i t o 's a n im a l-lik e p h y sic a l p e rfe c tio n con
c e a ls a corresponding m oral d e fic ie n c y in h is in c a p a b ility
of s e lf -re n u n c ia tio n by th e acceptance of p e rso n al pain fo r
the la r g e r good.
Only in t h i s somewhat oblique form i s th e re any con
c e n tra te d d isc u ssio n of th e problem of e v il a f t e r The M ill
on the F lo s s . There i s , however, c o n sid era b le lo g ic in t h is
p ro g re ssio n . The problem of e v il i s posed in i t s most
concrete and elem en tal form fo r the m onist in Adam Bede in
the c o n tra s t between in d iv id u a l d e s ire and the n e c e s s itie s
of the in te rd ep e n d en t organic whole. The uniform processes
of growth and decay a re sym bolized by the sun and these
processes a re placed in ir o n ic ju x ta p o s itio n to in d iv id u a l
d e s ire s in the person of p lea su re lo v in g l i t t l e H etty . The
answer to the problem i s given in i t s most rudim entary form
^ P . 189, bk. I , ch. XVII.
^ P . 189, bk. I , ch. XVII.
30
h ere: H etty f i n a l l y tu rn s from her dumb anim al h u rt and
s in g le n e ss to e n te r in to the l i f e of the organic whole a t
i t s most elem en tal le v e l of a one-for-one r e l a ti o n s h i p , by
a c o n fe ssio n a l acceptance of the sympathy of Dinah M orris.
Maggie T u lliv e r moves fu rth e r from in d iv id u a l d e s ire and
s in g le n e ss to acceptance of the demands o f th e la r g e r whole.
She renounces p e rso n a l p leasu re in serv in g the needs of her
fam ily ( s p e c i f i c a l l y , those of h e r b ro th e r Tom and cousin
I Lucy D eane). With The M ill on the F lo ss n ot only had the
r id d le s of th e one and the many been f u lly d efin ed in f i c
t io n a l form, b ut th e b asic g u id e lin e s fo r th e so lu tio n are
s e t : h e r rem aining novels are p rim a rily e x p lo ra tio n s of
the expanding scope of t h is s o lu tio n . Romola d isc o v ers
th a t th e f a m ilia l r e la tio n s h ip alone i s too narrow and en
t e r s in to a se lf-a b n e g a tin g se rv ic e to the community of
F lo re n c e . D aniel Deronda a r r iv e s a t an even wider commit
ment to the Jew ish r a c e , p ast and f u tu r e , as an organic
e n t i t y . The p e rim ete r of the s o c ia l organism w ith which
the in d iv id u a l must u n ite him self thus s t e a d i ly expands.
To the e x te n t th a t the in d iv id u a l can move from sep aratism
to o rg an icism , from egoism to sympathy, from in d iv id u a l
i s o l a t i o n to the se rv ic e of th e many he i s id e a ll y human
on the e v o lu tio n a ry s c a le .
CHAPTER I I
LEWES' EVOLUTIONARY PHILOSOPHY
I
Lewes' p e r s i s t e n t m o n istic emphasis c a r r ie s over in to
h is e v o lu tio n ary d o c trin e and r a th e r s u b tly works i t s e l f
out in v a s tly d i f f e r e n t conclusions from D arw in's. I t i s
apparent th a t Lewes, w hile d is b e lie v in g in the b a sic mecha
nisms of Darwinian n a tu r a l s e l e c t i o n , in te n d s to give no
comfort to the m utual enemy—th e m etaphysical or th e o lo g i
c a l opponents of u n ifo rm ita ria n sc ie n c e . This caution
about arming or s t i r r i n g up th e enemy which made him delay
in p u b lish in g what would have been an e s s e n tia lly commenda
to ry review when The O rigin of S uecies f i r s t appeared^ has
2
le d perhaps to h is p o s itio n being m isunderstood, fo r
^ L e tte rs , V, 2J+2.
2
So we would have to d isa g ree w ith the o bserv ation of
Gordon S. H aight th a t Lewes was a "stro n g proponent" of
D arw in's new th e o ry , and w ith th e tone of Bernard P aris*
d iscu ssio n of Lewes' and George E l i o t 's evolutionism im
p ly in g , as i t does, agreement w ith Darwin of a l l e s s e n t ia l
d o c trin e s (H aig h t, George E lio t [New York, 1968] , p. 35b>
P a r is , pp. 5 9-60). The d i f f i c u l t y , as Jacques Barzun
p o in ts out in Darwin. Marx. Wagner (Garden C ity , 1958),
p. 61, i s th a t barwin "was slow ly coming back to some of
the p o s itio n s of the e a r ly n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry e v o lu tio n is ts ,
in clu d in g h is own g r a n d f a th e r 's id e a s" under the weight of
o b je c tio n s to h is th eo ry (p. 6 1 ).
31
Lewes' e v o lu tio n a ry d o c trin e i s as to process and p u rp o rt
in fundam ental o p p o sitio n to D arw in's.
Lewes' b a sic o b je c tio n i s , of co u rse, th a t th e adven
t i t i o u s n a tu re of n a tu r a l s e le c tio n excludes m o nistic o rder
in the u n iv e rs e . Lewes w hile anxious to scotch a l l v i t a l i s
t i c or th e o lo g ic a l d o c trin e s of purpose i s tem peram entally
in cap ab le of acc ep tin g a d o c trin e which s u b s titu te s random
s e le c tio n fo r a u n iv e r s a l, purposive o rd e r. D arw in's con
tr ib u tio n as Jacques Barzun p o in ts out i s
not the th eo ry of e v o lu tio n as a whole but a th eo ry which
e x p la in s e v o lu tio n by n a tu r a l s e le c tio n from a c c id e n ta l
v a r i a t i o n s . The e n ti r e phrase and n ot m erely th e words
N a tu ra l S e le c tio n i s im p o rta n t, fo r the d e n ia l of purpose
in the u n iv erse i s c a r r ie d in th e second h a lf of the
form ula—a c c id e n ta l v a r ia tio n . T his d e n ia l of purpose
i s D arw in's d i s t i n c t i v e c o n t e n t i o n . 3
Lewes' own e v o lu tio n a ry th eo ry had a lre ad y been pro
pounded in d e t a i l in Sea-Side S tu d ie s and in Physiology of
Common L ife when D arw in's O rigin appeared. In Lewes' u n i
v e rs e , as has been n o te d , th e re i s a harmony and p e rfe c t
in te r a c tio n of p a rts so th a t nothing i s w asted. Indeed,
i t i s impious to q u estio n the p e rfe c tio n of a system where
"each p a r t enhances the power of the whole, and i s in tu rn
enhanced by i t " (PLH. IV, 10*f). The th r u s t of t h i s system
im p e llin g a l l c re a tio n to a h ig h er c o -o rd in a tio n of the
many w ith the one and the su b o rd in a tio n of the needs and
^Darwin. Marx. Wagner, pp. 10-11.
33
i n t e r e s t s of the in d iv id u a l to the community i s obviously
a n ta g o n is tic in s p i r i t to a Darwinian evolution which ex
p la in s pro g ress by th e random n a tu r a l s e le c tio n of the f i t
t e s t . Although Lewes acknowledges t h a t i t i s a sad world
where we e a t and a re e a te n , h is emphasis i s on concordance,
and o ften l y r i c a l l y and always re v e re n tly so. Darwin’ s
e v o lu tio n a ry motor i s fu ele d by com petition and Lewes' by
c o -o p e ra tio n . D arw in's image of n a tu re i s the jungle of
the n ig h t; Lewes' i s th e temple of l i f e .
The p ro p e llin g mechanisms in Lewes' pre-Darwinian ex
p o s itio n s , a re one, the in h e r ita n c e of acquired c h a r a c te r is
t i c s , and, two, the law of anim al development f i r s t s ta te d
by Goethe th a t "development i s always from the G eneral to
the P a r t i c u l a r , from the Homogenous to the H eterogeneous,
from th e Simple to the Complex; and t h i s by a gradual s e r i e s
of d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n s ." ^ The Lamarckian d o c trin e of i n h e r i t -
SSS, p. 157. G o eth e's e v o lu tio n a ry law was some
th in g o f a commonplace of V ic to ria n thought although ex
p ressed in v a rio u s form s. H erbert S p e n c er's form of th is
e v o lu tio n a ry lav/ i s : "E volution i s an in te g r a tio n of m atter
and concom itant d is s ip a tio n of m otion; during which the
m a tte r passes from an i n d e f i n it e in co h eren t homogeneity to
a d e f i n i te coherent h e te ro g e n e ity ; and during which the
re ta in e d motion undergoes a p a r a l l e l tra n sfo rm a tio n ."
(F i r s t P rin c in le s [New York, 1880], p. 343.) Thomas Henry
H uxley's v ersio n rea d s t h i s way: "But the d iffe re n c e be
tween the powers of the low est p l a n t , or anim al, and those
of th e h ig h e s t, i s one of d eg ree, n ot of k in d , and depends,
as Milne-Edwards long ago so w ell pointed o u t, upon the
e x te n t to which the p r in c ip le of the d iv is io n of labour i s
c a rrie d out in the liv in g economy. In the low est organism
a l l p a rts are competent to perform a l l fu n c tio n s , and one
and th e same p o rtio n of protoplasm may s u c c e ss fu lly take on
3 k
ance of acq u ired c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s im p lie s purpose and a
c e r ta in modicum of b e n e fic e n t in d iv id u a l independence of
a c t i o n , somewhat crudely epitom ized in th e popular b e li e f
th a t g i r a f f e s were a b le to develop long necks to g et a t the
lea v es in the t r e e s , and then pass th e acq u ired long necks
on to t h e i r progeny. G oethe's law , " s t r i k i n g l y ap p lied by
Van Baer" C SSS. p. 157) im p lies a purposive progressivism
throughout n a tu r e , w ith a p e rf e c t harm onizing of p a r ts .
D arw in's s u rv iv a l of th e f i t t e s t by a c c id e n ta l v a ria tio n s
means, as Barzun remarks w ith some adm itted e x a g g e ra tio n ,
th a t th e whole of anim al e v o lu tio n had taken place among
a b so lu te ro b o ts , which reproduced t h e i r kind with s l i g h t
p u rp o se less v a r ia tio n s of form [le a d in g to the] common
n o tio n th a t man i s th e outcome of a long c a tc h -a s -c a tc h -
can beginning w ith an amoeba or o n e -c e lle d anim al, which
has had advantageous f a c u l ti e s added to i t s e l f by a
s e r i e s of happy ch an ces.7
Lewes' post-D arw inian e v o lu tio n a ry d o c trin e i s modi
f ie d in th e l i g h t of D arw in's h y p o th eses. He d o e s n 't give
up h is b e l i e f in the in h e rita n c e o f acq u ired c h a r a c te r is
t i c s , b u t the a p p lic a tio n s a re n o t g e n e ra l r a th e r than
s p e c i f i c . " Id io sy n c ra c ie s" he contends in 1856, "belong to
th e in d iv id u a l, not to the s p e c ie s ." Thus "even queer
the function of feeding, moving, or reproducing apparatus.
In the highest, on the contrary, a great number of parts
combine to perform each function, each part doing its al
lotted share of the work with great accuracy and efficiency,
but being useless for any other purpose." ("On the Physical
Basis of Life." Prose of the Victorian Period [Cambridge,
1958], pp. 516-5T775
- ^Darwin. Marx. Wagner, p. 11.
35
t r i c k s of manner," v ic e s , such as gambling and th ie v e r y , and
f e a r s , such as th a t of a dog a t the explosion of a gun are
!
h e r e d i t a r i l y tr a n s m itte d , according to Lewes. He ingenuous
ly r e c a l l s :
The w r ite r had a puppy, taken from i t s mother a t six
weeks o ld , who although never tau g h t " to beg" (an accom
plishm ent h is mother had been t a u g h t ) , spontaneously
took to begging fo r e v ery th in g he wanted; he would beg
fo r food, beg to be l e t out of th e room, and one day was
found o p p o site a r a b b it hutch begging fo r the r a b b i t s .°
A fte r Darwin, Lewes g iv es no examples of th e in h e rita n c e of
in d iv id u a l a cq u ired id io s y n c r a c ie s , and in 187*+ he c a u tio u s
ly circu m scrib es the in h e rita n c e of a cq u ired c h a r a c te r is
t i c s .
V/hat we i n h e r i t i s th e m odified s t r u c tu r e , and, with
t h a t , th e a p titu d e to a c t in a c e r ta in way under c e rta in
s t i m u l i , but the in h e r ita n c e of th e h i s t o r i c a l r e s u l t i s
n ot th e in h e rita n c e of th e in c id e n ts which s e v e ra lly con
verged to th a t r e s u l t , nor o f the consequences which
issu e d from th e r e s u l t under s p e c ia l c o n d itio n s. (PLM, I ,
163)
Lewes was n ot th e only pre-D arw inian e v o lu tio n is t to back
o ff from Lam arck's d o c trin e of p u rp o sefu l e v o lu tio n w ith
the appearance of The O rigin o f S p e c ie s , of course. Barzun
n o tes th a t "Spencer q u ie tly dropped th e use of Lam arck's
name and made s e le c tio n e x p la in a l l the f a c ts in h is s p e c ia l
province— psychology, so c io lo g y , and e th ic s " (pp. 59-60).
Lewes' e v o lu tio n a ry d o c trin e i s , s im il a r ly , a lte r e d a l l
along the l in e a f t e r the appearance of the O rigin of Darwin,
^"H eredity In flu e n c e , Animal and Human," W estm inster
Review ( J u ly , 1856), pp. 78-79.
36
although he does n o t, in f a c t , give up any of h is b a sic
p re s u p p o sitio n s . Lam arck's overem phasis on " e x te rn a l con
d itio n s and wants"''7 i s n o ted , and Von B a e r's m etaphy sical
ten d en cies a re scored (p . 9 3 ), b ut h is b e l i e f in th e pur
posive a d a p ta tio n of th e organism to i t s environm ent and in
a harmonious o rth o g e n e sis i s only b a re ly concealed under a
th in lac q u e rin g of Darwinian term inology.
Lewes a cc ep ts the Darwinian perm ises th a t th e re i s
com petition fo r s u r v iv a l and a n a tu r a l s e le c tio n of those
forms f i t t e s t to su rv iv e , but "co m p e titio n ," "antagonism ,"
" s tr u g g le ," and " s e le c tio n " a re red e fin ed to mean, p r i
m a rily , the a d a p ta tio n of organs to the organism and the
organism to th e environm ent to achieve harmony and balance
in n a tu re . There i s alm ost an O rw ellian in c o n g ru ity in h is
a p p o sitiv e coupling of "th e dependence of the organism on
the in o rg a n ic medium and . . . a ls o the dependence of one
organism on a n o th er" w ith " th e com petition and antagonism
of the whole organic world" (p. 110).
Darwin u ses s im ila r term inology, but Levies' e x p o sitio n
in c lu d e s two im p o rtan t a d d itio n a l elem ents. "S tru g g le pre
supposes a p u rp o sefu l development of su p e rio r organs and
organism s by which s u rv iv a l i s c o in c id e n ta lly e f f e c te d ,
^Problems of L ife and Mind. Second S e rie s : The
P h y sica l B asis of Mind. I l l (London 1877), 118. (H erein
a f t e r r e f e r r e d to as PLM. I I I . )
37
and " s e le c tio n ” does not imply a r u th le s s d iscard in g so much
as a harmonious b a la n cin g .
Lewes* pre-D arwinian in s is te n c e on the p e rfe c t conser
v a tio n of n a tu ra l p ro c e ss e s , wherein "nothing i s w asted,"
rea p p ea rs somewhat c o v e rtly in h is contention th a t D arw in's
se p a ra tio n of v a ria tio n from s e le c tio n i s a r t i f i c i a l , sin ce
"th e s e le c tio n , I con ceiv e, to be sim ply the v a ria tio n
which has survived" (p. 109). Lewes' r e a l ta r g e t i s the
Darwinian b e li e f th a t n a tu re a d v e n titio u s ly and w a ste fu lly
throws up i n f i n i t e v a r ia tio n s which have no meaning in the
o v e ra ll scheme. Lewes, as we have se en , can accept the sad
f a c t th a t in the i n t e r e s t s of o v e ra ll organic harmony we
must e a t and be e a te n , b u t can never b e lie v e th a t the c re a
tiv e p ro cesses are e s s e n t i a l l y p u rp o se le ss. So he a rg u e s,
in e f f e c t , th a t s e le c tio n i s i m p lic it in the c re a tio n pro
c e ss. Animals d o n 't , th e n , su rv iv e because, in the process
of e x h ib itin g l im i tl e s s v a r i a t i o n s , they happened to have
come up w ith a p ro te c tiv e c o lo ra tio n which a h y p o sta tise d
N a tu ra l S e le c tio n picked out as having su rv iv a l v alu e. The
p ro te c tiv e c o lo ra tio n i s provided by the n a tu ra l processes
of growth and decay engaged in harm onizing n a tu re , and th ese
pro cesses w ill c o in c id e n ta lly o ften have s u rv iv a l value
(p. 108). To use a metaphor which Lewes would have th o r
oughly d is lik e d , sin c e i t in v o lv e s the same s o rt of meta
p h y sic a l h y p o sta tisin g he fin d s Darwin g u ilty o f , Lewes
th in k s of n atu re as c r e a tiv e ly pushing from below to evolve
38
new, improved forms which will harmonize with the overall
scheme, and Darwin conceives of a somewhat chaotic mindless
nature throwing up infinite variations, most of them without
survival value, which a ruthless and exact Natural Selection
from above clips off in the bud so as to insure the survival
of only the fittest.
Lewes d o e s n 't argue though th a t a l l e v o lu tio n a ry change
i s designed to in su re s u r v iv a l— *for "many d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n s
give no s u p e r io r ity in th e s tru g g le " (p. 133). But he does
r e j e c t the Darwinian b e l i e f th a t N a tu ra l S e le c tio n i s the
only mechanism in n atu re working toward e v o lu tio n a ry p ro
g r e s s , a lre a d y having reduced n a tu r a l s e le c tio n to l i t t l e
more than the statem en t th a t s u rv iv a l indeed expresses the
m arvelous a d a p t i b i l i t y of n a tu re . N ature i s n ' t rev ealed
p rim a rily as a q u est fo r s u r v iv a l, but fo r harmonious
a d a p ta tio n of organ to organism , and organism to environ
ment (p . 109). Lewes' b a sic o b je c tio n , th e n , i s th a t Dar
win in making s u rv iv a l of th e f i t t e s t th e so le c r ite r io n
(and now he quotes from S t. George Newart) " u t t e r l y f a i l s
to account fo r the co nservation and development of the
minute and rudim entary b e g in n in g s, the s l i g h t and i n f i n i
te sim a l commencements of s t r u c tu r e s , however u s e fu l th ese
O
structures may afterwards become." In sum, Lewes chides
Q
Quoted from Newart's The Genesis of Species in PLM.
I l l , 135.
39
Darwin for first failing to explain how nature creates, and,
second, for assuming these creative processes are essential
ly unpurposive and unharmonious. (Mendel's laws of genetic
inheritance were unavailable to either man.)
Although Lewes cannot accept the picture of an inhar
monious evolutionary process implicit in Darwinism, there is
certainly a major shift in emphasis after the Origin. The
somewhat facile monistic overview which permits him to rail
against Comte's impiety in suggesting there is imperfection
in nature and to affirm there is nothing wasted in creation
or that "the amount of evil massed together from every
quarter must be held as small compared with the broad bene
ficence of Nature" is modified if not really superseded by
a more sombre view. His acknowledgment of an incessant
struggle for survival— of organ with organ, of organism with
organism and rival with rival for "the preservation of its
substance and the preservation of its kind"7 is in tone
markedly different from the lyrical salute to a natural
order where not "even an infusory animalcule [could] be
annihilated without altering the equilibrium of the uni
verse." There is still monistic interdependence and pur
posive, orderly operation in Lewes' evolutionary universe,
but there is more blood on the carpet than before— the
^"Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses," The Fortnightly Review. IV,
n . s . (June 1, 1868), 74.
k0
process i s no lo n g er q u ite so tid y :
Myriads of ro o ts [ in c ip ie n t l i f e forms] have probably
p e rish ed w itho ut is s u e ; myriads have developed in to forms
so i l l - a d a p t e d to s u s ta in the flu c tu a tio n s of th e medium,
so i l l - f i t t e d f o r th e s tru g g le of e x is te n c e ; t h a t they
become e x tin c t b efo re even our organic reco rd b e g in s;
m yriads have become e x tin c t sin ce then; and th e descen
der t s of th o se which now survive a re lik e the s h a tte re d
regim ents and companies a f t e r some t e r r i f i c b a t t l e . (PLM.
I l l , 20)
Lewes* se arc h f o r m o nistic harmony i s , however, f i n a l l y
undauntable. Not only does he o b je c t to Darwin se p a ra tin g
the c re a tiv e p ro ce sses ( v a r ia tio n s ) from th e b a la n cin g or
ro o tin g -o u t p ro ce sses ( s e l e c ti o n ) , but he s u b s t i t u t e s u n i
form and o rd e rly developm ental p ro cesses fo r D arw in's theory
of d e sc e n t. Lewes, who had e a r l i e r urged th a t " a l l anim als
are k in " (SSS, p. 21+5) » now argues th a t organic resem blances
stem n ot from "community of k in sh ip " in developing from one
or a few p rim o rd ia l c e l l s , but " s i m i l a r i t i e s in th e cau sal
n e xu s.W ha t he i s a f t e r here i s a means of e x p la in in g
s i m i l a r i t i e s in n a tu re n ot merely by D arw in's " c a tc h - a s -
catch -can " p ro g ressio n from th e prim eval mud, b u t by some
means of uniform , purposive developm ental mechanism. He
b e lie v e s he has found the formula in an ex tension of s c ie n
t i f i c u n ifo rm ita ria n ism — the law th a t the fu n c tio n i s i n
se p ara b le from th e organism or form and th a t the same
causes w ill produce the same r e s u l t s . So, Lewes contends,
^ " M r. D arw in's H ypotheses," p. 75.
J f1
there have been myriads of creations; wherever the same con
ditions obtain, there will be the same forms. Where there
are variations in similar species, there have been dissimi
larities in substance and creative conditions. Similarly,
he argues for a uniformity of operation in the laws of
growth and decay, which he now calls "organic affinities"
(as an obvious counterbalance to "struggle" and "competi
tion" which are theoretically included under the larger
term "organic affinities"). This wonderful similarity of
organic forms, indicative of the uniformity and harmony of
nature's operation, is soon in even the obviously discon
tinuous areas of creation:
Why is it that vessels, nerves, and bones ramify like
branches, and why do these branches take on the aspect
of many crystals? . . . Why are there never more than
four limbs attached to a vertebral column, and these al
ways attached to particular vertebrae?
Lewes' uniformitarian evolutionism also demands sudden
and abrupt variations in an organism instead of Darwin's
"numerous successive slight modifications" to account for
the spontaneous appearance of similar organs and organisms
in non-contiguous locations but similar natural environ
ments (PLM. Ill, 119)* He is, of course, attempting to
supply the mechanism for his doctrine that uniform, purpos
ive laws of growth, not haphazard evolutionary descent from
^ " M r. D arw in's H ypotheses," p. 75.
42
the original protoplasm, accounts for evolutionary develop
ment. This mechanism of abrupt variations serves another
purpose, though not stated, of justifying the rapid incor
poration of acquired characteristics into the evolutionary
line of development.
We have seen, then, that Lewes attempts to undercut
Darwinism at several key points, always with the aim, though
never explicitly stated, of retaining a monistic and La
marckian picture of nature's operations. He rejects random
variation, redefines "competition" and "struggle" into
instruments of co-ordination and order, and reinterprets
natural selection and survival of the fittest into being
primarily the expression of nature's concordance. In sum,
he is arguing that the Darwinian mechanism cannot fully
account for evolutionary development, and he proposes laws
which provide for an essentially uniform, harmonious, pro
gressive, and purposive evolutionary process.
II
The humanistic evolutionary ladder of life pictured
by Lewes as an extension of these general principles has
something of Comte and Gall as well as Lamarck, Goethe, and
Von Baer in it. From Lamarck (and by extension Spencer)
there is the mechanism of inheritance of acquired character
istics (though in a modified form after Darwin) with the
concomitant assumption of purposive adaptation. From
43
Goethe and Von Baer he tak e s the u n ifo rm ita ria n m aster plan
reaffirmed after the Origin. that "the evolution of Life is
th e e v o lu tio n of the s p e c ia l from th e g e n e ra l, the complex
12
from th e sim p le ." From Comte and G all he tak e s the hu
m a n istic pro g ressiv ism a ffirm in g t h a t the e v o lu tio n a ry pro
cess i s the s te p -b y -s te p development up th e s c a le in anim als
and men from egoism to a ltr u is m , and the conviction th a t "to
liv e fo r o th e rs i s thus the n a tu r a l conclusion of a l l P o si
tiv e M orality" (CP, p. 223).
In G all the ascending sc a le from egoism to s o c i a l i t y
i s p r e c is e ly d e lin e a te d ; th e re a re ten emotive f a c u l ti e s and
they a re a s s o c ia te d w ith s p e c if ic a re a s of th e b ra in . Lewes
and George E lio t e a rly r e je c te d p h re n o lo g y ,^ but the p o si
tiv e , p h ren o lo g ica l schem atization of G all in i t s evolu
tio n a ry a sp e c ts i s im p lic it in Lewes' developm ental th eo ry
and novels and in George E l i o t 's f i c t i o n . The ten emotive
f a c u l t i e s of G all are divided in to two la r g e r c a te g o rie s :
Fundamental Egotism and A ltru ism . Fundamental Egotism i s
subdivided in to th ree su b c a te g o rie s: P re s e rv a tio n , P e r f e c t-
12
"Mr. D arw in's H ypotheses," p. 66.
^ L e t t e r s , I I , 1*03-404. F e lix H olt th e re i s a
p a r a l l e l d isc u ssio n of phrenology, ending in the r e je c tio n
of the d o c tr in e , but w ith the conclusion by Rev. Lyon " th a t
we have our varying n a tu r a l d is p o s itio n s which even grace
w i l l n o t o b l it e r a t e " (pp. 69-70).
k k
ibility, and Transition. The categories and the faculties
within them represent a measured progression toward the
ideal stage of evolutionary development: the faculty of
Universal Benevolence. Men and animals share these facul
ties up to the upper end of the scale, that is, up to Uni
versal Benevolence. Under Preservation, in ascending order
from Egotism to Altruism, there are three faculties: the
Nutritive, the Sexual, and the Maternal. These three facul
ties are universal instincts designed to preserve the indi
vidual (and are indeed forerunners of Spencer's happily
phrased "survival of the fittest").
Still primarily egoistic instincts, but tending a bit
more to sociability and dignity are the two faculties under
Perfectibility: The Military, whose hallmark is the des
truction of obstacles, and the Industrial, which is the
faculty of construction, and works in conjunction with the
Maternal, for instance, in nest-building. These five in
tensely egoistic instincts are followed by two transitional
ones (as the evolutionary process reaches toward Altruism):
Pride, whose characteristic is love of power, and Vanity,
which is defined as love of approbation. Vanity is obvious
ly closer to ideal sociability than Pride (as we shall see
later— Cecil Chamberlayne's or Tito Melemma's desire for
approbation is more socially ingratiating than Lord Haw
buck's or Grandcourt's desire for mastery).
Finally, there are three altruistic faculties: At-
45
tachment, Veneration, and Universal Benevolence. All three
may be considered forms of sympathy, distinguished from each
other primarily in the extent of application and the degree
of feeling. Attachment is the sympathetic uniting of two
beings and is as strong an instinct in animals as in man.
Veneration is still a special or individual affection but
can extend to natural objects as well as beings. It is more
extended in scope than Attachment and can also be found in
animals, but is not as universal an instinct. Universal
Benevolence, at the top of the evolutionary ladder, is sym
pathy in the most intense degree and can denominate either
such a patently universal affection as patriotism or the
sort of sympathy which is transferable to all suffering
human beings. Universal Benevolence is not just restricted
to one individual as with Attachment. Further, Universal
Benevolence is the culmination of the evolutionary process
in that it is the one uniquely human sentiment, not being
shared with any of the animal series.
Gall's schematization does not survive in Lewes' evo
lutionary doctrine or psychology without modification, but
Gall's fundamental assumptions permeate his scientific
theory, and, most significantly, for our purposes, are im
plicit in his fictional characterizations, and, by exten
sion, we hope to show, in George Eliot's character types.
Not only does Lewes disavow and even ridicule the associ
ated phrenological doctrines (HP, I I , 394-434), but he
46
recognizes that there are relatively few people who can be
placed exclusively in any one of Gall's ten categories.
There are few of the extreme types—-most people oscillate
from one category to another— , but Lewes does agree that
the larger dividion of individuals into those dominated
either by Altruism or Egoism is valid (CP, p. 221). He does
accept Gall's larger framework and his doctrine of "the
preeminence of the affective faculties over the intellec
tual, which constitutes the great progress of civilization
in the triumph of sociality over animality (HP, II, 400).
Gall's schema of evolutionary progression remains, if
not in all details, the foundation of Lewes' evolutionary
philosophy and psychology until the last. Here is one of
his later expositions of the scale:
Directly connected with the Nutritive Instinct are
three egoistic Impulses, offensive and defensive, which
may be characterised as the Aggressive Instincts. The
animal must destroy, or it could not feed. A rival
threatening to take some of this food arouses Anger, the
emotion of a thwarted impulse. The thwarted sexual im
pulse calls out the same feeling. Derived from this will
be in the higher imaginative animals the love of Domina
tion: the desire to make others afraid of, or subservient
to us. Where food is abundant, and accessible, there is
little development of these tendencies; as may be ob
served in the herbivora, who rarely fight unprompted by
the sexual impulse. Tigers would be sociable were animal
food as abundant and accessible as vegetable food. War
is the outcome of this tendency. In Trade we see the war
spirit animated by the desire for Property.
The so-called instinct of Self-preservation is a fic
tion. The only impulse at work there is the shrinking
from Pain; and this in the matured experience leads to
the intelligent act of self-preservation.
As the Aggressive Instinct springs from the Nutritive,
so the Sexual Instinct springs from the Reproductive.
It is the first of the sympathetic tendencies, the germ
w?
of A ltru ism . Love, which i s the s o c ia l m otor, has t h is
o r ig in . Thus m odified, the tendency to Domination be
comes th e love of A pprobation: i t i s the sym pathetic
form of the e g o is tic im pulse. The love of w ife and c h ild
ren extends to r e l a t i v e s and f r ie n d s , to the t r i b e , to the
n a tio n , to Humanity. (PLM, I , 175-176)
W e see h ere some m o d ificatio n of the e a r l i e r s c a le of
G a ll. While th e b a sic framework rem ains i n t a c t , Lewes
th in k s of the h ig h e r le v e ls as a pro g ressio n from two b a sic
i n s t i n c t s — the N u tr itiv e and R eproductive— , and the Sexual
and M aternal i n s t i n c t s sp rin g from t h i s more b a sic i n s t i n c t .
F u rtherm o re, he d i s l ik e s the term " S e lf-p re s e rv a tio n 1 1 sin ce
i t im p lie s , a t the low est l e v e ls , a c a lc u la tio n which i s
r e a l l y only a l a t e r development from the more b a sic stim u-
lu s - r e s p o n s e , a ttr a c tio n - r e p u ls io n movements to avoid pain
and gain n u t r i t i o n and rep ro d u c tio n . But the h ig h er human
c a te g o rie s remain e s s e n t ia ll y unm odified. So War, and
Trade (" th e d e s ir e fo r p ro p erty ") sp rin g in g from the more
b a sic i n s t i n c t s correspond to the e a r l i e r s ta te d M ilita ry
and I n d u s t r i a l c a te g o rie s . I t i s , however, the s t i l l high
e r developments of the b a sic N u tritiv e and R eproductive
i n s t i n c t s , transform ed in turn in to th e A ggressive and
Sexual i n s t i n c t s , and then to "th e tendency to Domination"
(elsew here r e f e r r e d to as P ride) and, then a b i t h ig h er
in to "lo v e of A pprobation" (Vanity) which w ill p rim a rily
occupy us in t h i s work because of t h e i r embodiments in the
f i c t io n of Lewes and George E lio t. While specimens of the
h ig h e s t e v o lu tio n a ry development of the A ggressive and
48
Sexual instincts— the altruistic Dinah Morris, Adam Bede,
Mirah Lapidoth, and Daniel Deronda— have considerable the-
i
oretical interest they will always have difficulty holding
the stage with such imperfect, transitional specimens as
Hetty, Donnithorne, Gwendolyn Harleth, and Grandcourt. Or,
as Lewes notes, amateurs insist on good parts, whereas pro
fessionals love to take bad parts.^ ^
It is obvious that this sort of evolutionary program
based on a uniform progressivism toward altruism and self-
denial is hardly of a piece with the Darwinian picture of
nature. However, such an assumption is not entirely cor
rect, for as William Irvine has pointed out, "making no
pretensions as an ethical thinker, Darwin does not attempt
any elaborate account of moral experience, nor is he entire
ly free from confusion and inconsistency." In broad out
line his ethical doctrine would be acceptable to Lewes, for
Darwin believes that
conscience arises from the evolutionary process; more
particularly— first, from sympathy and the social in
stincts, which are supported by opinion, and second from
rational reflection on the consequences of actions and
from the emergence of the idea of ought. which may in
idea^stic individuals, rise above mere public opin-
This empirical view of conscience accords with Lewes’
^^Rose. Blanche, and Violet. 3 vols. (London, 1848) ,
I, 179* (H e re in a fte r r e f e r r e d to as RBV.)
1 5
^William Irvine, Apes. Angels and Victorians (New
York, 1955), P. 195.
k9
view, and th e p o st-O rig in Lewes would accep t D arw in's cau
tio u s conclusion th a t "deeply in g ra in e d h a b its may tra n sm it
16
te n d e n c ie s , b ut s c a rc e ly , perhaps the h a b its them selves."
But D arw in's e t h i c a l th e o r ie s a re something of an im p o sitio n
from above, e s s e n t ia ll y divorced from th e e v o lu tio n a ry sub
s tr u c tu r e of random s e le c tio n and s u rv iv a l o f the f i t t e s t .
Lewes' e v o lu tio n a ry th eo ry i s t a ilo r e d to support h is
hum anistic p ro g ressiv ism . For Lewes the upper end of the
e v o lu tio n a ry s c a le i s c h a ra c te riz e d by in c re a s in g harmony
!
and organic in terd ep en d en ce. Almost p a ra d o x ic a lly , t h i s
in c re a s in g u n ity and homogeneity i s achieved by in c re a s in g
d i v e r s it y and s p e c ia liz a tio n (here we have a working out of
G o eth e's e v o lu tio n a ry la w ):
An organism r i s e s in power as i t ra m ifie s in to v a r ie ty .
From a homogeneous o rg an ic mass a complex s tr u c tu r e i s
evolved by su c ce ssiv e d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n s . The e v o lu tio n of
Organs i s th e s e ttin g a p a rt of c e rta in p o rtio n s of th e
organic mass fo r th e e x clu siv e performance of c e r ta in
p ro ce sses: the c re a tio n of s p e c ia l In stru m en ts which are
to subserve the g e n e ra l good. In th e s o c ia l organism we
see a s im ila r s e t ti n g a p a rt of c la s s e s of men to perform
e x c lu siv e ly c e r ta in o f f ic e s fo r th e g e n e ra l w e lfa re ; the
s o ld ie r f i g h ts b u t ceases to b u ild , to re a p , to cook, or
to make c lo th e s . . . . In the sim p le st organism s we
fin d no s p e c ia l fu n c tio n s . Each p a rt does a l l . But
w hile the s tr u c tu r e i s th u s sim ple, th e r e s u l t i s s l i g h t .
For an e n e rg e tic L ife th e re i s needed a complex organ
ism . '
So th e re i s in Lewes' d o c trin e not only th e assum ption of
1^ I rv in e , p. 195.
1 7
'"M r. D arw in's H ypotheses," pp. 66-67.
50
u n ifo rm ity of o p e ra tio n harm onizing d iv e r s ity w ith s im ila r
i t y , but th ere i s a ls o an a c c e le r a tio n of the c o o rd in atin g
p ro cesses as we move h ig h e r on th e sc a le in something of an
in v e rs e r a t i o to the in c re a s in g d iv is io n of la b o r.
This almost obsessive preoccupation of Lewes' with
uniformity in apparent diversity is, of course, not empha
sized in Darwin, for whom, as Lewes comments, "the general
resemblances in forms and functions are more or less masked
by particular differences" so that he must resort to common
i
descen t from a p rim o rd ia l c e l l to account fo r resem blance.
Darwin i s q u ite c o n s i s t e n t , th e n , in not en v isio n in g a
p ro g re ssiv e harm onizing of n a tu re up the sc a le when h is
b a sic ev o lu tio n ary mechanisms a re random s e le c tio n and s u r
v iv a l of the f i t t e s t . Indeed, the upward movement of Dar
winian evolution makes " g r e a te r and g r e a te r gaps" and pro
duces "more marked d i v e r s i t i e s among the descendants" (PLM,
I I I , 13*t). F urtherm ore, Darwinism in r e je c tin g or w atering
down purposive Lamarckian a d a p ta tio n of the organism to the
environm ent, s e p a ra te s the h ig h er organisms p ro g re ssiv e ly
from the environment in the s tru g g le fo r e x is te n c e . So
Ju lia n Huxley a rg u e s, in a tta c k in g Lamarckian e v o lu tio n ,
th a t the h ig h er mammals
have their internal environment regulated to an extra
ordinary degree of constancy. . . . How then can changes
in the external environment be transmitted to them? The
regulation of the internal environment provides an ef
fective shock-absorber for all the more obvious altera
tions which could occur in the external environment. Yet
51
h ig h er mammals have evolved as ra p id ly and in as obvious
ly a d ap tiv e ways as any lower types in which t h i s b u f fe r
in g does not e x i s t .
In c o n tr a s t, Lewes contends th a t by ev o lu tio n "th e
organism adapts i t s e l f more and more to the e x te rn a l medi-
um" (PLM. V, 104). There i s an ever in c re a s in g i d e n t i f i c a
tio n w ith n a tu re and a b so rp tio n in i t (SSS, pp. 218-219) so
th a t the h ig h er organism i s more dependent on i t s surround
in g s than the lower (CP, p. 167). The accum ulating momen
tum in Lewes' m o n istic evolutionism i s such th a t n o t only
do th e h ig h e r organism s p ro g re s siv e ly harmonize more f u lly
w ith the e x te rn a l environm ent b ut each su c ce ssiv e genera
tio n i s more a lik e the h ig h e r we go on the s c a le in s te a d of
being marked by " g r e a te r and g r e a te r g a p s." I t i s only a
l i t t l e exaggerated to say th a t in D arw in's system n a tu re ,
in in c e s s a n t com petition and s tru g g le fo r s u r v iv a l, i s
p u llin g f u r th e r and f u r th e r a p a rt in to d i v e r s it y , and th a t
fo r Lewes the e v o lu tio n a ry dynamic i s in the d ire c tio n of
e v e r-in c re a s in g c o -o rd in a tio n . At a l l s i g n i f ic a n t p o in ts ,
th e n , Darwinism i s m odified or r e je c te d where i t comes in to
c o n f lic t w ith the hum anistic p ro gressivism of Positivism ."*^
18
Evolution: the Modern Synthesis (London, 19^3),
pp. lf60— 2+61.
^ % h ile accep tin g th e th re e sta g e s of Comte, as w ell
as h is c la s s if i c a t io n of the scien c es and h is emphasis on
o b je c tiv e v e r i f i c a ti o n and experim ent w ith something ap
proaching m issionary z e a l, Lewes d isa g re e s w ith Corate on
s e v e ra l p o in ts . He r e j e c t s the dogmatism of Comte's r e
lig io n of humanity w hile supp ortin g th e g e n eral e th i c a l
A somewhat peripheral hut overlapping evolutionary
doctrine is supplied by Comte's law of the three stages
of social development. This doctrine is central to Lewes'
thought, but its primary application is not to his evolu
tionary theory or fiction, although, as we will see, George
Eliot puts it to some service. Comte's three stages— the
Theological, Metaphysical, and Positivist— apply primarily
to the historical evolution of human society, but Lewes
affirms they are also a part of individual development as
laws of the mind. In the first stage, the Theological,
there is a progression from animism or fetishism to poly
theism and then to monotheism. The characteristic operation
of the mind at this stage is the personification of natural
forces which one cannot comprehend. In the second stage,
the Metaphysical stage, natural forces are hypothesized
into abstract entities or laws standing apart from the
operations of nature. Examples of such mythical entities
are vital forces or Kant's a priori categories of space and
time. The third and final stage, the Positivist, explains
framework: specifically the Comtian emphasis on sociability
and altruism which embodies the best of Christian morality,
though Positivism (he adds rather acerbicly) "leaves less
influence to the avowedly selfish motives" than Christianity
(HP, II, 639)* Lewes, also, disagrees with Comte's and
Gall's rejection of introspection as a prime tool in psy
chology. He is in agreement with Comte in finding Gall's
evolutionary affective scale too rigid (though both accept
the overall schema), and with Comte's and Gall's emphasis
on the emotive faculties over the purely intellectual.
53
the o p e ra tio n s of n a tu re e n ti r e l y by the o b serv atio n and
v e r i f i c a ti o n of the "how’1 of n a tu ra l processes w ithout
a ttem p tin g to ex p lain the unknowable "why" by h y p o sth e siz -
ing n a tu r a l fo rc e s in to gods or v i t a l fo rce s divorced from
the o p e ra tio n s them selves. Thus " h is to r y d is c lo s e s how the
mind p asses from wonderment a t the m iraculous to the d i s
cernment of o rd e r, from so rc ery to scien ce" and moves from
"a vague conception of u n iv e rs a l Animism, o r the presence
of a se p a ra te W ill in each o b je c t, w ith consequent b e l i e f
in the c a p ric io u sn e ss of events" to a re c o g n itio n of th e
in e x o r a b ility of n a tu r a l processes ( PLM. IV, 155). The
p o s i t i v i s t mind no lon ger r a t i o n a l i z e s p erso n al d e s ire in to
the n e c e s s i t ie s of the u n iv e rs e , but acc ep ts the i n e v i t a
b i l i t y of n a tu r a l law.
The m otive fo r r ig h t or "moral" a c tio n has a concomi
ta n t Comtian pro g ressio n a ls o . At th e low est sta g e of
development th e motive of men or anim als i s the same—
f e a r:
A dog running away and hid ing h im self a f t e r a con
scio u s misdemeanor, and not to be brought back by coax
in g , having more fe a r of the s tic k than b e li e f in f o r
g iv e n e ss, i s not a very inadequate comparison fo r th a t
stag e of human remorse which c o n s is ts in the m isd o e r's
mere t e r r o r of th e vengeance he has in c u rre d from su p e r
n a l powers. To th e moral sense in t h i s lower sta g e th e re
i s b ut a f a i n t and confused im pression o f what c o n s ti
tu te s the wrong of wrongdoing; fo rg iv en e ss i s contem
p la te d as a h e a l a l l . But in a mind where the educated
tra c in g of h u r t f u l consequences to o th e rs i s a s s o c ia te d
with a sym pathetic im agination of t h e i r s u f f e r in g , Re
morse has no r e la tio n to an e x te rn a l source of punishment
fo r th e wrong committed: i t i s th e agonized se n se , the
c o n tr ite con tem plation, of the wound in f lu c te d on an
o th e r. (PLM. IV, 150)
At the h ig h er s ta g e s , th e n , man i s n ' t m otivated by f e a r ,
but by sympathy and i d e n t i f i c a t i o n of r i g h t a c tio n s w ith
"th e h ig h e s t a s c e rta in a b le duty to mankind (p. 151)— th a t
i s , w ith a l t r u i s t i c submersion o f in d iv id u a l d e s ire in to
the needs of the s o c ia l whole. At the low est s ta g e , the
th e o lo g ic a l, though, he i s m otivated by fe a r of vengeance
by a d e ity p e rso n ify in g n a tu r a l fo rc e s .
Up to t h i s p o in t in the study of Lewes' unique blend
of e v o lu tio n a ry philosophy we have been engaged in p o in tin g
!
out i t s purp o siv e, m o n istic n a tu re and Lewes' consequent
r e je c tio n or m o d ifica tio n of a Darwinism c h a ra c te riz e d by
random v a ria tio n and com petition fo r s u r v iv a l. W e have a ls o
d e a lt w ith those elem ents in the hum anistic p rogressivism
of G all and Comte which Lewes in c o rp o ra te s in to h is p h ilo
sophy. W e w ill go in to two o th e r v i t a l a sp e c ts of Lewes'
d o c tr in e —h is c o rre la tio n of the anim al and the human se
r i e s , and, in ch ap ter I I I , h is concom itant e v o lu tio n a ry
psychology—befo re tu rn in g to the a p p lic a tio n of t h i s evo-
|lu tio n a r y scheme in th e f i c t io n of George E li o t .
I l l
Lewes tak e s some e x c e p tio n , in degree i f not in p rin
c ip l e , w ith D arw in's and Comte's a s s e r tio n of the i d e n t i t y
of the m ental f a c u l t i e s of man and the h ig h er anim als.
Lewes contends th a t they a re "more or l e s s s im il a r ," not
i d e n t i c a l (PLM. IV, 130)* I t i s tru e " th a t anim als rea so n ,
55
th a t i s to sa y , combine e x p e rie n c e s, form judgm ents, i n
fere n c e s" (p. 1^1) b u t even the h ig h e s t anim als la c k " r e l a
tio n to a S o c ia l Medium, w ith i t s p ro d u ct, the G eneral
Mind" (p. 139). Human s o c ie ty , which i s d i s t i n c t i v e l y d i f
f e r e n t from a l l anim al comm unities, produces and i s made
p o ssib le by the Logic of S ig n s—Language.
And Language i s a s o c ia l product of a q u ite p e c u lia r
k in d . I t does n ot depend on the s tr u c tu r e of the vocal
organs a lo n e , fo r some b ir d s can a r t i c u l a t e and im ita te
even our words; but no b ird u ses such a r t i c u l a ti o n s as
e x p re ssio n s of id e a s . I t does n o t depend on the e x i s t
ence of a s o c ie ty , f o r bees and a n ts l iv e in s o c i e t ie s ;
and many anim als l iv e to g e th e r in groups. In th e so -
c a lle d anim al s o c i e t i e s , th e re i s a p p a re n tly nothing be
yond an aggregatio n of in d iv id u a ls and c la s s e s ; no com
mand and obedience; no relin q u ish m en t of p erso n al claim s;
above a l l , they have developed nothing lik e the Family
as the s o c ia l u n ity , and T ra d itio n as the s o c ia l exper
ie n c e . (p. 1if3)
Anim als, th e n , are capable of thought p ro c e sse s, s im ila r
and perhaps i d e n t i c a l to th ose of man, but they a re not
capable of the s e l f - d e n i a l and an ti-eg o ism necessary fo r a
h ig h e r organic s o c ie ty . They a re cap ab le, i t i s t r u e , of
some rudim entary sym pathies, th e sex u al and the p a re n ta l:
"They m an ifest a c e r ta in ten d ern ess towards young and sm all
anim als (probably a d e riv a tio n of the p a re n ta l i n s t i n c t ) ,
b ut t h i s ten d ern ess van ish es in the presence of any e g o is
t i c im pulse (p. 136). There i s a d iffe re n c e in k in d , how
e v e r, between human and anim al mother lo v e. M aternal love
in human beings can r i s e from i n s t i n c t to sentim ent "through
the i n t e l l e c t u a l a p p re c ia tio n of th e claim s of the h e lp
l e s s " —th a t i s , through a conceptual a p p re c ia tio n of con-
56
sequences. Such a co nceptu al (v ersu s th e m erely p e rc e p tu a l)
a p p re c ia tio n comes only through language. So a baboon who
was sc ratc h ed by an adopted k i t t e n b i t th e claws o f f , not
r e a l iz i n g th a t t h i s would ren d e r th e k i t t e n d e fe n se le ss;
"Language, which condenses the ex perience of o th e rs , and
communicates r e s u l t s to th o se who have n ot p e rso n a lly ex
perien ced them, was denied to th e baboon; she could only
le a rn from her own e x p e rie n c e , which was sim ply of the
sc ra tc h in g a c tio n of claws" (p. 137). Anim als, because
they la c k language, a re unable to connect the p a st and the
p re se n t w ith the fu tu re to fo re se e remote consequences, as
th e human mother can. F u r th e r , anim als a re in cap ab le of
" r e f l e c t in g on t h e i r own o p e ra tio n s and d is tin g u is h in g the
o b je c tiv e and s u b je c tiv e a sp e c ts" so as to be able to e n te r
sy m p a th e tic ally in to the p ain s and sorrow s of o th e rs : "Our
m oral l i f e i s f e e lin g fo r o t h e r s , v/orking fo r o t h e r s , q u ite
ir r e s p e c tiv e of t h i s s o c ia l im pulse. E nlightened by the
i n t u i t i o n of our common weakness, we sh are id e a lly th e u n i
v e r s a l sorrows" (p . 137).
Animals a ls o la c k th e high s u s c e p t i b i l i t y to pain
which makes p o ssib le th e i d e n t i f i c a t i o n w ith o th e rs ' s o r
rows; in d eed , Lewes j u s t i f i e s v iv is e c tio n by the supposed
i n a b i l i t y of lower organism s to f e e l anything comparable to
human pain (SSS, pp. 327-531). I t i s a t t h i s p o in t th a t we
see th e s ig n ific a n c e of Lewes' in s is te n c e in h is e v o lu tio n
a ry th eory of ever in c re a s in g i d e n t i f i c a t i o n w ith n a tu re
57
and ab so rp tio n in to i t and on the g r e a te r s i m i l a r i t y of each
succeeding g en eratio n the higher on the s c a le we go. The
g r e a te r i d e n t i f i c a t i o n w ith o th e rs and t h e i r p ain s and the
growing ab so rp tio n in to and i d e n t i f i c a t i o n w ith th e environ
m ent, in t h i s case th e s o c ia l environm ent of high human
c i v i l i z a t i o n , g iv es a p h y sio lo g ic a l (o r p seu d o -p h y sio lo g i
c a l b a s i s , i f you w ill) fo r the d o c trin e of a l t r u i s t i c sym
pathy and puts a s c i e n t i f i c foundation under p o s i t i v i s t
humanism (and s p e c i f i c a ll y the e v o lu tio n a ry la d d e r from
egoism to U n iv ersal B enevolence.) So in l in e w ith the hu
m a n istic b ent of h is mind, he does make a g r e a te r gap be
tween th e anim al and human e v o lu tio n a ry s e r i e s than Darwin—
though th e re i s c e r ta in ly much overlappin g a t th e upper end
of th e anim al and th e lower end of th e human s c a le s . The
d ista n c e between the savage and the "h ig h ly c u ltu re d mod
ern" i s g r e a te r than th a t between th e ape and th e savage,
b u t, when a l l i s s a id , th a t d iffe re n c e between ape and man
makes a l l the d iffe re n c e . Lewes f o r t h r i g h t l y p u ts him self
in th e camp of those au th o rs whom Darwin has c r i t i c i z e d fo r
i n s i s t i n g " t h a t man i s se p ara ted through h is m ental fa c u l
t i e s by an im passable b a r r i e r from a l l the lower anim als"—
and th a t b a r r i e r i s the c o n ce p tu a liz in g power made p o ssib le
by human s o c ie ty and language (PLM. IV, 1J+2-1Zflf). Lewes,
in o th e r w ords, i s not q u ite read y , d e s p ite h is e m p iric a l,
a n ti- th e o lo g ic a l b ia s long a n te d a tin g D arw in, to p o s it a
m issing l i n k , although he d o e s n 't deny one. W e e a r l i e r saw
58
t h a t he r e j e c t s common descen t from one p rim o rd ial c e l l ,
p re fe rr in g s p e c i f i c a ll y to account fo r s i m i l a r i t i e s in
sp e c ie s by th e u n ifo rm ity of n a t u r e 's o p e ra tio n s , and i s
even w illin g t e n t a t i v e l y to a ffirm some f i x i t y of s p e c ie s ,
even though he r e j e c t s s p e c ia l c re a tio n .
Let us tu rn now to a more co n crete d e sc rip tio n and
c la s s i f i c a t i o n of Lewes* e v o lu tio n a ry la d d e r, reaching from
the prim al c e l l s in th e v eg etab le and anim al worlds through
the h ig h e s t products of human s o c ie ty b efore turfiing to
George E l i o t 's novels to dem onstrate h e r e s s e n t ia l ag ree
ment w ith Lewes' e v o lu tio n ary th e o r ie s and her a d ap tatio n
of them to h e r f i c t i o n a l purposes.
Both Lewes and Darwin, as we have seen, p o s it a p r i
m ordial c e l l a t the fo o t of th e e v o lu tio n a ry la d d e r, though
w ith d if f e r e n t in te n t and e f f e c t . Lewes' p rim o rd ial c e l l —
o r , more a c c u ra te ly , c e l l s —embodies and exp resses the law -
a b id in g , harm onious, purposive o p e ra tio n of e v o lu tio n ary
law. D arw in's o r ig in a l speck of l i f e t y p if i e s the a d v e n ti
tio u s n a tu re of c r e a tio n , popping up from th e prim eval
mud, as i t must have, by a f o r tu ito u s concatenation of
circum stances and evolving c ir c u ito u s ly from th a t p o in t by
random s e le c tio n . Lewes' p rim o rd ia l c e l l t y p if i e s the
un d erlying o rd e rlin e s s of n a tu re in th a t i t s law of devel
opment i s uniform and u n iv e rs a l: th e same o rd e rly p rin
c ip le s are a t work in anim al and v eg etab le e v o lu tio n , and
the o p eratio n of t h is uniform law i s not lim ite d to one
59
g eo g rap h ical p o in t or place in tim e. In a se n se , t h i s hy
p o th e tic a l p rim o rd ia l tis s u e i s th e e m p iric a l e q u iv a le n t
of th e p h ilo s o p h e r's stone fo r Lewes—th e evidence th a t the
c e n te r of the u n iv erse holds: so the o b je c t of p h ilo so p h i
c a l anatomy i s " to reduce a l l th e tis s u e s to one p rim o rd ial
elem entary t i s s u e , from which they a re developed by m odifi
c a tio n s more and more s p e c ia l and profound!" (CP, pp. 187-
188). The coming of th e O rigin does n o t change t h i s p re
occupation (PLM. I l l , 130). The replacem ent of th e ampu
ta te d limb of th e T rito n shows the embryonic c e l ls working
through the s ta g e s of e v o lu tio n ary development from the
g e n e ra l and sim ple to the s p e c ia liz e d and complex forms and
20
fu n c tio n s a p ro cess analogous to the development of
p la n ts . In f a c t , G oethe's lav/ v/as based upon h is b o ta n ic a l
re s e a rc h e s which "showed the stamens and p i s t i l s to be
metamorphosed le a v e s ." In p la n ts th e " c e l l u l a r b a s is be
comes d i f f e r e n t i a t e d in to le a v e s , stam ens, p i s t i l s , germ
c e l l s , and sperm c e lls " even as the prim ary anim al c e l ls
develop in to m uscles, n e rv e s, v e s s e ls and integum ents.
20
"Mr. D arw in's H ypotheses," I I I , n . s . , 623. In a r e
l a t e d t o p i c , Lewes ex p lain s the development of the embryon
i c c e l l in to th e a d u lt in d iv id u a l by e p ig e n is e s , "by which
the p a r ts of an anim al are made one a f t e r a n o th e r, and out
of th e o th e r; so th a t each organ may 'be considered as a
s e c r e tin g organ w ith re s p e c t to th e o th e r s ." He i s arguing
a g a in s t the id e a th a t "th e embryo i s an anim al in m inia
t u r e ," so th a t th e a d u lt anim al e x is ts even in i t s mature
d e fo rm itie s , in th e i n i t i a l embryonic seed. ("H e red itary
In flu e n c e ," p. 87» and "Mr. D arw in's H ypotheses," I I I , n . s . ,
611-613.)
60
F urtherm ore, i t i s d i f f i c u l t o r im possible a t the lower
le v e ls of the la d d e r of l i f e to d i f f e r e n t i a t e between anim al
and p la n t— the n u t r it i o n and growth p rocesses a re e s s e n t i a l -
21
l y the same.
The h ig h e r we go on th e anim al sc a le of Lewes the
g r e a te r th e com plexity in o rg an iz atio n and thus in fu n c tio n .
S p e c if i c a l ly , th e h ig h e r anim als are marked by a g r e a te r
s e n s i t i v i t y to p a in , w ith a concordant movement from the
e x c lu siv e ly e g o is tic toward sympathy, and a more complex
reaso n in g p ro cess which g iv e s them a g r e a te r range of adap
t a t i o n . So p a in , Lewes con ten d s, i s "the consequence of a
very high degree of s p e c i a li z a t io n , and i s only met w ith in
anim als of complex o rg a n iz a tio n . I t i s probably t h a t re p
t i l e s have only a very s l i g h t cap a city fo r p a in , and a n i
mals lower than f i s h have none a t a l l (SSS, p. 329)• To
ward the lower end of th e anim al sc a le "an in s e c t w ill
sometimes continue e a tin g w hile pinned to th e ta b le . . .
[and] slu g s allow skin to be eaten and show no p a in ." The
w rith in g of h e a d le ss f l i e s , f i s h , or worms i s only r e f le x
a c tio n (SSS, p. 331). F u r th e r , we sh o u ld n 't m is in te r p re t
th e " i r r i t a b i l i t y o f nervous tis s u e " as sig n s of pain in
lower organism s: " . . . as reg ard s mere sh rin k in g and
s tr u g g lin g , f ig h tin g and c ry in g , the evidence i s n u l l (SSS.
p. 331). Not only i s th e s p e c ia liz a tio n o f s e n s i b i l i t y
21SSS, pp. 194-196; CP, p. 193; PIM, h i , 128- 129.
61
which we d e sig n ate pain found only in the more complex a n i
mals and human b e in g s , b ut th e re a re g re a t v a r ia tio n s in
th e degree of s e n s i t i v i t y of in d iv id u a ls on the same r e l a
tiv e l y high e v o lu tio n a ry p la te a u :
Even among men the d iffe re n c e of s u s c e p t i b i l i t y i s
very rem arkable. I t i s much l e s s in savages than in
h ig h ly c iv i l iz e d men, as i t seems a ls o to be l e s s in w ild
anim als than in d o m esticated , e s p e c ia lly p e tte d , anim als;
le s s in men le a d in g an a c tiv e o u t-o f-d o o r l i f e than in
those lea d in g a sed en ta ry i n t e l l e c t u a l l i f e ; l e s s in
women than in men; le s s in persons of lym phatic than in
persons of nervous temperam ents. To one man the s c ra tc h
which i s a t r i f l e s c a rc e ly n o tic e d , i s to a n o th er ob-
! tr u s iv e pain . . . . (SSS, pp. 334-335)
t
Lewes' anim al s c a le i s n ' t c a lib r a te d w ith p r e c is io n , but
th e g e n e ra l o u tlin e s are c le a r , and i n t e r e s t i n g l y enough,
th e dog, "our most i n t e l l i g e n t i n a r t i c u l a t e companion ( PLM.
IV, 1^-6), and n o t th e ape o r chimpanzee, i s a t the top.
Such p o s itio n in g em phasizes, of c o u rse , the r a d ic a l d i f f e r
ence between Lewes' p o s i t i v i s t s c a le based on degrees of
sympathy and a Darwinian s c a le based on p h y sic a l s i m i l a r i t y
22
w ith man. On Lewes* e v o lu tio n a ry la d d e r , those anim als
a re h ig h e s t who a re most capable of o b je c tiv e s e lf - r e n u n -
|
c ia tio n and sym pathetic attachm ent (and i t i s i n te r e s ti n g
22
Lewes th in k s i t "very q u e stio n a b le " th a t th e re was
a d i r e c t l in e of development so th a t " th e f i s h developed
in to th e r e p t i l e , the r e p t i l e in to the b ird and the b ird
in to th e mammal . . . ." He p re fe rs "a m u lt i p li c it y of
d iv erg e n t l i n e s , " q u ite obviously because such a Darwinian
l in e of development i s repugnant to h is hum anistic presup
p o s itio n s . Lewes' u n ifo rm ita ria n ism allow s him to account
f o r s i m i l a r i t i e s in man and anim al not by k in sh ip but by the
o p e ra tio n of s im ila r p ro c e sse s. ("Mr. D arw in's H ypotheses,"
I I I , n . s . , 616.)
62
to note th a t Lewes a t the end of h is l i f e s t i l l th in k s in
term s of G a l l's egoism to a ltru is m schema—attachm ent i s ,
of course, the low est le v e l of A ltruism on G a l l 's s c a le :
I f we admit th e i n te llig e n c e of anim als to be a r u d i
mentary i n t e l l e c t , we may admit the motions of anim als
to be a rudim entary m oral sen se. In the s e lf - r e p r e s s in g
e f f o r t induced by the sex u al and p a re n ta l i n s t i n c t s in
b ird s and i n t e l l i g e n t mammals, and in t h e i r c a p a b ility
of attachm ent [my i t a l i c s ] a p a rt from the d i r e c t p h y sic a l
l in k , we may reco g n ize th e same germs as tho se which in
man the s o c ia l l i f e has developed in to devoted a f f e c t i o n ,
p a ssio n a te sympathy, and se lf-d e n y in g fo reth o u g h t. ( PLM.
IV, 1Z|4-1 b5)
■ . In h is c lo s e s t approach to a sy ste m a tiz a tio n of the
anim al la d d e r, he p lac es m olluscs lo w est, the fis h a s te p
above, and the dog a t the top:
In descending the s e r i e s of organism s, we fin d the
Experience and the Mechanism becoming sim pler and sim
p l e r , having sm a lle r range and development, t i l l , on
reach in g the low er s ta g e , we come upon organisms to which
the h y p o th esis of t h e i r being s e n tie n t machines i s not
in a p p lic a b le . Moved only by th e immediate s tim u li, and
moved always in the same way, they a re in cap ab le of what
we know as E xperience: they f e e l and they r e a c t; they
never le a rn through fe e lin g to modify t h e i r re a c tio n and
to a n tic ip a te a fu tu re r e s u l t . Observe a s n a i l , how
p e rf e c tly i t s r e a c tio n s resem ble tho se of a machine. Then
pass upwards to the f i s h . A f is h f e e ls the hook, and
d a rts away, b u t, having re le a s e d i t s e l f from the i r r i -
I t a t i o n , r e tu r n s again and again to the b a i t , u n d eterred
! by the memory of p a s t fe e lin g and a torn mouth. How
d if f e r e n t a dog! I f he has been h u rt in an attem pt to
g r a t i f y some d e s i r e , he approaches the o b je c t with cau
tio n , perhaps r e s t r a i n s h is d e s ire a lto g e th e r by the
fe a r of the re c u rre n c e of p ain . The dog le a r n s . The
f is h i s in cap ab le of le a rn in g , (pp. 13^-135)
CHAPTER I I I
LEWES' EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
I
W e w ill complete our g e n e ra l survey of Lewes' evolu
tio n a ry d o c trin e s by p re se n tin g an overview of h is psycho
logy before tu rn in g in th e next c h a p te r, f i r s t , to George
lE lio t's concordant e v o lu tio n a ry philosophy as expressed in
her f i c t i o n , and, th en , in the rem aining ch ap ters of t h is
a n a ly s is to h e r a p p lic a tio n of Lewes' philosophy and, most
c o n c re te ly , of th ese p sy c h o lo g ic al d o c trin e s in her charac
t e r p o r tr a y a ls .
The corpus of Lewes' work i s as organic and m onistic
as h is p h ilo s o p h ic a l p rem ises. So Lewes' p sy ch o lo g ical
d o c trin e s a re m erely an ex ten sio n of h is m o n istic p h ilo so
phy, h is e m p iric a l physiology, and h is organic evolutionism .
Two fundam ental overlapping p r i n c i p le s , with which we have
I
a lre a d y been occupied, supply both the s tr u c tu r e and the
mechanism fo r h is p sy ch o lo g ical th eo ry : the lav/ of the i n
s e p a r a b ility of form and fu n c tio n , which j u s t i f i e s the
m a t e r i a l i s t i c monism, and G o eth e's developm ental law , which
p ro vid es the e v o lu tio n ary dynamic. I f a l l fu n ctio n i s mere
ly an expression of i t s form, then a h ig h er organism i s
p rim a rily d if f e r e n t from a lower ( o r , as we w i l l s e e , a
63
6if
Dinah M orris or a D aniel Deronda from a H etty S o r r e l or a
Grandcourt) only in the g r e a te r s o p h is tic a tio n of i t s o r
ganism. The h ig h e r o rg a n iz a tio n has been evolved under the
g u id e lin e s of the G oethian law: the h ig h e r organism i s more
complex and s p e c ia liz e d and, a t the same tim e, more h a r
moniously in te g ra te d w ith in i t s e l f and w ith i t s environm ent.
The in s e p a r a b il i ty of form and fu n ctio n presupposes th a t a l l
fu n c tio n s w hether m ental or such obviously p h y sic a l ones as
th e n u t r i t i v e or re p ro d u c tiv e a re only e x p re ssio n s of the
p h y sic a l o rg a n iz a tio n . This law , in o th e r words, i s meant
to deny a l l such th e o lo g ic a l or m etaphy sical dualism s as
th o se between body and mind, between the p h y sic a l and
s p i r i t u a l , between se n sa tio n and emotion o r i n t e l l e c t u a l i -
z a tio n —th e re i s only th e p h y sic a l. Indeed, "mind i s the
sum of a ff e c tio n s and a c tio n s ," o n ly , th a t i s , the sum of
s tim u li—i n te r n a l and e x te r n a l—re c e iv e d , grouped, and
responded to (PLM, V, 2/fO). The h ig h e r m ental l i f e i s
m erely an ex pression of th e h ig h er and thus more complex
and in te g ra te d p h y sic a l o rg a n iz a tio n . The s e n s i b i l i t y of
th e o n e -c e lle d anim al and th a t of th e h ig h e s t human s p e c i
men a re the same in kind i f r a d i c a l l y d i f f e r e n t in degree.
There i s even a b a sic u n ifo rm ity of nerve t is s u e in the
sim p ler and more s o p h is tic a te d forms of l i f e , as th e re i s
an e s s e n t ia l i d e n t i t y of the nerve t is s u e in the d if f e r e n t
65
p a rts of man's nervous system .^ There i s , th e n , an under
ly in g homogeneity in th e p sy c h ica l l i f e , th u s , a g ain , s a t i s
fying Lewes' need, o r , b e t t e r e x p re ss e d ,—ra g e —fo r m onistic
harmony.
G oeth e's law , in providing the mechanism fo r an ever
in c re a s in g organic interdependence in an ever-expanding
d i v e r s it y , f u r th e r answers to Lewes' m o n istic b ia s . Spe
c i f i c a l l y , i t provides the dynamic fo r the harm onizing of
the p sy ch o lo g ical p ro c e sse s— fo r th e in te g r a tio n of the
j
p h y sic a l and m ental, th e em otional and the i n t e l l e c t u a l ,
and the in d iv id u a l w ith h is fello w s and h is environm ent.
The organisms low est on the e v o lu tio n a ry sc a le are is o la te d
and sim ply organized. The o n e - c e llu la r organism e x h ib its
the b a sic processes of l i f e , n u t r it i o n and rep ro d u c tio n ,
and toward those ends perform s the b a sic p sy ch ical opera
tio n s of s e n s i b i l i t y and c o n t r a c t i b i l i t y (which on a higher
le v e l a re performed by means of complex, h ig h ly d if f e r e n
t i a t e d nerve and muscle s t r u c tu r e s .) The movement from the
g e n e ra l and sim ple to the s p e c ia liz e d and complex in the
p sy c h ic a l l i f e i s exem plified in the development of the
human i n f a n t. The c h a r a c t e r i s t i c response of th e in fa n t
or o th e r rudim entary organisms to a s tim u lu s , u n t i l c e rta in
fix e d channels a re s e t , i s d if f u s iv e and u n d ire c te d . Thus
^The Physiology of Common L i f e . 2 v o ls . (L eip zig ,
i8 6 0 ), I I , 79. (H e re in a fte r r e f e r r e d to as PCL.)
66
an in f a n t w ill respond to a p in p ric k or c h i l l i n e s s by a
s e r i e s of u n d if f e r e n tia te d movements and unpurposive emo
tio n a l r e a c tio n s . He w ill k ic k , w rith e , and s q u a ll random
ly and co n v u lsiv e ly u n t i l he a c c id e n ta lly h i t s upon some
a c tio n which a ffo rd s r e l i e f (PCL. I I , 210-211):
At f i r s t ~ i n in fa n c y —a l l im pulses are i r r a d i a t e d so
th a t g e n e ra l a g ita tio n of the body succeeds every stim u
l u s . Only the organised mechanism a c ts d e f i n i t e l y and
in d ep en d en tly . W e le a rn to lim it the pathways of im
p u lse . C hildren sh o u t, clap t h e i r hands and dance, where
th e grown man sm ile s. (PLM. V, 327-328)
The movement from the g e n e ra l and u n d if f e r e n tia te d to
the s p e c ia liz e d and d if f e r e n t i a t e d i s ap p aren t a ls o in the
lower o rg an ism 's dependence fo r m otivation on th e system ic
s e n sa tio n s r a th e r than the s p e c ia l se n se s. The system ic
s e n sa tio n s are those o ften vague i n te r n a l prom ptings and
m onitorings which
. . . cannot even be more p re c is e ly c la sse d than as the
N u t r i ti v e , R e sp ira to ry , G en erativ e, and M uscular Senses:
th e s e n sa tio n s of hunger, t h i r s t , s e c r e tio n , e x c re tio n ,
e t c . , being grouped as the N u tr itiv e ; the se n sa tio n s of
s u ff o c a tio n , l ig h tn e s s , e t c . , as the R e sp ira to ry ; the
sex u al fu n c tio n s as the G enerative; th e s e n sa tio n s of
e f f o r t and fa tig u e as the M uscular. D iscom fort, Depres
s io n , e t c . , a re more g en eral and in d e f i n it e s t i l l ; and
Pain i s alm ost u n iv e rs a l, (pp. 377-378)
These g e n e ra l, r e l a t i v e l y u n lo c a lis a b le s e n sa tio n s are the
"m assive m otive fo rc e s" of even the h ig h e r organism s, and
p rim a rily account fo r the g e n eralize d f e e lin g s of b ien - or
A 2
m a l-e tre in the organism . However, l e s s h ig h ly d i f f e r -
2PLM, V, 380; and PCL, I I , 218.
67
e n tia te d organism s, w ithout the f u lly in te g ra te d s p e c ia l
senses of s i g h t , h e a rin g , e tc . to o b je c tif y c o n ta c ts w ith
the e x te rn a l world depend in o rd in a te ly and alm ost e x c lu siv e
ly on the prom ptings of the system ic s e n s a tio n s . They a re
th e re fo re r e l a t i v e l y i s o la te d from th e e x te rn a l w orld, not
o rg a n ic a lly lin k e d w ith t h e i r environm ent. Thus they are
doubly rudim entary: t h e i r own p h y sic a l o rg a n iz a tio n i s
g e n e ra l and u n d if f e r e n tia te d , and they can consequently
have l i t t l e in te g r a te d r e la tio n s h ip w ith the la r g e r e x te r
n a l environm ent. They a re in Lewes' term inology " p a s s iv e ,"
not o p e ra tin g in response to s tim u li in a c o h eren t, "ac
tiv e " manner sin c e t h e i r g e n e ra l s t a t e of e x c ita tio n i s
"not connected w ith a d e f i n i te l y e s ta b lis h e d a c t i v i t y " but
"d isc h arg e s i t s e l f in in co h e ren t s tr u g g le s , c r i e s , and
o th e r m uscular a g i t a t i o n s , which b rin g in g no r e l i e f only
in c re a s e the c e n tr a l d istu rb an c e" (PLM. V, 2/+0). In such
s l i g h t l y d i f f e r e n t i a t e d o rg a n iz a tio n s , th e n , "th e system ic
s e n sa tio n s must c o n s titu te a la rg e p a rt of t h e i r S e n s ib il
i t y . . . . Any s e n sa tio n s they can have must be to a la rg e
e x te n t rudim entary forms of A p p e tite , d e s ir e s a g ita tin g
them t i l l c o -o rd in a te d movements b rin g means of r e l i e f "
(p. 381).
The e v o lu tio n a ry development of s e n s i b i l i t y i s on a
continuum from the g e n e ra liz e d to the d i f f e r e n t i a t e d , from
the system ic s e n sa tio n s to the s p e c ia l s e n s a tio n s , from the
d iff u s iv e to the d ir e c te d , from the sim ple and i s o la te d to
68
the complex and o rg a n ic a lly in te rd e p e n d e n t, from the i n c a l
c u lab le and spasmodic to th e purposive and in te g r a te d . In
sum, th e n , Lewes has developed a psy ch o lo g ical theory ex
pressed in term s of an e v o lu tio n a ry dynamic which j u s t i f i e s
a c h a ra c te r s c a le based on a p ro g ressiv e movement from
is o la te d egotism to organic a ltru is m .
The in d iv id u a l capable of the h ig h e s t a ltru is m in
George E l i o t ’s f i c t i o n , a Dinah M orris or a D aniel Deronda,
i s d is tin g u is h e d by em otional i n t e n s i t y , a stro n g w i l l ,
w e l l- s e t tl e d , d is c ip lin e d h a b it s , and a sym pathetic im agi
n a tio n —a l l q u a l i t i e s which can b e st be ’’s e v e ra lly p e rso n i
fie d in the a b s tr a c tio n s , S e n sa tio n , Thought, and V o litio n —
or S ense, I n t e l li g e n c e , and W ill" (pp. 375-376). Even in
the most complex organism th ese processes a re m erely an
extension of th e b a sic p ro cesses of sensory s tim u lu s , i n
term ed iate grouping in to n e u ra l pathways, and d isch arg e in
some s o r t of m uscular resp o n se. These th re e p ro cesses are
o rg a n ic a lly in te rd e p e n d e n t and only v e rb a lly se p a ra b le ,
and a l l th re e are involved in any p sy c h ica l a c t i v i t y . F ur
t h e r , a l l h ig h e r p sy c h ic a l a c t i v i t y , whether i t i s emotion
a l or i n t e l l e c t u a l , i s only a more h ig h ly organized form of
b asic s e n s a tio n , and s e n sa tio n s " i f regarded o b je c tiv e ly "
are "a change in th e m olecular movements of the organism"
(p. 2.6k) •
S p e c if ic a lly , emotions are more h ig h ly organized sen
s a tio n s . A ll se n sa tio n i s " ir r a d i a t e d throughout the s y s -
tern, and w ith more o r l e s s energy a f f e c t s every organ" and
emotion i s se n sa tio n on a more powerful s c a le , g r e a te r
I in energy and w ider in ran g e. But i t a ls o tends to be
come more r e s t r i c t e d to d e f i n i te ch an n els, and in pro
p o rtio n as t h i s i s the c a se , th e emotions become elem ents
of I n te llig e n c e , th a t i s , of Guidance, (pp. 384-385)
As the p sy ch ical system r i s e s in com plexity and s p e c ia liz a
t i o n , the emotions become more pow erful and l e s s lo c a liz e d .
Almost p a ra d o x ic a lly , th e re i s an in c re a s e in energy even
as t h i s n e u ra l energy i s d iffu s e d more w idely throughout
the system . T his in c re a s e i s accounted fo r by a g r e a te r
I
f a c i l i t y in the o p eratio n of the neuro-m uscular system so
th a t no n e u ra l energy i s wasted by i t s d is s ip a tio n or s e l f -
c o n tra d ic tio n . The nervous energy i s r e s t r i c t e d to d e f i
n i t e pathways as the sensorium le a rn s to group the nerve
c i r c u i t s to adapt r e a d ily to re c u rrin g s tim u li. And the
h ig h er organism i s more harm oniously in te g r a te d so th a t the
energy i s n e ith e r w a s te fu lly d iffu s e d in the spasm odic, un
p u rp o sefu l a c t i v i t y c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of the rudim entary o r
ganism or in f a n t (as we have seen) nor in the e x te rn a l
r e s is ta n c e and i n t e r n a l s e lf - c o n tr a d ic tio n s of the in h a r
monious organism .3
The harmonious h ig h e r organism ’s em otional en erg ies
are brought ever more to bear on the ta s k of in te g r a tio n
w ithin i t s e l f and w ith i t s environment as i t becomes more
complex. The s p e c ia l sen ses or a f f e c tio n s a re added to
3PLM, V, 40, 46, 384-385; CP, p. 219.
70
the system ic em otional motors to guide i t s in te g r a tio n more
d i r e c t l y , and then i n t u i t i o n s and co n cep tio n s— the developed
grouping p ro cesses of the sensorium —add i n t e l l e c t u a l guid
an ce, allow ing th e organism to le a rn from experience -so as
to f u lly achieve organic harmony—or "U n iv ersal Benevolence"
in G a l l's term inology—w ith i t s environm ent:
With the enlargem ent of the m ental range in the human
b e in g , and under the in flu e n c e of the s o c ia l medium which
r a i s e s emotions in to se n tim e n ts, th e consciousness of
dependence i s the c o n tin u a l check on the e g o is tic de
s i r e s , and the c o n tin u a l source of th a t i n t e r e s t in the
! experience of o th e rs which i s the wakener of sympathy;
t i l l we f i n a l l y see in many h ig h ly wrought n a tu re s a
complete submergence ( o r , i f you w i l l , a tra n s fe re n c e )
of e g o is tic d e s i r e , and an h a b itu a l o u tru sh of the emo
tio n a l force in sym pathetic chann els. (PLM, V, 387)
At the lower end of th e s c a le a l l emotions " a re ego
i s t i c , and t h e i r ro o t-m a n ife s ta tio n i s probably a form of
F e a r." The l e s s developed o rg a n iz a tio n i s ru le d p r in c ip a l
ly by a " c o llis io n of a p p e t it e s , w hether of hunger or sex
u a l i t y , " from which " a r is e the a g g re ssiv e and d efen siv e
im p u lse s, which remain f i e r c e l y and s o le ly e g o is tic but
fo r th e sense of dependence on in d iv id u a l beings or o th e r -
se lv e s which l i e s i m p lic itly in the sex u al and p a re n ta l
r e l a ti o n s " (pp. 386-387). Lewes h a s, th e n , provided, and
in d e ta il, the j u s t i f i c a t i o n through h is psychology of the
emotions and in s c i e n t i f i c term s, of the p o s i t i v i s t i c
e v o lu tio n a ry sc a le of G a ll. The developm ental th r u s t of
the p sy c h ica l mechanism, as in b io lo g ic a l grow th, i s toward
organicism and monism: toward u n ity in d i v e r s i t y , in d e
pendence w ithin in terd ep en d en ce, the one in the many—in a
71
word, toward harmony.
This p h ilo s o p h ic a l rage fo r organic harmony i s des
c rib ed by Lewes in connection w ith the emotions in term s of
the o rd e rly , rhythm ical o s c i l l a t i o n of e l e c t r i c a l c u rre n ts
corresponding q u ite l i t e r a l l y to m usical harmony:
The Emotions a re p le a su ra b le or p a in f u l, expansive or
d e p re ss iv e , according as the a g ita tio n of the organs i s
o rd e rly and rh y th m ic a l, which means according as the
e x c ita tio n i s so i r r a d i a t e d th a t the normal dependence
of the convergent a c tio n s i s p reserv ed and only t h e i r
energy e x a lte d , or e ls e th a t t h i s normal dependence i s
in te r f e r e d w ith by an exag geration or a r r e s t of one or
more of the organs. The harmony of the organic a c tio n s
i s p le a su ra b le and the d isc o rd p a in fu l; and M usical
Emotion, which fu rn is h e s the m etaphors, w ill a lso fu rn ish
a p h y sio lo g ic a l i n t e r p r e t a t i o n . Why Anger, Je alo u sy ,
Awe, e tc . should d is tu rb the harmony of the consensus,
and Jo y , Hope, Love, e tc . should perm it the harmony,
may be rendered i n t e l l i g i b l e by an a n a ly s is of the con
d itio n s of each c la s s : the f i r s t are p re v is io n s of
o b s ta c le s , the second of f a c i l i t i e s , (pp. 385-386)
An i n t e r e s t i n g a sp ect of Lewes’ e v o lu tio n ary psychol
ogy i s h is in s is te n c e on the s u p e r io r ity of the em otional
over the i n t e l l e c t u a l f a c u l t i e s , though they a re in te r d e
pendent and, in r e a l i t y , in s e p a ra b le , and both a re ex ten
sio n s of th e b a sic processes of s e n s i b i l i t y . "A ll Cogni-
! tio n i s founded on Emotion" (p. 385 ), fo r the emotions
a re the m otors of the psychic mechanism d riv in g i t to
a c t i v i t y : " . . . man i s moved by h is em otions, not by h is
id e a s ; u sing h is I n t e l l e c t only as an eye to see the way.
In o th er w ords, the I n t e l l e c t i s the s e rv a n t, not the Lord
of the H eart . . . ." (CP, p. 5 ). This emphasis of Lewes'
of the s u p e r io r ity of the h e a rt over the head i s not i l
l o g ic a l , however, f o r , in e f f e c t , Lewes' e v o lu tio n ary and
72
p sy ch o lo g ical d o c trin e s a re but one im p lic it value judge
m ent, a p p ra isin g a l l l i f e forms in term s of a sc a le ranging
from s e lf-c e n te re d n e s s to se lf-a b n e g a tio n and sympathy.
Lewes, q u ite c o n s is te n tly , f o r t i f i e s t h i s p o s itio n by a r
guing th a t the su b je c tiv e o r in tr o s p e c tiv e psychological
re s e a rc h to o l i s as v a lu a b le as the o b je c tiv e , and t h a t ,
in d ee d , the s u b je c tiv e and the o b je c tiv e in psychology are
m erely the same phenomenon viewed from d i f f e r e n t an g les.
F u r th e r , he denies the su p p o sitio n
th a t u n less phenomena can be measured they cannot be
s c i e n t i f i c a l l y known; as i f q u a n tita tiv e exactness were
the b a s i s , and not m erely a form, of c e r titu d e . . . .
The lo g ic of F eelin g i s as a c c u ra te and i r r e s i s t i b l e
as th e Logic of Images or of the Logic of S ig n s. . . .
Sounds, s c e n ts , t a s t e s , and system ic s e n sa tio n s n o to r i
ou sly d ir e c t a c tio n s , as c e r ta in ly and e f f e c tiv e ly as
s ig h ts and touches. (PLM. V, 358-359)
There i s , of cou rse, in Lewes' emphasis on the emotions
over th e i n t e l l e c t a not too hidden assum ption th a t the
em otions p ro p elled by the Goethian e v o lu tio n a ry dynamic
develop toward a l t r u i s t i c sympathy and organic harmony. He
puts h im self a t t h is p o in t in d i r e c t o p p o sitio n to u t i l i
ta ria n is m and i t s concom itant p r in c ip le th a t man b e st op
e r a te s from i n t e l l i g e n t s e l f - i n t e r e s t :
The old psychology, by the predominance i t gave to
I n t e l li g e n c e , was led to deny i n te llig e n c e to Animals,
and n a tu r a lly adm itted th e p la u s ib le paradox which r e
duced a l l our emotive a c tio n s to a p r in c ip le of S e lf
is h n e s s (in s p ite of the e n e rg e tic d e n ia l of the p ara
dox rec eiv e d from every m an's consciousness) as i f man
had no sp o n ta n eity of a c t i o n , b u t was always i n t e l l e c -
t u a l l y c a lc u la tin g r e s u l ts ! That Animals were Machines
and th a t Men were E g o tis ts , became lo g ic a l deductions.'
(CP, p. 206)
In o th e r words, the b asic e v o lu tio n a ry fo rc e , the l i f e
energy, which becomes in the h ig h e s t m a n ife sta tio n s sympa
t h e t i c emotions and c o n ce p tu a liz in g power has im p lic it in
i t from the low est p o in t on the anim al sc a le to th e h ig h e s t
human le v e l a d riv e toward organic in te g r a tio n which lea d s
away from u t i l i t a r i a n s e l f - i n t e r e s t in o rd e rly developmen
t a l p ro g re ssio n .
Lewes d iv id e s human p e r s o n a l i ti e s in to th re e c a te
g o rie s : the em otional, i n t e l l e c t u a l , and se n su a l tem pera
m ents. A ll p e r s o n a litie s in f a c t have a l l th re e elem ents
p re se n t in t h e i r makeup, b ut "th e predominance of the one
i s n e c e s s a r ily a t the expense of th e o th er" depending on
whether "one or th e o th er of th ese modes of response i s
conspicuous." As the emotions must be dominant w ithin each
in d iv id u a l p e rs o n a lity , so th e predom inately em otional
temperament must have a p o t e n t i a l ly stro n g e r c h a ra c te r than
the predom inately i n t e l l e c t u a l or se n su a l: "The em otional
temperament i s t h a t which i s most e n e r g e tic , the emotions
having the g r e a te s t motive fo rce and id e a s th e l e a s t . Hence
C h aracter i s not measured by I n t e l l e c t , fo r I n t e l l e c t can
only prompt in compapy w ith Emotion" (PLM. V, 386). N e ith e r
the i n t e l l e c t u a l nor the sen su al temperament i s capable
w ithout the prom ptings of the h ig h e r harm onizing emotions
of th e h ig h e s t le v e l of a l t r u i s t i c development. The i n
t e l l e c t u a l temperament may, in la c k in g a h ig h er em otional
m otive fo r c e , be dominated by g ro s s e r passions which use
7k
the i n t e l l e c t as t h e i r instrum ent of r a t i o n a l i z a t i o n , since
the emotions are the motive power of th e organism ( PLM. V,
384) (here we th in k of a Casaubon). The sen su al tem pera
ment in i t s search fo r g r a t i f i c a t i o n responds p rim a rily to
the system ic d e s ire s and to d ir e c t e x te rn a l and lo c a l stim
u l i (here we th in k of a H e tty ).
I I
Lewes' concept of th e w ill c a r r i e s h is m a t e r i a li s t i c
!psychology to i t s lo g ic a l conclusion . The i n t e l l e c t and
!
emotions are se n sa tio n s in an organized form: se n sa tio n s
a re grouped in to ten d en cies a s s o c ia te d w ith im pulses in the
lo g ic of fe e lin g and w ith v e rb a l symbols in the lo g ic of
s ig n s , or w ith r e in s ta te d p h y sic al images in the interm ed
i a t e lo g ic of images. In r e a l i t y , f e e lin g s , s ig n s , and
images are a sso c ia te d and grouped to g e th e r in the n e u ra l
pathw ays, so th a t a sign or image or se n sa tio n w ill c a l l up
an a s s o c ia te d s ig n , image or s e n s a tio n , always with a mo
tiv a tin g em otional e s c o r t. But the t h ir d member of the
triu m v ira te of the p sy c h ica l l i f e , motor d isc h a rg e , always
follow s stim u lus and grouping. An organism c a n 't re c e iv e
an impulse w ithout a re a c tio n ( PLM. V, 225). Indeed, t h is
motor d isc h a rg e , whether perceived by the consciousness or
n o t, or whether i t i s a d ir e c t r e f le x a ctio n or a complex,
considered movement or r e s t r a i n t on movement IS the w i l l.
The w i l l i s the organized tendencies toward a c tio n — the
e s ta b lis h e d n e u ra l pathways m anifested in motor d isch arg e.
75
A v o lu n ta ry a c tio n i s somewhat d is tin g u is h a b le from the
mere e x e rc is e of w ill in th a t i t presupposes a la r g e r v i
sion of c o l l a t e r a l r e s u l t s through th e m ediation of i n t e l l
igence (PLM. V, 9 9 ) i one w ith an e s ta b lis h e d connection
(PCL. I I , 209). The man of stro n g w i l l i s one whose system
has become h ig h ly organized so th a t h is a c tio n s issu e h a r
moniously in s e l f - i n t e g r a ti o n and o rg an ic in te rc o n n e c te d
n ess w ith h is environm ent. A man of v/eak w ill i s a person,
th e n , who lac k in g organized h a b its and ten d e n cies guided
!
p rim a rily by i n tu itio n ( t h a t i s , organ ized i n t e l l e c t u a l
connections) and sym pathetic em otions, i s a t the mercy of
each p assin g e g o is tic im pulse. Such an " in d iv id u a l governed
by i n f e r i o r i n s t i n c t s alone can have n e ith e r s t a b i l i t y nor
fix ed purposes . l|Z f
There i s in t h is view of the w i l l , of co u rse, an im
p l i c i t determ inism —a d e n ia l of f re e w ill in any o th er
sense than a r e l a t i v e autonomy of th e in d iv id u a l organ in
th e perform ance of i t s fu n c tio n . Thus, though a v is u a l
I p erc ep tio n may seem to have a c e r ta in autonomy in th a t i t
i s not brought to the le v e l of consciousness and acted on,
th e re i s s t i l l the involvem ent and m o d ifica tio n of the whole
in te rc o n n e c te d system in l e s s e r or g r e a te r degree. Indeed,
t h i s r e l a t i v e autonomy of organs i s a source of g re a te r
power, f o r the h ig h er forms of l i f e move alw ays, according
^CP, p. 221; PLM, V, 59.
to the Goethian e v o lu tio n a ry law , toward com plexity, toward
g r e a te r s p e c ia liz a tio n of fu n c tio n , toward a d iv is io n of
la b o r. The p r im itiv e , o n e -c e llu la r organism perform s a l l
v i t a l fu n c tio n s—n u t r it i o n and rep ro d u ctio n or s e n s i b i l i t y
and c o n t r a c t i l i t y —w ith a g e n e ra liz e d , u n d if f e r e n tia te d
s t r u c tu r e . I t h a s, a c c o rd in g ly , l e s s f a c i l i t y in movement
and n u t r i t i o n , and i t s r e l a ti o n s to the e x te rn a l world a re
r e l a t i v e l y inharm onious and u n in te g ra te d , based on crude
re p u ls io n and a t t r a c t i o n fo r s u r v iv a l. G re ater d if f e r e n
t i a t i o n of s t r u c tu r e , whether w ith in the organism or w ith in
human s o c ie ty , le a d s not only to g r e a te r power, b u t, alm ost
p a ra d o x ic a lly , to g r e a te r organic i n te g r a t i o n , in c o n tr a s t
to the r e l a t i v e h o s t i le is o la tio n of the more g e n e ra liz e d
organism . The in c re a s in g com plexity makes i t im possible
sometimes fo r us to understand or p r e d ic t a l l the c o n d itio n s
which e n te red in to an occurren ce, so th a t i t may a p p ea r,
from out lim ite d view point th a t the event occurred by chance
or by an independency of c o n d itio n s— th a t i s , by fre e w i l l .
But every organism and i t s a c tio n s a re the sum of i t s con
d itio n s : "The f i n a l response on [ s i c ] a s tim u la tio n i s
always determ ined by the n s y c h o s ta tic a l c o n d itio n : and did
we f u lly know the whole h is to r y of th e organism , we could
p r e d ic t w ith a b so lu te c e r ta in ty what the response in every
case would be" (PLM. V, 100).
The r e l a t i v e autonomy we p e rc eiv e in an organ or o r
ganism i s merely a re c o g n itio n th a t " th e organism i s a ls o
77
a system of fo rc e s , and t h i s system has w ithin i t s e l f the
c o n d itio n s of i t s s p e c ia l a c tio n s ; j u s t as our world i s a
p a rt of N ature, y e t, being a system , i t s movements a re in
some sense independent of th e s o la r system 1 1 . (PLM. IV, 103).
The consciousness of freedom of c h o ic e , of m oral indepen
dence, i s d elu so ry —i s a p e rs o n ific a tio n of W ill, a se p a ra
tio n of the fu n ctio n of V o litio n (which Lewes d e fin e s as
"D esire r e a liz e d " ) from i t s form and organic c o n d itio n s
(pp. 107-108). A choice i s , in r e a l i t y , m erely a balancing
out of competing d e s ire s and c o n d itio n s: the most urgent
d e s ire w ill win, or i t may be th a t th e re w ill be a balance
of im pulses lea d in g to a s t a t e of in d e c is io n . The complex
human p sy c h ic a l system , o p e ra tin g according to i t s own
law s, may indeed n ot o p erate so cru d e ly . A man w ill h e ro i
c a lly endure p r iv a tio n and suppress immediate d e s ire s so
" th a t he may achieve some deed of succour, some o b je c t of
a m b itio n , or some m ountaineering f e a t . . . ." Some de
s i r a b le p ro sp e c tiv e end, coming to us through th e s o l i c i
ta tio n of the h ig h e r im ag in ativ e and conceptual f a c u l t i e s ,
w i l l , in the h ig h e r human organism , predom inate over the
immediate demands of e g o is tic d e s ir e s . Thus we escape the
stim u lu s-re sp o n se r e a c tio n s and lim ita tio n s of the p re s e n t,
and we a re fre e "in the sense th a t we have a range of mo
tiv e s surveyed by a P e rs o n a lity which i s the in c o rp o ra tio n
of our p a st e x p erien c e, and c a r r ie s the p re v isio n of a l t e r
n a tiv e fu tu re s " (p . 111). But th ese h ig h e r m otives which
78
educate us to r e s i s t immediate d e s ir e a re in kind the same
as those which r e s t r a i n the lower organism: the impulse to
avoid p a in fu l consequences.
I t i s in t h i s way th a t our P e rs o n a lity in te rv e n e s to
shape our conduct: an a b id in g sense of our d ig n ity , or
of our duty, or a loving devotion to a n o th e r’ s w e lfa re ,
s u f f ic e s to r e s t r a i n a l l the s o l i c i t a t i o n s which a re seen
to be in c o n s is te n t w ith i t , p r e c is e ly as a v isio n of being
beaten r e s t r a i n s the dog . . . . This i s the only sense
in which we can say th a t the conscious Ego i s the cause
of the determ ining m otives, (p . 110)
P a ra d o x ic a lly a g a in , the g r e a te r com plexity of the
h ig h e s t human organism , which le a d s to g r e a te r com plexity
of m otivating fo rc e s and thu s an appearance of some in d e
pendence of d e c is io n , w ill in r e a l i t y lead to l e s s in d e - •
pendence of movement and d e c is io n . The la r g e r power ob
ta in e d by the more h ig h ly d i f f e r e n t i a t e d organism or s o c ia l
e n t i t y depends on subm ission of th e in d iv id u a l claim s of
the se p a ra te organ or member of th e body p o l i t i c —ind eed ,
demands a s a c r i f i c e of inharm onious in d iv id u a l d e s ir e s to
the la r g e r organic u n ity th a t would be incom prehensible to
a low er organism which l i v e s by a t t r a c t i o n and re p u ls io n .
Egoism must be merged in to sym pathetic s e lf-a b n e g a tio n —
in to u n iv e rs a l benevolence, i f you w i l l . In t h i s sen se,
our in d iv id u a l freedom must e f f e c t i v e l y decrease the h ig h er
we move up the s c a le . Our freedom , th e n , c o n s is ts in the
duty to choose n o t to be fre e o r o rg a n ic a lly independent.
The r e l e n t l e s s m onistic m ateria lism of Lewes and E l i o t ,
which ends in an uncompromisingly c o n s is te n t m onistic so
lu tio n to the problem of e v il in t h e i r in s is te n c e th a t
79
whatever i s r i g h t in t h is world where a l l e a t and a re e a te n ,
i s no l e s s r ig o ro u s ly pursued to th e conclusion th a t th ere
i s no freedom of w i l l , and t h a t , in f a c t , i t i s our o b li
g atio n to submit our apparent freedom to the se rv ic e of the
la r g e r organic e n t i t y . T h at, as we s h a l l s e e , i s the s ig n i
fic a n c e of Maggie T u l l i v e r 's r e je c tio n of h e r lo v e rs fo r h e r
fam ily; Romola's re tu rn to her husband and se rv ic e to the
common c itiz e n s of F lo re n ce ; and D aniel D eronda's d ed icatio n
of h is l i f e to Zionism. This r e je c tio n of freedom by Lewes
j
and George E lio t a ls o accords with p o s i t i v i s t dogma, which
equates the h i s t o r i c a l advance of humanity w ith the degree
of re c o g n itio n th a t n a tu r a l events a re not ru le d by c a p ri
cious or independent th e o lo g ic a l or m etaphysical e n t i t i e s
but o p erate by in ex o rab le n a tu r a l c a u sa l sequence.
I l l
Let us clo se t h i s summary statem en t of Lewes' psychol
ogy w ith a survey of h is view of how the mind fu n c tio n s.
Man's a b i l i t y to see the consequences of h is a c tio n s in the
^ fu tu re and b rin g to bear the ex p erien ces of the p a st on the
p re se n t and th e fu tu re stems from th e development of im agi
n a tiv e and conceptual powers. The h ig h er p sy c h ica l l i f e
has a t r i p a r t i t e d iv is io n : in to Im ag in atio n , the Logic of
Images; P e rc e p tio n , the Logic of S e n sa tio n s; and Conception,
the Logic of S igns. Higher thought i s a compound of Imagi
n a tio n and C onception. Lower anim als probably lea rn only
through p e rc e p tio n , and th u s cannot c re a tiv e ly c a lc u la te
80
consequences o th e r than in a p u rely m echanical stim u lu s-
response manner— th a t i s , they cannot c re a tiv e ly rea rran g e
ex p e rie n c e , b u t must experience i t in the o rd er of sen sa
tio n s : "probably the lower anim als have only the teachin g
of s e n s a tio n , which e x p la in s t h e i r im p erfect in d iv id u a lity ,
the u n ifo rm ity of t h e i r a c tio n s " (PLM. V, 4-57).
Im agination fo r Lewes i s , q u ite l i t e r a l l y , th e pro
duction of images— the sensory pro d u cts of the s p e c ia l
se n se s; the v i s u a l, a u d ito r y , o lf a c to r y , e tc . images in the
!
sensorium — , b u t, and t h i s i s the s i g n i f ic a n t p o in t, th ese
pro d u cts of the im agination d i f f e r from the Logic of Sen
s a t io n s , from d ir e c t p e rc e p tio n , in not being mere mechani
c a l re p ro d u c tio n s of th e o r ig in a l p e rc e p tio n s of e x te rn a l
o b je c ts . Ind eed, Lewes argues th a t the o r ig in a l p e rc ep tio n s
of e x te rn a l r e a l i t y from which the images of the im agina
tio n a re b u i l t a re not mere m irro r images or im pressions on
the wax t a b l e t of the mind, b ut a re in e v ita b ly m odified by
the re c e iv in g mechanism, both by th e in h e re n t c a p a b il i ti e s
of th e s p e c ia l senses and by the whole organism w ith i t s
p r e d is p o s itio n s (p. kW7)• Even sim ple p e rc e p tio n s are sub
je c ti v e ; we a re lik e l y to see what we are disposed to see.
But beyond t h i s , the images of the im agination a re r e i n
sta te m e n ts of s e n s a tio n s , n o t sto re d -u p rep ro d u c tio n s or
a f te r s e n s a tio n s (which continue to re v e rb e ra te through
the system w ith decreased i n te n s ity ) (V, ^60, 451). The
images of the im agination is s u e from the sensorium i t s e l f ,
81
not from external stimulation, and may be evoked by the
association of ideas, other images, or even sensations, and
may be set off by either conscious or unconscious demand.
Though the images in the sensorium may be close to the orig
inal sense perception of an object, the most valuable type
of image production is a creative rearrangement— and this
he calls the plastic imagination as opposed to the repro
ductive imagination. But even the merely reproductive
imagination, which, for instance, allows the artist to re
call the physical characteristics he wishes to paint is not
the decayed sensation of a Hobbes or John Stuart Mill: it
is the product of the organism, not merely a neural echo
(455-Zf66, 122). The highly creative imagination is marked
by an intensity often approaching the feeling of direct
sensation (if50-^51)> a creative person may become so en
grossed by the images he calls up that he may have to re
mind himself they are products rather than direct sensory
impressions. But it is a mistake to put a "mysterious halo"
around the imaginative process, for it is a natural exten
sion of sensibility, whereby reconstituted and reshaped im
pressions are grouped and regrouped in the neural tracts
of the highly developed sensorium. As such it,— in con
junction with conceptual grouping, which is a substitution
of a symbol for a sensation instead of a reinstatement of
the sensation as with imagination— is what we call thought.
Realizing this, "the traditional notion of an utter separ-
82
ation of Thought from Feeling is for ever set aside (p.
461). Further, the act of creative imagination is not mere
ly the tool of art, but of science and practical affairs.
In science for instance, the plastic imagination is essen
tial since observation alone cannot trace the full course of
planetary bodies: we cannot actually see the full circuit
of a planet behind the sun, but we can imaginatively infer
the arc of the planet from the points we do observe.
The scientific student may imagine an experiment by fol-
I lowing a description of it, and seeing as images what
actual observation would present as sensations; or by an
effort of plastic Imagination he may construct a new
order of images, such as never yet was presented to ob
servation. Were it not for this facultative property of
images which allows of their being recombined differently
from the order of sensations, there would be no enlarge
ment of Experience except through sensations. . . . (p.
457)
The exercise of imagination, as of conception, is an
indubtably material process; they are merely more speciali
zed and complex forms of the triple process— stimulus,
grouping, and motor discharge— than direct sensation. All
sentience, all changes in feeling are made up of rearrange
ments of neural tremors and groupings of neural tremors
in the organism (PLM. IV, 103-104), but there is a differ
ence in "combination of neural elements or sentient tre
mors" in the sensation-sign, the image-sign, and the verbal-
sign:
To see a dog, that is, to perceive it, when our eyes are
resting on a particular coloured form; to infer that a
dog has passed when we see certain marks on the ground,
or hear a diminishing sound of barking; and to think of
83
a dog when it is named or otherwise suggested, are three
specifically different mental states, which are due to
specific varieties in the conditions affecting the Sen
sorium, but are alike in this, that they are interpreta
tions of signs, and that they involved the Triple Pro
cess. (PU4. V, 465)
The entirely physical deterministic, unmetaphysical nature
of even the advanced mental processes of imagination is
illustrated by Lewes' concept of the Id6e Fixe, a process
which is illustrated in both the fiction of Lewes and George
Eliot. (See pages 179-182 following). According to this
concept the mere repetitive imaginative contemplation of an
act can form such stable neural pathways that the action
becomes inevitable given the nature of the triple stimulus
and grouping process which decrees that every sensation,
even thinking in abstract verbal symbols, must be followed
by motor discharge.
To imagine an act is to rehearse it mentally. By
such mental rehearsal the motor organs are, as I pre
viously showed, disposed to respond in action. Hence
it is that a long-meditated crime becomes at last an
irresistable criminal impulse. Indulgence in the imagi
nation of the act has grooved a pathway of discharge, and
set up an abnormal excitability in this direction, which,
like a neuralgia, is for ever irritating by its restless
impulses, and can only be quieted by discharge on the
motor organs. The strange calmness which often super
venes after some criminal outburst is like the satis
faction of an appetite. (PLM. V, 459)
CHAPTER IV
LEWES' EVOLUTIONISM AND THE
FICTION OF GEORGE ELIOT
I
George Eliot's reaction to The Origin of Species
parallels Lewes'— -in fact, since she is not obliged to voice
her reservations to natural selection in the measured, co
herent framework of a scientific paper, her critiques are
much less politic, even though they generally appear only
analogically and peripherally in her novels. Lewes and
George Eliot began reading a publisher's advance copy the
day before its formal publication on November 24, 1859.^
That she, like Lewes, quickly grasps and is repelled by the
anti-Lamarckian implications of Darwinism is apparent in
comments scattered throughout The Mill on the Floss, which
she was writing at the time of the Origin's publication as
"In her Journal, 23 November, George Eliot wrote:
"We began Darwin's work on 'The Origin of Species' tonight.
It seems not to be well written: though full of interest
ing matter, it is not impressive, from want of luminous and
orderly presentation'" (Letters. Ill, 214). On the 24th,
her diary records: "A divine day. I walked out and Mrs.
Congreve joined me. Then music, Arabian Nights, and Dar
win" (Barzun, p. 24). On the 25th she writes to Charles
Bray: "We are reading Darwin's Book on Species, just come
out. after long expectation. It is an elaborate exposition
of the evidence in favour of the Development Theory, and so,
makes an epoch" (Letters. Ill, 214).
85
well as her summary evaluation to Mme Eugene Bodichon on
the 5th of December: "So the world gets on step by step
towards brave clearness and honesty! But to me the Develop
ment theory and all other explanations of processes by which
things come to be, produce a feeble Impression compared with
2
the mystery that lies under the processes." For George
EUot as for Lewes the belief that nature's processes are
purposive and uniform--that nature Is a temple and not a
charnel house— is a temperamental imperative, so that the
painful reevaluation forced on them by Darwinism is quixot
ically expressed by her in ironic references to the doctrine
of competition for survival: "... it will be a public
benefit if 'natural selection' turns out to be in favour
of the Cornhill. But natural selection is not always good,
and depends (see Darwin) on many caprices."^ The same
quixotic tone appears in The Mill on the Floss when Tom
Tulliver with vague, disinterested malice pelts with hard
peas a "superannuated blue-bottle" which was exposing its
imbecility in the spring sunshine, clearly against the views
of Nature, who had provided Tom and the peas for the speedy
destruction of this weak individual."^
^Letters, III, 227.
^Letters, IV, 377, letter to George Smith, 26 July,
1867.
Z f P. 93, bk. I, ch. IX. The term "survival of the
fittest," of course, comes from Herbert Spencer. The con
cept in Spencer is, however, softened by the belief in the
86
An incidental allusion at the end of the first chapter
of Book IV of The Mill on the Floss may indicate that George
Eliot (and we must think this is true of Lewes also) was
already thinking in terms of rebuttal evidence to Darwin*s
concept of unpurposive random variation only a few weeks
1 5
after the appearance of the Origin.^ We can only speculate
whether this allusion has the same associations for her that
it does for Lewes, but it does, appropriately enough, end
the chapter in her work which gives the most detailed and
explicit affirmation of the familial inheritance of ac
quired characteristics and of social evolution: and the
allusion itself is an affirmation of the purposive function
ing of natural forms:
Certain seeds which are required to find a nidus for
themselves under unfavorable circumstances, have been
supplied by nature with an apparatus of hooks, so that
they will get a hold on very unreceptive surfaces. The
spiritual seed which had been scattered over Mr. Tulliver
had apparently been destitute of any corresponding pro
vision, and had slipped off to the winds again, from a
inheritance of acquired characteristics. George Eliot wrote
John Blackwood on 16 October, 1859 that the first book of
"Sister Maggie" (our The Mill on the Floss) was completed.
However, she did not find it convenient to part with the
manuscrxpt then and, in fact, the first volume of the manu
script was not put into the publisher*s hands until 18 Jan
uary, 1860. Whether this reference is a later insertion
(she was reading Darwin on 23 November) stemming from her
reaction to the Origin is not clear. The internal evidence
and tone would seem to indicate so.
^Volume II, in which this chapter appears, was finished
on January 12, 1860.
.
87
c
total absence of hooks.
Lewes in his later reviews of Darwin cites the appear
ance of similar forms in obviously unrelated areas of life
as evidence of the purposive adaptation and uniform opera
tion of nature*s growth processes. So he notes the resem
blance between the head of a vulture and a microscopic
polyzoon, the Corkscrew Coralline, a resemblance which , f no
one would suppose for a moment . . . has anything to do with
kinship" (SSS, p. 366). Similarly the recurrence of hook
forms demonstrates for Lewes the harmony and symmetry of
nature and the purposive relation of form to function,
which, rather than survival of the fittest, primarily ac
counts for evolutionary development.
Such cases are commonly robbed of their significance
by being dismissed as coincidences. But what determines
the coincidence? If we assume, as we are justified in
assuming, that the possible directions of Organic Com
bination and the resultant forms are limited, there must
inevitably occur such coincident lines; and the hooks on
a Climbing Plant will resemble the hooks on a Crustacean
or the claws of a Bird, as one form in which under simi
lar external forces the more solid but not massive por
tions of the integument tend to develop. I am too un
acquainted with the anatomy of plants to say how the hooks
so common among them arise; but from examination of the
Blackberry, and comparison of its thorns with the hooks
and spines of the Crustacea, I am led to infer that in
each case the mode of development is identical— namely,
the secretion of chitine from the cellular matrix of the
integument.7
The hook form as an argument for the purposive, orderly
6Pp. 288-289, bk. IV, ch. I.
^"Mr. Darwin*s Hypotheses," III, n.s., 626.
88
nature of the evolutionary process has further significance
for Lewes because of Darwin's admission that the presence
of hooks in plants are something of a mystery to him since
only some of them have survival value. Lewes takes Darwin
to task.
It is to be remarked that Mr. Darwin fixes his atten
tion somewhat too exclusively on the adaptations which
arise during the external struggle for existence, and to
that extent neglects the laws of organic affinity. . . .
Not that Mr. Darwin can be said to overlook the organic
laws; he simply under-estimates the part they play. Oc
casionally he seems arrested by them, as when instancing
! the "railing palm in the Malay Archipelago, which climbs
the loftiest trees by the aid of exquisitely constructed
hooks, clustered around the ends of the branches, and
this contrivance no doubt is of the highest service to
the plant; but as there are nearly similar hooks on many
trees which are not climbers, the hooks on the palm may
have arisen from unknown laws of growth, and have been
subsequently taken advantage of by the plant undergoing
further modification and becoming a climber." (PLM. Ill,
118)
A second, and perhaps even more significant factual
objection to Darwinism for Lewes is the existence of phos
phorescent organs in diverse life forms, and again an ob
lique analogy of George Eliot's may carry some of these
associations. She refers in Middlemarch to the quandary
Q
of Lydgate in the face of the torpedo-like tenacity of
Rosamond so that he was "conscious of new elements in his
life as noxious to him as an inlet of mud to a creature
that has been used to breathe and bathe and dart after its
o
The torpedo fish is also an electric fish and is used
by Lewes in his anti-Darwinian discussion (PLM. Ill, 116).
89
illuminated prey in the clearest of waters."9 The existence
of phosphorescent organs in diverse species of fish, as well
as insects, is for Lewes strong evidence for nature*s uni
formity of operation, and further:
The development of these organs in fishes so widely
removed, does not imply an ancestral community. It is
interpretable as mere growth on a basis once laid; and
therefore would occur with or without any advantage in
the struggle with rivals. The similarity in concurrent
conditions is quite enough to account for the resemblance
in structure. This with his accustomed candour, Mr.
Darwin admits. (PIM. Ill, 116)
Moreover, Lewes thinks the appearance of phosphorescent
organs "not a trace of which is discernible in the embryo
or adult form of organisms lower on the scale" cuts the
ground from under Darwinism, for Darwin had confirmed that
if "any complex organ existed which could not possibly have
been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my
theory would absolutely break down."^0 Lewes believes that
the "sudden appearance" of the electric organs does just
that.
That George Eliot makes somewhat incidental analogical
use in her novels of the two factual examples, which by
Darwin*s admission are inexplicable by his system and which
Lewes believes most definitively confute the theory of
natural selection, is interesting in showing the community
9P. 589, bk. VI, ch. LVIII.
^PLM. Ill, 117, quoted from p. 2.2.7, 5th edition of the
Origin.
90
of feeling between Lewes and George Eliot on Darwinism, but
it is in the positive adaptation of Lewes' evolutionary
doctrine in her fiction, and in the subtle modifications of
attitudes after the Origin, paralleling Lewes', that we see,
more conclusively, their interpenetration of thinking. As
we have noted it becomes difficult after Darwin for Lewes
to maintain his heretofore reverential confidence in his
monistic solution to the problem of evil. After natural
selection it is no longer possible for him to assure the
suffering individual with quite the same serenity that the
universe is perfectly ordered if one could only take the
larger view. Missing is the rhapsodic tone, the lyrical
apostrophizing of the "pivot of life," the sun, the symbol
of the organic harmony and beneficence of nature, in which
"nothing is wasted." The tone of George Eliot's novels is
similarly modified. The self-confident affirmations of the
monistic solution to the problem of evil which are so
characteristic of Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss, are
limited in probable deference to the Darwinian presence and,
as we have seen in the first chapter, the sun symbolism
drops away and then reappears in modified form. In Romola
the sun symbolism somewhat tentatively reappears in associ
ation with Dionysian demonism, and in Middlemarch. even less
emphatically and consistently, it appears to be associated
with Ladislaw as something of an embodiment of Southern
aesthetic freedom versus Northern Puritanism (in the person
91
of the early Dorothea).
The modification of Lamarckian inheritance of acquired
characteristics by Darwinism runs the same course in her
novels as in Lewes' works. The Post-Darwinian emphasis for
both is, increasingly, not on the inheritance of specific
idiosyncracies but of general racial characteristics, cul
minating in the full blown exposition of the doctrine in
Lewes' posthumusly published Volume IV of Problems of Life
and Mind and in its concomitant fictional expression in
George Eliot's last novel, Daniel Deronda.
In the pre-Darwinian Adam Bede George Eliot is as in
genuous and incautious as the pre-l85*f Lewes in speculating
on the inheritance of acquired characteristics: she sur
mises that the incongruity of emotional shallowness coupled
with the deceptive physical appearance of emotional vibran
cy can perhaps be accounted for by inheritance:
But Hetty's face had a language that transcended her
feelings. There are faces which nature charges with a
meaning and pathos not belonging to the single human soul
that flutters beneath them, but speaking the joys and
sorrows of foregone generations— eyes that tell of deep
love which doubtless has been and is somewhere, but not
paired with these eyes— perhaps paired with pale eyes
that can say nothing; just as a national language may be
instinct with poetry unfelt by the lips that use it."
The Mill on the Floss still affirms the inheritance of
acquired characteristics but in more general terms. So
the Tullivers were descended from one Ralph Tulliver, "a
11Pp. 2 9 0 -2 9 1 , b k. I l l , ch. X X V I.
92
wonderfully clever fellow who had ruined himself," and the
dark-eyed Maggie and her father had inherited through her
dark-eyed grandmother in the richer (than the Dodsons) blood
the familial traits of "generous imprudence, warm affection,
12
and hot-tempered rashness.
It is clear, I think, that at no time are George Lewes
and George Eliot prepared to give up the doctrine of the
inheritance of acquired characteristics, for to do so, as
has been previously emphasized, would be to substitute ad
ventitious random selection for a purposive, humanistic
progressivism. Lewes' post Darwinian retraction of the
inheritance of individual idiosyncracies and the enlargement
of the doctrine of racial inheritance of general character
istics into the theory of the General Mind is by no means
a conversion experience but is, we must think, partially
an exercise in scientific caution and professional diffi
dence, as well as a natural extension of his pervasively
organic monism to human society.
However, the inheritance of individual acquired idio
syncracies while not now emphasized, is still not far below
the surface and occasionally emerges in essentially unmodi
fied fora. So, Lewes' 1856 affirmation that "we inherit
the acquired experience of our forefathers— their tenden
cies, their aptitudes, their habits, their improvements"
12P. 288, bk. IV, ch. I.
93
and not only structural peculiarities, but "even queer
tricks of manner"^ is only slightly modified in 1868,
primarily by refraining from reciting specific examples
which might open him up to criticism. He still argues,
though, for the transmission of "the constitutional peculi
arities of the parents (their longevity, their diseases,
their mental dispositions, nay their very tricks and hab
its)."1^ Similarly, George Eliot reports in Daniel Deronda
that "the Meyricks had their little oddities, streaks of
eccentricity from their mother's blood as well as their
father's" ^ and Esther Lyon had inherited from her aristo
cratic parents, though their very existence was unknown to
her, those "native tendencies toward luxury, fastidiousness,
and scorn of mock gentility" seemingly so incongruous with
her environment, prospects and the nature of her purported
16
father, Reverend Lyon.
The shared enthusiasm of Lewes and George Eliot with
questions of inheritance extends to atavism, the trans
mission of physical and mental organizations from a more
distant progenitor than the immediate parents. So Lewes
notes that "the form and features, the dispositions and
^"Hereditary Influence," pp. 78 and 89.
1*H»Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses," III, n.s., 611.
15P. 198, bk. II, ch. XVIII.
16FH, p. 78, ch. VI.
diseases, of a grandfather or great-grandfather which had
lain dormant in the father or mother1 1 may be inherited
after the lapse of a generation or two, and George Eliot
remarks that the Cohen children of Daniel Deronda looked
"more Semitic than their parents, as the puppy lions show
17
the spots of far-off progenitors.1 1 ' And Daniel Deronda
whose mother had vehemently rejected her father and her
Jewishness, inherits at one generations remove an ample
supply of the spiritual and physical characteristics of
both his grandfather and his race, including, apparently,
18
an enthusiasm for racial genetic integrity.
As significant as the concordance of views of Lewes
and George Eliot on Darwinism is, it is the systematic
adaptation of Lewes1 unique blend of evolutionism to her
fiction which is most interesting to us. Indeed, the posi
tion on and the progression up the evolutionary scale from
egoism to altruism determines the character attributes and
the plot development in her fiction as well as the major
j themes. From first to last, from Scenes of Clerical Life
I to Daniel Deronda. this evolutionary humanism is pervasive.
In "Janet*s Repentance" the idea of duty is praised:
. . . that recognition of something to be lived for be
yond the mere satisfaction of self, which is to the moral
^"Mr. Darwin*s Hypothoses," III, n.s., 611; and DD,
p. 390, bk. IV, ch. XXXIII.
18DD, p . 7 2 9, bk. V I I I , ch. LX.
95
life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to
animal life, fav i t a l i c s I W o man can begin to mould
himself ona faith or an idea without rising to a higher
order of experience: a principle of subordination, of
self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is
no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and
impulses. (P. 282, ch. X)
And the development of sympathetic understanding is a de
velopment comparable to the development of our prehensile
fingers: only a higher, more complex organization who has
also learned sympathy through his own sorrows, is capable
of the highest development. So "see to it, friend, before
i
you pronounce a too hasty judgment, that your own moral
sensibilities are not of a hoofed or clawed character*1 (p.
286, ch. XI).
Implicit in these early affirmations of evolutionary
humanism are the essential mechanisms of Lewes* evolution
ary theory: the law of development from the general and
simple to the specialized and complex from homogenous pri
mal cells, and the necessary concomitance of form and func
tion. When she refers to the "great central ganglion" she
is touching on one of Lewes* central doctrines, the belief
in the essential identity and homogeneity of all tissues,
and his belief that the specialized development of sensi
bility in nervous tissue is a connected, evenly unfolding
development under the evolutionary law of Goethe. So the
development of the brain in higher animals is merely an
example of this movement toward complexity and specializa
tion and is not different in kind. Indeed, the cells of
96
the great central ganglion or spinal chord or brain are in
composition not different from those in the other ganglia
of the body, ^his emphasis on the homogeneity of the ele
mental tissues is connected, as we have seen, with Lewes*
pervasive philosophy of the orderliness, purposiveness, and
uniformity of the natural processes. Even though there is
homogeneity of tissues there is a rising diversification of
function, and this is due to the uniform operations of
natural law which decrees that identity of form will result
in identity of function.^ So the development in man of
fingers and a complex nervous structure (though it is, in
fundamental composition, homogeneous in all its parts and
with all nervous tissue) makes possible the complex physical
and mental operations he is capable of. The common property
of sensibility is different in degree only in various ani
mals and among various men, not in kind:
It is simple logic, therefore, to conclude that there
being one common tissue, there must be one common pro
perty . in firain, Medulla, and Chord, however various the
functions, or uses, to which this property may in each
i case be applied. iPCL. II, 25)
Lewes* passionate affirmation of the uniform orderly opera
tion of natural law in the evolutionary processes, expressed
as the identity of form with function, is central to his
thought, and indeed, as we have seen, he proposes it in his
later works as the counterpoise to Darwinian random
19SSS. p. 385, and PCL, II, 21.
97
variation. And George Eliot is not behind him in her em
phasis on "the vivid intellect and the healthy human passion
which are too keenly alive to the constant relations of
20
things to have any morbid craving after the exceptional."
Lydgate*s researches in Middlemarch give George Eliot other
opportunities to allude to this theory of the homogeneity
of basic tissue and the uniformity of the processes of
evolutionary development. Lydgate is more and more con
vinced that it will be possible to demonstrate the homogene-
21
ous origin of all the tissues." George Eliot also applies
the related doctrine of epigenesis to her analysis of Ladi-
slaw: "We know what a masquerade all development is, and
what effective shapes may be disguised in helpless em-
22
bryos." She is arguing that future character indeed is
developed inexorably from the inherited character operated
on by environment, but that all mature character is not
present in the immature, and, to quote Lewes' expression of
the doctrine* evolves even as "the parts of an animal are
made one after another, and out of the other; so that each
organ may be considered as a secreting organ with respect
to the others."2^ Her argument is parallel to Lewes*
20Rm., p. 169, bk. I , ch. XV.
21Md., P. ^58, bk. V, ch. XLV.
22Md., p. 8*f, bk. I, ch. X.
^"Hereditary Influence," p. 87.
98
denial that "the embryo is an animal in miniature," so that
the adult animal exists even in its mature deformities, in
the initial embryonic seed.2** This doctrine has important,
and, we must think, beneficial consequences when applied to
fiction, for it serves as a counterpoise to their philoso
phical determinism justifying continuing growth and develop
ment and apparent reform of character, such as we see in a
Ladislaw and a Tom Vincy (or a Harry Thornton in Ranthorne).
While there is in her novels no explicit affirmation
of Lewes* insistence on the uniformity of the evolutionary
laws of development and the homogenity of primal tissues
in the vegetable as well as the animal kingdoms, it might
be possible to see in George Eliot*s frequent metaphorical
allusions to the similarity of the growth processes of
the vegetable and animal worlds an implicit endorsement
of this doctrine. The "suffusive sense of . . . connec
tions,"^ of the hidden relations in all things perhaps
finds expression in such metaphorical comparisons as
"... in our springtime every day has its hidden growths
!
in the mind, as it has in the earth when the little folded
26
blades are getting ready to pierce the ground." or in
the rhapsodical exclamation of Mordecai to Daniel Deronda:
24'ij^r. Darwin*s Hypothoses," III, n.s., 611-613.
25Md., p. 167, bk. II, ch. XVI.
26FH , p. 19 9, ch. X V I I I .
99
"Have we not from the first touched each other with in
visible fibres— have we not quivered together like the
leaves from a common stem with stirrings from a common
root?"27
The positive ladder, most explicitly formulated by
Gall, from egoism to altruism, from animality to ideal
humanity, is the primary evolutionary scale for Lewes and
George Eliot, though the tripartite scale of Comte— the
progression from the Theological to the Metaphysical to
the Positive stages— is put to some subsidiary and over
lapping use by George Eliot. Maggie Tulliver not only grows
from petulant egoism to self-renunciation, but she matures
from the Theological or fetishist stage to the Positive.
This is the ideal development, not only in societies but in
individual evolution. So nine-year-old Maggie goes through
the same fetishist phase in traveling toward maturity as a
primitive society. Maggie "kept a Fetish which she punished
for all her misfortunes," a doll she had defaced and mar
tyred "in a long career of vicarious suffering" by driving
nails in the head and "alternately grinding and beating the
wooden head against the rough brick of the great chimneys
pO
that made two square pillars supporting the roof." In
driving the nails into the fetish's head she is acting out
27DD, p . 5 7 7, bk. V I , ch. X LV I.
28MF, p . 3 0 , b k. I , ch. IV .
100
the same primitive impulses, in her need to transfer her
own incomprehensible suffering to some external scapegoat,
that lead to the agony of the Cross and to the worship of
the "suffering God."
The child's use of fetish toys is also explained by
Lewes as an example of the rudimentary exercise of the logic
of signs— of the identification of a toy with natural entity
by the verbal linking of the two— , a process characteristic
of both the child's and savage's undeveloped minds. Lewes
illustrates with a toy horse:
Hence it is that the child seems to believe the wooden
toy to be alive, and to have all the qualities it knows of
horses. The toy is fed, caressed, and beaten; not, as we
commonly suppose, owing to a conscious fiction of the
child, but by an identification through identity of name.
It is the same process so curiously manifested in the
fetishism and superstitions of savages.
But, Lewes insists, the child knows perfectly well that the
toy isn't the object itself— he knows that the toy merely
represents the natural object (as, we might add, the audi
ence in the theatre knows, according to Lewes, that stage
action is not "real" action): "Not that the child con
founds the two; he is perfectly alive to their visible dif
ferences; but the identity of the name acts in his con
struction of the object, and symbolises invisible quali
ties" (PLM. V, 489).
This explanation serves as a commentary on Maggie's
treatment of her fetish doll. Maggie is aware that she is
only fancying the doll as Aunt Glegg in order to vicariously
101
satisfy her need for vengeance, and, indeed, she modifies
that ceremony to make the "make-believe” drama more consis
tent:
The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke
than usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented
Aunt Glegg. But immediately afterward Maggie had re
flected that if she drove many nails in she would not be
so well able to fancy that the head was hurt when she
knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make
believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for
even Aunt Glegg would be pitiable when she had been hurt
very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so as to beg her
neice*s pardon.29
As Maggie matures she no longer fixes "her heart on
her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of
the universe" and learns to look "at her own life as an in
significant part of a divinely guided whole. In so doing
she is reaching the Positivist stage, where there is a
recognition of the inexorability of the natural processes
and a rejection of "the capricious of events" in the ser
vice of individual desires.
At the lowest stage, the Theological, man is motivated
by fear, not sympathy or duty, as we have noted (pp. 52-5* +
above): hence his propitiation of a vengeful deity per
sonifying natural forces and his belief that forgiveness is
a "healall." Not only does George Eliot explicitly affirm
this doctrine but it is a strong element in many of her
29MF, P- 30, bk. I, ch. IV.
P. 305, bk. IV, ch. III.
102
characterizations, and, indeed, without an understanding of
the philosophical undergirding her emphasis on the fearful
in such characters as Tito Melemo or Gwendolyn Harleth
seems oddly disproportionate and disjunctive. The applica
tion is precisely made, though, to Bulstrode:
It was really before his God that Bulstrode was about
to attempt such restitution as seemed possible: a great
dread had seized his susceptible frame, and the scorching
approach of shame wrought in him a new spiritual need.
Night and day, while the resurgent threatening past was
making a conscience within him, he was thinking by what
means he could recover peace and trust— by what sacrifice
he could stay the rod. His belief in these moments of
dread was, that if he spontaneously did something right,
God would save him from the consequences of wrong-doing.
For religion can only change when the emotions which fill
it are changed; and the religion of personal fear remains
nearly at the level of the savage.31
III
Let us turn now to a more specific analysis of the
evolutionary ladder from egoism and animality to altruism
and ideal humanity, noting George Eliot*s fictional use of
her correlation of the animal scale with the human so as to
indicate the character*s relative position on the scale.
We must save a completely systematic and detailed analysis
of character types to the closing chapters, after we have
dealt with the interlocking psychological theory of Lewes
and George Eliot. However, we will see later in detail,
the major fictional characters of Lewes and George Eliot
51Md., p. 625, bk. VI, ch. LXI.
103
can be graded quite conveniently if not in a rigidly com
partmentalized fashion, by their places on the scale of
Gall. For instance, Lord Hawbucke of Ranthorne and Grand-
court of Daniel Deronda: or Mary Vynor of Rose. Blanche,
and Violet, and Rosamond Vincy of Middlemarch epitomize
Pride, characterized by a love of power in Gall and by a
desire for mastery by Lewes and George Eliot. Vanity, the
next highest category on Gall's scale (and the one just be
low Attachment, the lowest category under Altruism) is
characterized by love of approbation. Among the male char
acters Lewes' Cecil Chamberlayne of Rose. Blanche, and
Violet and Captain Wybrow, Arthur Donnithorne, Tito Melema
in George Eliot are described primarily in these terms as
are Fanny Wilmington (Senior) and Florence Wilmington of
Ranthorne and Hetty Sorrel among the women. Some characters
such as Florence Wilmington, Hetty Sorrel, Esther Lyon,
Gwendolyn Harleth or Arthur Donnithorne— move, to one degree
or another, higher on the scale— from the Transitional
stages to the Altruistic having learned sympathy through
suffering. Others, such as Adam Bede or Romola, beginning
on the lower rungs of the Altruistic scale move up to the
top of the ladder, to Universal Benevolence, by virtue of
their suffering. A few have already reached this ideal
position at the beginning of their stories, Dinah Morris
and, most notably, Daniel Deronda.
It is the correlation in the fiction of George Eliot
104
of the animal with the human on the scale which will occupy
us at this juncture however. This correlation is made both
explicitly in somewhat peripheral comments and implicitly
and most significantly in the metaphorical descriptions of
the characters below the highest levels. George Eliot, like
Lewes, emphasizes the distance of man from animal, and jus
tifies this separation in the same manner. Lewes, as we
noted, takes exception with those writers, such as Comte
or Darwin, who had emphasized the similarities between ani
mals and men, to the point of deemphasizing the dissimi
larities:
For Mr. Darwin*s purpose it was needful that he should
emphasize the position that "there is no fundamental dif
ference between man and the higher animals in their mental
faculties." . . . For our purpose it is needful to point
out that, while there is no fundamental difference in the
functions of the two, there is a manifest and fundamental
difference in the evolved faculties . . . : men exhibit
ing some faculties of which animals have not apparently
even the rudiment. (PLM. IV, 131-132)
These faculties, which are indeed evolved in man as an ex
tension of similar faculties in animals, are in degree so
different that they in effect become different in kind.
Lewes argues as we have seen (pp. 54-58 above) that these
unique faculties in man are the conceptualizing ability
which allows him to learn from experience and take into
account the consequences of his actions, and his higher
susceptibility to pain which, in conjunction with the con
ceptualizing faculty, allows him to enter sympathetically
through his imagination in the sorrows of others, thus
allowing him to substitute altruistic self-abnegation for
animal individualism and egotism. Further, man's power to
contemplate his own actions and their consequences so as to
avoid future pain is even in its most rudimentary from an
advance toward altruism. So, Lewes insists, our simian
fellow creatures, though sharing many of man's mental func
tions, are nevertheless separated from him by "as broad a
line of demarcation, a barrier as impassible, as that be
tween the vertebrate and invertebrate structure." We may
j
be calmly assured "in comparing the possibilities of the
ape with those of mankind" that "the blue-faced baboon will
never become our rival in Philosophy, Science, and the
Arts" (pp. 11f1 —1 Zjif). George Eliot's little Maggie Tulliver,
perched in an elder tree, ironically exemplifies the dis
tance between man and monkey. She in her passionate imag
inativeness
gifted with that superior power of misery which distin
guishes the human being, and places him at a proud dis
tance from the most melancholy chimpanzee, sat still on
her bough, and gave herself up to the keen sense of un
merited reproach. She would have given the world not to
have eaten all her puff, and to have saved some for Tom.
Not but that the puff was very nice, for Maggie's palate
was not at all obtuse, but she would have gone without
it many times over, sooner than Tom should call her
greedy and be cross with h e r .32
This "higher evolution toward a consciousness which is
known to bring higher pains"33 provides the plot dynamic
52MF, P. 5 0 , b k . I , ch. V I.
33f h , p . W ?t ch. X I I I .
106
for Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss. Bomola. and Felix
Holt, and is a major element in Middlemarch and Daniel
Deronda. Indeed, this "difficult blessedness," this pain
ful "growing into the possession of higher powers"^ pri
marily by her heroines is, perhaps, the central theme of
George Eliot*s novels.
Lewes distinguishes men from animals not only by this
higher susceptibility to pain but also by man*s unique
ability to conceptualize through his use of the logic of
signs or language. Animals and infants perceive but they
cannot conceptualize through symbols. The animal, like
man, can reinstate concrete images. So, animals can ex
perience or perceive colors "each of which can be rein
stated through its image. But they have no conception of
red, blue, or orange; they have no conception of Colour,
which, while unlike red, blue, orange, etc., includes and
symbolizes them." Conceptualization is "the comparison of
a group of abstracted feelings, and this judgment unpictur-
able and incommunicable in any direct mode is expressed by
a verbal symbol.'1 Thus though Lewes agrees that monkeys
reason and think, it is only in the lower form of percep
tion, the reinstatement of concrete sensations, but they
cannot conceptualize: abstracting from the concrete sen
sations, recombining them, and generalizing upon them in
P- 231, ch. XXII.
107
the form of ideas (PIM. IV, 466-467). Furthermore, animals
are not conscious of their own sentience: "It is necessary
that the animal should perceive objects: it is not neces
sary that he should perceive his own perceptions as ob
jects" (p. 130). Animals can perceive the immediate conse
quences of their actions but cannot calculate long term
consequences, cannot throw themselves out of the immediate
context so as to see themselves in relation to remote sit
uations and also learn from the experiences of others where
!
transmitted in merely symbolic form. George Eliot both
affirms and illustrates this distinction between perception
and conception in her fiction. So a sympathetic Bob Jaken
looks at Maggie Tulliver "with the pursuant gaze of an in
telligent dumb animal, with perceptions more perfect than
his comprehension."^ This community in perception and
discontinuity in conception between animals and men is im
plicit in many passages, especially in those detailing the
special relation of man to dog, who, as we noted, is the
highest creature on Lewes* animal scale, not only by virtue
of perceptual acuteness, but primarily because of his con
comitant capability of sympathetic attachment (a capability
which indeed places him in a position scarcely inferior to
many of George Eliot*s human characters on the evolutionary
ladder). So in Adam Bede Dinah Morris is talking with Adam
P* 2 5 3 , b k . I l l , ch. V I.
108
while Adam's dog Gyp looks on:
Hitherto Gyp had been assisting at this conversation
in motionless silence, seated on his haunches, and alter
nately looking up in his master's face to watch its ex
pression, and observing Dinah's movements about the kitch
en. The kind smile with which Adam uttered the last words
was apparently decisive with Gyp of the light in which
the stranger was to be regarded, as she turned round after
putting aside her sweeping-brush he trotted toward her,
and put up his muzzle against her hand in a friendly way.
"You see Gyp bids you welcome," said Adam, "and he's
very slow to welcome strangers."
"Poor dog!" said Dinah, patting the rough gray coat,
"I've a strange feeling about the dumb things as if they
wanted to speak, and it was a trouble to 'em because they
couldn't. I can't help being sorry for the dogs always,
! though perhaps there's no need. But they may well have
more in them than they know how to make us understand, for
we can't say half what we feel, with all our words."36
At the bottom of the human scale, just a step above the
gulf between the perceptual and the uniquely human concep
tual or verbal level are the three students of Bartle Mas
sey in the same novel,
three big men, with the marks of their hard labor about
them, anxiously bending over the worn books, and pain
fully making out, "The grass is green," "The sticks are
dry," "the corn is ripe"— a very hard lesson to pass to
after columns of single words all alike except in the
first letter. It was almost as if three rough animals
were making humble efforts to learn how they might become
human.
The distinction between animal-like perception and human
conceptualizing is carried forward metaphorically in George
Eliot's fictional studies of rudimentary or retrogressive
human intelligence. Thus in "Brother Jacob" the idiot
36AB, pp. 120-121, bk. I, ch. XI.
37P. 239, bk. II, ch. XXI.
109
Jacob operates by unvarying stimulus-response perception
akin to those of insects or simians so that his brother
David*s person becomes associated "in his brother*s rudi
mentary mind with the flavor of yellow lozenges" to the
extent that David becomes the physical captive of his
sweet-toothed brother. Jacob doesn't act by conceptual
foresight or calculation but only responds to the direct
prompting of concrete sensation. David is able by much
coaxing to associate the guineas he had stolen from his
mother with the lozenges so that "Jacob turned his head on
one side, looked first at his brother and then at the hole,
like a reflective monkey, and, finally laid the box of
guineas in the hole with much decision" in exchange for the
guineas, but mere verbal guile or command cannot move Jacob
to leave his "sweet-flavored brother": he responds to
verbal, symbolic urging with as much alacrity "as a wasp
shows in leaving a sugar-basin."^
The point is made even more explicitly in George
Eliot's most detailed study of intellectual retrogression—
Baldassare in Romola. Here the loss of the ability to
associate ideas with written symbols— the loss of concep
tual skills by the Greek scholar Baldassare— is equated with
a retreat to merely perceptual animality (and insanity).
With the loss of symbolic facility Baldassare loses memory
^"Brother Jacob," pp. 8-12.
I 110
and the distinctively human ability to calculate remote
consequences and carry on connected trains of thought. He
operates by immediate impulse in response to immediate
stimuli. When treated kindly he responds with "the milder
look of a dog touched by kindness, but unable to smile.
Brother Jacob and Baldassare are in varying degrees repre
sentative of that merely perceptual animality which, as
Lewes states, is "moved only by the immediate stimuli, and
moved always in the same way" so that "they are incapable
!
of what we know as Experience: they feel and they react;
they never learn through feeling to modify their reaction
and to anticipate a future result" (PLM. IV, 134). Brother
Jacob's almost automatic associationistic processes (of
his brother with sweet lozenges) are appropriately enough
metaphorically equated with those of an insect~the wasp--,
whereas the once brilliant Baldassare's ruined mind oper
ates on the level of a dog, man's closest animal neighbor.
While George Eliot does not attempt a rigid schematization
of her characters by metaphorical correlation with the
animal kingdom, a study of the individual animal metaphors
in relation with the mental processes being described is,
as we will see, exceedingly instructive.
Even in that area where animals come closest to the
human level of sympathy— mother love— , man's unique
39P. 305, bk. I I , ch. XXXIII.
111
conceptual faculty makes for a difference in degree which
is, in effect, a difference in kind. Lewes contends that
animals are capable of scarcely any ’ ’sympathetic altruistic
impulses” beyond the sexual and parental,” but that these
are expanded far beyond the still essentially egoistic
animal level in man by his distinctive conceptualizing
ability which allows him to profit by experience for the
long-run benefit of his progeny (p. 136). George Eliot
points out in the case of Mrs. Transome in Felix Holt that
it is a corresponding retrogression of the conceptual fac
ulty (because in her instance "memory was too ghastly a
companion") brings man down to the level of animal egotism.
So Mrs. Transome*s initial "expansion of the animal exist
ence" into maternal love "by much suppression of self, and
power of living in the experience of another" is gradually
vitiated as she "contracted small rigid habits of thinking
and acting" so as to live without any activity of tenderness
or any large sympathy."^®
Man's conceptual ability is not all gain. It is true,
Lewes notes, that language, "a faculty no brute has ac
quired" allows man to learn from experience. The concep
tual faculty thus provides "the means of continuous evo
lution" :
By it experiences are registered, generalized, com
pared, and condensed in formulas which serve for
^ F H , PP. 2 4 -2 5 , ch. I .
112
intellectual money. By it the personal relations are
raised into impersonal conceptions: the moral life be
comes the social life. The animal, as I formerly said,
has sympathy and is moved by sympathetic impulses, but
these are never altruistic; the ends consciously sought
are never remote ends. (P m . IV, 139-1^0)
But man's conceptual, generalizing faculty has its darker
side:
The animal's ignorance is at least free from the curse
of superstition; his happiness is not marred by the mul
titude of misleading ideas which pervert man. The ani
mal's selfishness is at least free from the perversions
of vanity, and from the vices with which aberrant imagi
nation has degraded the passions of men. Human history
! on its darker side is a frightful succession of cruelties
and debaucheries, such as find no parallel in the history
of animals. It is true that animals have no virtues; for
Virtue is the suppression of our egoistic impulses to
promote the welfare of others; and animals are incapable
of this conception. Their instincts lead directly to
actions, never to ideas. Hence, while they share with
man the sexual instinct, they know nothing of Love. On
the other hand, while animals suffer the contagion of
Disease and the contagion of Fear, man alone suffers the
contagion of Folly; for him error is as catching as a
disease. (PLM. IV, 138)
George Eliot illustrates, most concretely, in Lydgate
this "contagion of Folly." Lydgate is the exemplar of one
who has failed to apply the same conceptual logic to his
| personal life that he applies to his professional life. He
has come to the point where he must admit to himself that
Rosamond's "sylph-like frame" and delicate, graceful fem
ininity are not as "he had once interpreted . . . the sign
of a ready intelligent sensitiveness." Lydgate thinks of
a former love, an elegant actress who had admitted to him
that she had killed her actor husband on the stage, out of
a petulant desire not to accompany him to the provinces:
113
His mind glancing back to Laure while he looked at
Rosamond, he said inwardly, "Would she kill me because I
wearied her?" and then, "It is the way with all women."
But this power of generalizing which gives men so much the
superiority 1'n mistake over the dumb animals I my italicsl.
was immediately thwarted by Lydgate’s memory of wondering
impressions from the behavior of another woman— from
Dorothea's looks and tones of emotion about her husband
when Lydgate began to attend him ... .^1
Lydgate, who has unwittingly thwarted his career and tied
himself to an insensitive, selfish wife "from the perver
sions of vanity" and "the error as catching as a disease"—
who has indeed proved himself incapable of learning from
experience by marrying Rosamond after his unfortunate ex
perience with Laure— does finally begin to look at his per
sonal relations with something of the same acuity he had
formerly applied only to his scientific observations. "Hav
ing been roused to discern consequences which he had never
been in the habit of tracing, he was preparing to act on
this discernment with some of the rigor (by no means all)
that he would have applied in pursuing experiment." But it
is too late: "the mistake was at work in him like a recog
nized chronic disease, mingling its uneasy importunities
with every prospect, and enfeebling every thought.,,Zf2
IV
We will turn now to a study of the animal metaphors of
^Md., pp. 595-596, bk. VI, ch. LVIII.
^ P p . 5 9 ^ -5 9 6 , bk. V I , ch. L V I I I .
George Eliot applied to her characters to illustrate the
evolutionary scale envisioned by her and Lewes. The meta
phorical comparisons are, as we would expect, almost exclu
sively applied to those characters in her fiction who are
low enough on the human scale to be in close proximity to
the animal scale. There is little logical rigidity in her
uses of metaphor: so, for instance, Hetty Sorrel is figur
atively identified with such diverse creatures as spaniels,
baby chicks, and butterflies. The individual identifica
tions, however, have a precise logic and consistency in so
far as they are used in connection with those specific
traits which place animals and men in a lower than ideal
position on the evolutionary ladder from egoism to altruism.
Hetty Sorrel best illustrates, perhaps, the evolution
ary scale of Lewes and George Eliot, positioned as she is,
where the animal and the human converge and overlap— where
the relationship of the human "facial ornament" to the
"animal architecture" is most conspicuous.^ If we want
to express it in terms of Gall's evolutionary ladder, Hetty
lies at the Transition point from the primarily animal or
egoistic to the primarily human or Altruistic levels: her
ruling characteristics are Vanity, or love of approbation,
and, concomitantly, but to a lesser degree, Pride, love of
^^DD, p . 102, bk. I , ch. X .
115
power (the lowest of the two Transition categories). In the
jail confession scene she arduously, and probably only ten
tatively, rises from animal separatism to the first level of
Altruism, Attachment, a personal sympathetic relationship
with one other human being, Dinah Morris. Indeed, Hetty is
little more than a rudimentary human being, and George Eliot
continuously enforces this point by animal comparisons. She
is introduced to us as possessing
one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads
not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of
women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small
downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft
bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage
in conscious mischief ....
Hetty*s is also described as "kitten-like," and as having
"kitten-like glances"^ as possessing "the beauty of young
frisking things, round-limbed, gamboling" as having the
innocence of a young star-browed calf, , / f ^ the soft, soothing
tone" of "a bright-eyed spaniel with a thorn in her foot"^
and "pigeon-like stateliness."^
But this animal loveliness is conjoined with animal
egoism: she has "the luxurious nature of a round, soft-
coated pet animal" with its innate "dread of bodily hardship
^ A B , p. 155, bk. I , ch. XV.
^5P. 86, bk. I, ch. VII.
^6P . 139, b k. I , ch. X I I I .
^7P . 157, b k. I , ch. XV.
116
mingled with the dread of shame.Mrs. Poyser shrewdly
observes to her husband that
"She's no better than a peacock, as 'ud strut about on
the wall, and spread its tail when the sun shone if all
the folks i* the parish was dying: there's nothing seems
to give her a turn i* th' inside, not even when we thought
Totty had tumbled into the pit .... But Hetty never
minded it, I could see, though she's been at the nussin'
o' the child ever since it was a babby. It's my belief
her heart's as hard as a pebble."
And Hetty's animal beauty which makes even her pettishness
charming is likened to "a kitten setting up its back, or a
! little bird with its feathers ruffled." This animal beauty
LQ
serves to conceal simple bad temper.
Hetty is systematically and explicitly characterized
in terms of those traits which epitomize the animal rather
than the ideally human on Lewes* and George Eliot's evolu
tionary ladder: she exhibits individuality and egoism
rather than sociability and altruism, and lacks sympathy
and conceptual ability. Hetty stands in atomistic isola
tion; she is "like an animal that gazes, and gazes, and
keeps aloof.The distance from the ideal organic unity
where individuality is absorbed into self-abnegating har
mony is often measured for George Eliot in terms of secrecy
versus candor. Indeed, unless the theoretical framework
for this emphasis on openness and candor in human relations
^8P. 383, bk. V, ch. XXXVII.
^ P . 268, bk. Ill, ch. XXIII.
50P. 453, bk. V, ch. XLV.
117
is understood her frequent denunciations of all forms of
secrecy may well seem disproportionate and even somewhat
mystifying. It is in fact merely a logical extension of
her evolutionary organic monism, which demands that all
purely personal and selfish interest be sacrificed to the
needs of others; there is no place in such a system for a
secret which cannot bear communal scrutiny. Thus Maggie
Tulliver's and Phillip Wakem's trysts are in George Eliot*s
universe wrong almost a priori, and Tito Melema, George
j
Eliot's arch-villain is as distinguished by his secretive
nature as Daniel Deronda, her most ideal character, is dis
tinguished by his passion for openness. And so Hetty with
"her native powers of concealment absorbed in her dreams of
luxuries"'^ stands in cocquettish, selfish isolation from
any loving human association. Secrecy grows from Vanity,
the love of approbation— Hetty's most characteristic trait:
Hetty had a certain strength in her vain little nature:
she would have borne anything rather than be laughed at,
or pointed at with any other feeling than admiration; she
wouL; have pressed her own nails into her tender flesh
j rather than people should know a secret she did not want
them to k n o w .52
Hetty, then, epitomizes Vanity on the positivist scale,
characterized, as she is in terms of the ruling motivation
of this type— the need for approbation— and by the explicit
51P. 3 2 9 , bk. IV , ch. XXX.
52Pp. 2 0 2 -2 0 3 , b k. I I , ch. X V I I I .
118
labeling of her ’ ’ vain little nature.” Indeed, she is con
sistently described in these terms: as being motivated by
a ”cold vanity"^ and as having a ’ ’luxurious and vain na
ture"^ for instance.
To a lesser degree, but concomitantly, Hetty, standing
as she does at the Transitional level to the Altruistic on
Gall’s ladder, is also representative of Pride, the rung
just below Vanity, characterized by a love of power or mas
tery. She like her soul-cousins Rosamond Vincy and Gwendo
lyn Harleth (or Lewes' Mary Vynor or Florence and Fanny
Wilmington, Sr.) delights in ’ ’coquettish tyranny," in feel
ing a man in her power and revels in the "cold triumph of
knowing that he loved her."^ Hetty, of course, moves up
the scale to Attachment, to a rudimentary from of Altruism,
at the climax of the novel by the mere acceptance of Dinah's
imploring, pitying sympathies.
Limited little Hetty is, however, despite this rather
tentative step toward ideal humanity essentially represen
tative of animal egoism. Her embryonic nature, her "little
butterfly-soul"^ is incapable of high sympathy because of
55P. 156, bk. I, ch. XV.
51f P. 340, bk. IV, ch. XXXI.
55P. 101, bk. I, ch. IX.
56P. 137, bk. I, ch. XIII.
119
her paucity of conceptual ability and her animal nature
which instinctively pulls back from all pain. In George
Eliot*s words, Hetty has "the timidity of a luxurious pleas-
-ure-seeking nature, which shrinks from the hint of pain."^7
Elemental natures— the human infant, the inchoate
Hetty-like adult, or the animal— are motivated primarily by
stimulus-response reactions to pain or pleasure: Lewes
argues that "it is a primordial law that we shrink from pain
and cling to pleasure" (PCL. II, 211). Thus, a person
!
motivated primarily by Vanity, by the love of approbation—
Hetty or Donnithorne or Tito Melema— is capable of the
grossest moral crimes, merely in pursuit of immediate per
sonal satisfaction, and, concomitantly, is haunted by fear
of pain or disapprobation. As Lewes puts it,
in the less endowed specimens of our race, even within
the reach of culture, the response to the moral demands
of society, whether in the shape of doctrine or of in
stitutions, is little more than the conflict of opposing
appetites, the check imposed by egoistic dread on egoistic
desire. (PLM. IV, 145)
Such a rudimentary nature is a transitional one on the
i
evolutionary ladder which counts as its highest specimens
those who not only don*t reflexively shrink from all "hint
of pain," but actively court it in the altruistic service
of others, and as lowest on the scale those whose automatic
response to pain is egoistic repulsion (though as George
Eliot remarks, the best of men, may, "in our instinctive
57P. 164, bk. I , ch. XV.
120
rebellion against pain" at least momentarily become "chil
dren again, and demand an active will to wreak our vengeance
on."98 Such a transitional (on Gall*s scale) specimen as
Hetty or Donnithorpe represents a "great progress beyond
the brute dread of the stick" characteristic of the lower
orders on the scale in that "the love of approbation attains
the ideal force which renders social rule or custom and
the respect of fellow-men an habitually felt restraint and
guidance" (PLM. IV, 1^3). A person motivated by the love of
approbation— by the pleasure and pain principle in somewhat
sublimated form— may under ordinary circumstances be a
viable part of the community because his desire for appro
val may serve him as an empirical conscience, limiting his
injurious actions out of fear of public disapproval. In
deed, Hetty*s great dread" of the discovery of her preg
nancy serves her as the only conscience she can know:
For Hetty looked out from her secret misery toward a
possibility of their ever knowing what had happened, as
the sick and weary prisoner might think of the possible
pillory. They would think her conduct shameful; and
shame was torture. That was poor little Hetty*s con
science. 59
Hetty thus stands in an intermediate position on the
scale in her sensitivity to pain. She neither has the
highest susceptibility to pain which when conjoined with a
higher conceptual ability and imagination results in
58AB, p. 306, bk. IV, ch. XXVII.
59AB, p. 3*f1, b k. IV , ch. X X X I.
121
sympathetic altruism, nor is she on the level with the lower
organisms who have little or no susceptibility to pain.
This scale is not absolute in its graduated regularity, for
as Lewes notes, "even in highly developed human organisms
sensation is often pure excitement, without a shade of
pleasure or pain1 1 (PLM. V, 382). ’ ’Pleasure-craving" Hetty
is motivated primarily and quite directly and unsubtly by
61
luxurious dreams of pleasure and vague fears of evil and
62
active fears of bodily hardship or shame.
Her egoistic pain-pleasure responses are largely in
variant and predictable once her simple "childish soul" is
understood: indeed, she has much in common with the fish
or insects on Lewes* scale, who exhibit an invariancy of
reaction to the point of self-destruction (see p. 62 above).
She exhibits a cold obstinancybut possibly not the
same blind tenacity of purpose of a torpedo-like Rosamond
Vincy or that "amiable fish," Mrs. Tulliver, who "retains
the illusion of a "patriarchal goldfish" that it can swim
j in a straight line beyond the encircling glass" and who
"after running her head against the same resisting medium
for thirteen years would go at it again to-day with undulled
61P. 164, bk. I , ch. XV.
62P. 383, bk. IV, ch. XXXVII.
63P. 427, bk. V, ch. XLI.
122
alacrity."^ Pretty little Hetty*s mental processes are not
described with fish metaphors, but, appropriately enough,
with the butterfly-insect metaphor, with its traditional
associations of beauty. So Hetty's "little butterfly-soul
fluttered incessantly between memory and dubious expecta
tion."^ She is "unsympathetic as butterflies sipping nec
tar ,"^ and she has "fluttering, trivial butterfly sensa
tions."^ The butterfly metaphor doesn't emphasize the
usual associations that insects carry in Lewes' and George
i
Eliot's schema of rudimentary development exhibited in in-
variancy of stimulus-response; it represents, indeed, rudi
mentary development but in weakness of intellectual and
emotional organization. Lewes' insects, who continue eat
ing while pinned to a table (see p. 60 above), are paral
leled in George Eliot's metaphorical usage by the charac
terization of those who live a totally self-centered ex
istence as living the life of insects with their "narrow
68
tenacity" and invariancy of response. This same invari-
j ancy is symbolized in Brother Jacob, as we have seen, by
the wasp's reaction to sugar, illustrating the tenacity
6Z *MF, p. 81, bk. I, ch. VIII.
65AB, P* 137, bk. I, ch. XIII.
66P. 103, bk. I, ch. IX.
67P. 256, bk. Ill, ch. XXII.
68DD, p. 6 8 9 , b k . V I I , ch. LV.
123
of Jacob in associating his brother with lemon lozenges.
Hetty*s rudimentary insect-like development, however,
is primarily of another sort: her psychical life is unde
veloped and chaotic. Her "sleeping life" is "scarcely more
fragmentary and confused" than her waking hours; indeed, the
i
two merge so that there is virtually no distinction between
the incoherent, pulsating world of subjective desires and
the objective external world. 7 She is virtually isolated
in the vague private dream world of desires, or in Lewes*
!
j terms— diffusive systemic promptings; she is unable to
come into higher organic unity with her fellows. Her neural
organization is embryonic and undifferentiated; her "flut-
70
tering, trivial butterfly sensations"' are only generalized
systemic sensations, issuing in "vague fears" and dreams of
luxuries. Lacking regulated channels of neural energy and
emotional guidance she may either fall into "that excitable
state of mind in which there is no calculating what turn the
feelings may take from one moment to another,"7^ or retreat
j to a "hard, despairing obstinacy." She, like all lower
organisms on the evolutionary scale, those "governed by in
ferior instincts alone, can have neither stability nor fixed
purposes" (CP, p. 221). She is capable only of grasping for
69AB, P. 165, bk. II, ch. XV.
7°P. 256, bk. Ill, ch. XXII.
71P. 164, b k. I , ch. XV.
12Zf
immediate s e l f i s h advantage and c o q u e ttis h m aste ry , o r ,
f a i l i n g t h a t , i s moved e i t h e r by dim u n d is c ip lin e d im pulses
and d e s ire s or m in d less, m echanical i n s e c t - l i k e te n a c ity .
CHAPTER V
THE EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
IN THE FICTION OF GEORGE ELIOT
I
The schematic orderliness and even tidiness of the
universe of George Henry Lewes and George Eliot which we
!have seen in their view of the evolutionary processes car
ries over into their largely concomitant or overlapping
psychology. And its classificatory rigour and neatness al
so stems in part from the necessitarian nature of that psy
chology, expressed in Lewes' belief that "if we fully know
the whole history of an organism we could predict with
absolute certainty" its responses, and in the parallel con
viction of George Eliot that "a man can never do anything
at variance with his own nature. He carries within him the
germ of his most exceptional action . . . ."^ This psycho-
i
logical determinism expresses itself in the fiction of
George Eliot not only in the form of the unpitying conse
quences of deeds, but in a far more sophisticated and rig
orous character schematization than has usually been sus
pected.
1AB, p. 176, bk. I , ch. XVI.
125
126
Lewes, we mentioned earlier, calssifies personalities
into three basic categories: the sensual, emotional, and
intellectual. He had, in his early fiction, already made
these basic personality distinctions and had set up the
distinguishing criteria of these psychological types which
he seeks to justify in detailed scientific terms in his
mature psychological expositions. These basic types with
their hallmark criteria were taken over by George Eliot in
her fiction, but she, in addition, draws upon Lewesf fuller
mature non-fictional psychological schematizations. Fur
ther, her application of Lewes* psychological doctrines and
terminology to her fiction is roughly concordant and concur
rent with Lewes* own work on and development of his psychol
ogy. Thus, Daniel Deronda. which was written when his evo
lutionary psychology was finally being fully codified in
his Problems of Life and Mind, has a palpably larger use of
the psychological dogmas and terminology of Lewes than her
other novels, though they have considerable play in all her
fiction. We are not suggesting that Lewes* evolutionary
psychology explains the excellence of George Eliot's work,
and, indeed, it could be forcibly argued that her fiction
suffered more from this influence than it gained. Be as
that may, it is important to study the evolutionary psychol
ogy of Lewes in conjunction with the fiction of George Eli
ot, since they serve as virtual commentaries on each other.
Hetty Sorrel is, according to Lewes* personality
127
schema, sensual, rather than emotional or (quite obviously)
intellectual. She is "a luxurious and vain nature, not a
2 ^ 5
passionate one." She is "shallow-hearted,"-' emotionally
deficient, and so intellectually deficient in conceptual and
imaginative powers that she "had not the ideas" to compre
hend the misery which would follow Arthur Donnithorne*s re
jection of her. She has a cold, hard unloving nature, a
heart "as hard as a pebble"^ and "a cold, obstinate way."^
In her insect-like tenacity and obstinacy she is grouped
I
with a host of other cold, unemotional, sensual characters
in the fiction of George Eliot (and Lewes)— with a Rosamond
Vincy, a Grandcourt, or even with a Dolfo Spini with a
"disposition to persistence" characteristic of "slow-witted
sunsual people" (though, as we will see, unemotional sen
suality is not necessarily accompanied by perceptual slow-
wittedness). Cold-hearted little Hetty is set off against
the emotional, and thus sympathetic Dinah Morris, even as
a Captain Wybrow, with "an admirable figure, the whitest
j of hands, the most delicate of nostrils, and a large amount
2P. 3k0, bk. IV, ch. XXXI.
3P. 325, bk. IV, ch. XXX.
^p. 101, bk. I, ch. IX; 158, bk. I, ch. XV; 159, bk.
I, ch. XV; 161, bk. I, ch. XV; ^9k, bk. Ill, ch. XXVI.
5P. Zf27, bk. V, ch. XLI.
p. 528, bk. Ill, ch. LXIII.
of serene self-satisfaction" but with no "liability to a
strong emotion" is set off against Caterina "who touched the
7
imagination and the affections rather than the senses."'
Hetty*s beauty, in contrast to Caterina*s readily reaches
the perceptions or, in Lewes' terms, the senses, of even the
animals, for indeed they are not capable of conceptual con
tact. Similarly, in Lewes' Rose. Blanche, and Violet. Vio
let Vynor is described as appealing to the "emotions and
passions" and as being "voluptuous" and "not cold" despite
i
willfullness and haughtiness. She is contrasted with the
heartless Mary Vynor who appeals to the sensual, is "desti
tute of the voluptuous," is ruled by the head not the
heart," and "loves with the head not the heart, with the
O
senses, not the soul."
In all this we have the emphasis, in both George Eli
ot's and Lewes' fiction, as in his philosophy and psychol
ogy, on the superiority of the emotions over the intellect.
And the emotions serve the same function for George Eliot
| as with Lewes: they are the psychical motors, especially
in the higher more harmonious form of sentiments, which
propel the otherwise isolated individual out from himself
into sympathetic, organic contact with others: "All pas
sion becomes strength when it has an outlet from the narrow
7SCL, "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story," p. 124, ch. IV.
8Pp. 23, 144-145, 188, bk. I .
129
g
limits of our personal lot . . . As such, the emotions
are superior to knowledge— indeed, are a superior sort of
knowledge, since only through empathetic sorrow and joy can
we reach out to others for organic communion. As Adam Bede
puts it in rebuttal to Dinah*s denial of earthly affection,
for it seems to me it's the same with love and happiness
as with sorrow— the more we know of it the better we can
feel what other people's lives are or might be, and so
we shall only be more tender to 'em, and wishful to help
'em. The more knowledge a man has, the better he'll do's
work; and feeling's a sort o' knowledge.1®
For George Eliot sentiments (which are, according to
Lewes, the guiding, highest, most harmonious form of emo
tion) "are the better part of the world's wealth,"^ and
like Lewes, she argues that there is a final certainty in
feeling "as accurate and irresistible" (PLM, V, 358) as
that provided by the intellect, or, more accurately put,
"... emotions precede cognitions and cognitions are only
representatives of emotions and sensations. We only know
what we have felt" (p. 395). So it is with Gwendolyn Har-
leth's "passionate need" for Daniel Deronda's sympathetic
|
love, "We do not argue the existence of the anger or the
scorn that thrills through us in a voice; we simply feel
i p
it, and it admits of no disproof." Thus the logic of
9AB, p. 216, bk. II, ch. XIX.
10P. 515, bk. VI, ch. XII.
11DD, p. 381, bk. IV, ch. XXXIII.
12DD, p. 7 7 0 , b k. V I I I , ch. XXV.
130
feeling is superior to that of signs, though the intellect
operates coordinately with the emotions in the reaching out
of life forms for organic unity.
II
Not only are such characters as Hetty Sorrel and Dinah
Morris or Grandcourt and Daniel Deronda set off against each
other overtly in terms of the relative scarcity or abundance
of emotional resources, but George Eliot develops a symbolic
I apparatus which enables her to present these character types
with more dramatic verity. These character codes are by no
means arbitrary symbols, but are solidly rooted in Lewes'
evolutionary psychology schematizations. Since our interest
here is in completing our analysis of the evolutionary lad
der of Lewes in terms of the concomitant psychology, we
willTlimit our character classifications at this point to
exemplars of the lower and upper ends of the scale in the
earliest novel, Adam Bede (if we want to call Scenes of
Clerical Life a collection of tales). But let us first
| 1 - 1 ' “ - I — * - * —
! pause at this point in brief recapitulation of the evolu
tionary psychology of Lewes insofar as it finds fictional
expression in George Eliot's characterizations.
Those human organisms lowest on the scale, with a
rudimentary psychical mechanism, characterized by a com
bination of insect-like invariant response and diffuse,
15AB, p. 2 1 6 , b k. I I , ch. X IX .
131
unorganized, impulsiveness, are as we have seen, classifi
able as sensual and cold-capable primarily only of animal
like perception, not the more highly organized emotional,
imaginative, and conceptual functions. The rudimentary
character, as we have shown in the case of Hetty, is often
associated metaphorically with those members of the animal
kingdom who most representatively exhibit the rudimentary
psychological traits by which the character is most strong
ly identified on the evolutionary scale. They are identi
fied as passionless, which in this connection, signifies a
lack of emotional depth, and they also lack vitality, since
vitality comes through the harmonious, organized diffusion
of the basic psychical energy. This lack of vitality ex
presses itself in thin hair instead of the thick, rich,—
even coarse,— locks of the juxtaposed emotional personality.
Also the voice of the rudimentary, egoistic sensual charac
ter is often contrasted with the rich, musical voice of the
highly organized, altruistic, emotional character. Music
is representative of the harmony of the higher emotions,
the sentiments, and thus of the evolutionary dynamic's
thrust toward higher organic harmony in all life. The calm
demeanor and eyes of the affectionate higher nature contrast
with the alternating excitability or torpor of the lower
human organism, for the lower is marked by antagonism, by
egoistic repulsion or attraction in his psychical organi
zation, whereas the highest organism's organization is
132
characterized by organic harmony with his environment and
internally by the smooth, uninterrupted transit of the psy
chical energy along his neural pathways. The lower human
organism is egoistically isolated in his own subjective
world of systemic desires, and has a natural propensity to
ward secrecy— that is, he is not inclined to submit himself
with full candor to the organic whole. The higher man in
stinctively reaches out for accord with the greater organic
social whole, and thus is a seeker for truth in the sense
of Lewes and George Eliot, in that he harmonizes the inter
nal subjective world with the objective external. He is,
of course, completely open and unsecretive; indeed, he has
an innate hatred of all secrecy. He is perfectly sincere,
and his affectionate and passionate protestations are accom
panied with real feeling. The lower organism, on the other
hand, has an innate skill at acting, of merely symbolizing
or imitating real feeling.
The lower organism, standing as he does on the transi
tional stages of the evolutionary ladder between the animal
and the fully human— between the wholly egoistic and the
altruistic— is characterized by Pride, the love of power, or
by Vanity, the love of approbation; or some combination of
the two. The man at the lower of the two levels, Pride, is
motivated primarily by a desire for mastery, rather than
love, in human relations, and the man motivated mainly by
Vanity is capable of the most heinous crimes out of
133
weakness— out of the egoistic desire to be well thought of.
He, therefore, always takes the easiest way out so as to
avoid any immediate discomfort to himself. His egoism is
not so obviously gross as that of the even more rudimentary
creature motivated by Pride— the love of mastery— with his
unfeeling, mechanical, insect-like stimulus-response tenac
ity in seeking to fulfill his immediate desires. Even more
rudimentary a psychical mechanism is that characterized by
Gall as moved primarily by the military instinct: by the
need to destroy obstacles in its path. Lewes and George
Eliot in their novels speak of this characteristic as the
love of opposition. The actions of a person motivated by
the love of opposition and of power (by the military in
stincts or Pride) are analogous to the movements of an em
bryonic creature, even a one-celled animalcule, whose psy
chical activity is merely a crude attraction-repulsion re
sponse as it seeks for nutrition— a sort of mindless reflex
contractility at the lowest levels which exhibits itself in
| an aggressive enveloping movement at the contact of a vic
tim. Those organisms dominated by these lower characteris
tics by virtue of their rudimentary, generalized, uncomplex
psychical mechanism are remarkably insensitive in their
tenacious pursuit of desires, in their love of opposition,
in their love of mastery of those so unfortunate as to be
bound to them, especially in marriage.
Those human beings characterized by Vanity, by the
love of approbation, at the threshhold of full humanity or
altruistic attachment to one creature, are capable of a
higher degree of sensitivity, though still almost totally
egoistic, despite the deceptive good will and sociability
resulting from their love of the good opinion of their
fellow creatures. The desire of the vain man for approba
tion can serve as a sort of empirical conscience for him,
but he is not moved, as the altruistic person is, by the
self-abnegating sympathy which is the higher form of con-
i
science. Still, the vain person has a capacity for pain
which marks him off from the lower organisms. In fact, his
efforts are constantly directed to the avoidance of pain,
and he is characterized by a febrile, vague fearfulness that
he may not be able to do so. In sum, his is a timorous,
luxurious nature bent on direct sensory self-gratification-
on the gaining of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
The higher altruistic organism, on the other hand, has
the even greater sensitivity to pain characteristic of a
higher degree of organization, and willingly accepts pain
in the service of others, in submission of self to the
claims of the organic social whole. Indeed, the higher
psychical organization’s enlarged capacity for suffering is
transformed to sympathy. The increasing differentiation
within interdependent complexity in the higher psychical
organization means that it will be equipped with a higher
order of intellectual faculties— imaginative and conceptual
135
capabilities— and a more effective will power, as well as
more emotional vitality and the greater sensitivity to pain.
The intellectual faculties allow the higher organization to
learn from the past— to profit from the communal social ex
perience embodied in tradition as well as one's own mis
takes— and to anticipate consequences. And, perhaps most
importantly, they teach us that we are dependent on others—
they teach us to integrate ourselves into the immediate and
larger social organism in submitting our egoistic desires to
i
the demands of the larger whole, as the organ must adjust
itself to the interdependence of the physical organism. The
higher imagination of the altruistic individual also helps
him to learn sympathy by imaginative identification with
others and the understanding of their sorrows through the
identification of one's own pains with their suffering. And
the altruistic individual is marked by as strong a will as
the rudimentary individual is characterized by a weak will.
In the psychological lexicon of Lewes and George Eliot will
! is hardly distinguishable from well developed habits exhib-
f
ited in self-abnegating actions. Since the organism is
motivated by the emotions and not the intellect, and since
emotions like all other forms of psychical energy move to
ward specialization of function within organic interdepen
dence the more complex and differentiated the psychical or
ganization , the more harmonious will be its operations.
This means that the psychical energy will flow not by fits
136
and starts, but will be irradiated smoothly throughout the
organism in established, limited neural pathways, resulting
in equally harmonious actions (or motor discharges— the end
result of the triple process). So the higher individual's
emotional energy, by the very fact of his more harmonious
or limiting neural organization, expresses itself in more
orderly and rhythmical (and, thus, musical) emotions and
actions. The more orderly and rhythmical emotions are the
higher sentiments representative of harmony rather than dis
cord— specifically , joy, hope, love. The higher organism
will by its very nature move toward self-abnegating organic
harmony with others and with its whole environment, for its
motivating emotions are sympathetic ones (and they are
pleasurable emotions by dint of the rhythmical orderliness
of their neural oscillation). Or as Lewes puts it: "we
finally see in many highly wrought natures a complete sub
mergence ... of egoistic desire, and an habitual outrush
of the emotional force in sympathetic channels." What is
being said here is that a person of strong will is a high
er, more harmoniously organized nature, who habitually op
erates in a self-abnegating fashion because he is a higher,
more harmoniously organized nature. This obviously circu
lar reasoning is merely another way to express the determin
ism underlying both the philosophical system and the fic
tional characterizations.
There are a few other recurrent character signatures
137
in George Eliot*s fictional creations which are not logical
outgrowths of Lewes* evolutionary psychology, and probably
stem from purely personal associations. So the intellectu
ally limited but lovely young woman~a Hetty or a Tessa—
has dimples, round arms, and round blue eyes, as does Mrs.
Tulliver, a middle-aged expression of the type. An inter
esting carryover from the fiction of Lewes to that of George
Eliot and one that is not really explicable in terms of the
psychological system, is the description of the proud tena
cious, cold, sensual woman intent on mastery as blond
(George Eliot was, of course, brunette) and "sylph-like"
(so with Lewes* Mary Vynor, and Florence Wilmington and
George Eliot*s Rosamond Vincy and Bertha of "The Lifted
Veil").
Ill
Let us turn to a concrete expression in the fiction of
George Eliot of the psychological schema presented in the
preceding section— specifically, to an analysis of the con
trasting characters of Hetty Sorrel and Dinah Morris.
Hetty Sorrel, as we have seen in some detail, exempli
fies the transitional, rudimentary, egoistic, vain, proud,
sensual character type. She is described in terms of many
of the accompanying character signatures or hallmarks,
sometimes, as is characteristic of George Eliot's method,
by contrast with Dinah Morris, who is representative of the
higher altruistic organization. So, for instance, the con
trasting levels of psychical organization are described by
the music metaphor, or, more accurately put, the music
image, since in Lewes* psychology the operation of the har
monious neural system corresponds quite literally to order
ly, rhythmical musical pulsations (see p. 71 above). The
undifferentiated embryonic and thus emotionally limited
nature of Hetty's psychical organization is thus expressed
in these terms: "... some of those cunningly fashioned
i
instruments called human souls have only a very limited
range of music, and will not vibrate in the least under a
touch that fills others with tremulous rapture or quivering
agony." Dinah Morris' high level of differentiated neural
organization is expressed by her "sweet clear voice" which,
in a characteristic contrast, is juxtaposed to the neural
dissonance and disharmony of Hetty's organization in that
Dinah's tonal harmony is "irritating to Hetty, mingling with
her own peevish vexation like music with jangling chains."^
j The association of a beautiful, harmonious voice with the
passionate, emotional, loving, sympathetic, imaginative,
vital personality runs throughout the fiction of George
Eliot— indeed is seen in Lewes' early description of Isola
in Ranthorne as possessing a "magnificent voice, every in
tonation of which made the hearer vibrate beneath its
1/fAB, p. 163, bk. I , ch. XV.
139
mysterious power” (p. 313). Caterina Sarti and Mirah Lapi-
doth (like Isola, Southern types with thrilling singing
voices), the Reverend Edmund Tryan, Daniel Deronda, and
Dorothea Brooke, are characterized in this fashion. The
concordance of musical and emotional symmetry is seen in
the mere enjoyment of tonal harmony, and so it is with Mag
gie Tulliver:
The mere concord of octaves was a delight to Maggie, and
she would often take up a book of studies rather than any
melody, that might taste more keenly by abstract on the
! more primitive sensation of intervals. Not that her en
joyment of music was of the kind that indicates a great
specific talent; it was rather that here sensibility to
the supreme excitement of music was only one form of that
passionate sensibility which belonged to her whole nature,
and made her faults and virtues all merge in each other;
made her affections sometimes an impatient demand, but
also prevented her vanity from taking the form of mere
feminine coquetry and device, and gave it the poetry of
ambition.15
We find here, as always in Lewes and George Eliot, the as
sumption that emotional vigor resulting from a higher or
ganization expresses itself most naturally in altruism rath
er than "coquetry,” which is, in their writings, a code name
| for a cold-hearted mastery of man through feminine wiles.
Hetty's hair, which is described as falling in "dark
hyacinthe curves ... on her neck” is explicitly classified
as "not heavy, massive, merely rippling hair, but soft and
silken, running at every opportunity into delicate rings.”1^
15M£, p. 419, bk. V I , ch. V I.
16AB, p. 153, bk. I , ch. XV.
140
In George Eliot*s character code thick, coarse hair is asso
ciated with the emotional, vital, and sympathetic personal
ity. So Savronarola is limned with "thick dark hair . . .
17
seeming to tell of energy and passion." ' And a vigorous
Adam Bede frequently characterized by his thick shaggy hair
is set off against his good, but rather pallid and thin
haired brother Seth, as a more fitting husband for the pas-
18
sionate, sympathetic Dinah Morris. The massy, thick, or
coarse hair of Janet Dempster, Maggie Tulliver, Dorothea
|
Brooke, and Daniel Deronda is a signature of their superior
more harmoniously organized systems, resulting in greater
psychical energy. Since the evolutionary direction of the
neural life force is always toward greater differentiation
and increasing organic integration, their greater share of
the higher directing sentiments (and thus of a greater con
current vitality) makes them at least potentially altruis
tic personalities.
Also, the highly organized psychical system with its
| specialized, positively directed neural pathways will be
serene and calm-eyed. The neural energy flows smoothly
and purposively in their systems, not by fits and starts as
with the disorganized generalized organism. The inferior,
egoistic organization operates spasmodically. So such an
17Rm., p. 167, bk. I, ch. XV.
18AB, p. 492, bk. V I , ch. L.
1 * t1
individual, Lewes argues, "in living for self alone is con
demned to the miserable alternation of either ignoble torpor
or feverish activity" (CP, p. 221). Thus the trivial, but
terfly soul of little Hetty without the strong sympathies
indigenous to the highly organized neural system and with
out the conceptual power to calculate consequences accurate
ly or realize its organic interdependence is moved by "reck
less irritation under present suffering" into "convulsive,
motiveless actions." That modicum of conceptual ability
which she possesses is only a limited "vision of conse
quences, at no time more than a narrow fantastic calculation
of her own probable pleasures and pains." Since she lacks
the directing sentiments of the passionate, warm emotional
nature, it is to be expected that she will be swept away by
the "rush of impulse toward a course that might have seemed
1Q
the most repugnant to her present state of mind." 7 Such
fitful bursts of impulse may give the false appearance of
psychical vitality, for in Lewes' psychology the greater
differentiation and complexity of the neural organization of
the higher human organism means that there is a greater, if
smoother, irradiation of psychical energy throughout the
higher specimen's system, with a consequent decrease of the
momentary application of energy. The greater psychical
force of the altruistic personality results from the more
19P. 3k5t *>k. IV , ch. XXXI.
142
integrated, smoother less wasteful operation of his neuro
muscular system. So the egoistic individual may seem quite
vital and forceful in his spasmodic grasping or repulsing
actions, but the altruistic individual will in fact have a
greater sum of energy and facility of action since there is
less internal interference within the higher, more complex
system (CP, p. 221). The adventitious, momentary bursts of
neural energy characteristic of an emotionally rudimentary
nature will sometimes have the deceptive appearance of a
i
deep sympathetic response, when it is in reality only ex
hibiting surface excitability. So Lewes remarks of the
notorious Messalina:
One phrase in Tacitus lets me into the secret of her
nature. When Suilius was accused, at her instigation, he
defended himself with so much eloquence that he brought
tears into the eyes of Messaline herself, "who, quitting
the room to wine them away admonished Vitellus not to let
the accused escape." These tears were not tears of hy
pocrisy, 1 think; but tears of sensibility. She could
weep, "and murder while she wept." The nervous excitable
organisation which made her so insatiable in her lust for
excitement, made her also easily moved to tears by the
tones of eloquence.20
| Similarly we find such an undifferentiated organism as
Hetty moved to tears with an almost mechanical stimulus-
response neural irritability by Dinah's hovering solicitude
and pleading that she rely on her and her Heavenly Father
in case of trouble:
20
Dramatic Essays. John Forster, George Henry Lewes,
eds. William Archer and Robert W. Lowe (London, 1896),
p. 159. (Hereinafter referred to as DE.)
143
Hetty sat quite still; she felt no response within herself
to Dinah*s anxious affection; but Dinah*s words, uttered
with solemn pathetic distinctness, affected her with a
chill fear. Her flush had died away almost to paleness.
. . . Dinah saw the effect, and her tender anxious plead
ing became the more earnest, till Hetty, full of a vague
fear that something evil was sometime to befall her, began
to cry.
Dinah misinterprets Hetty's response, giving George Eliot an
opportunity to interject a disquisition on the difficulties
of the higher nature in correctly understanding the lower
(a difficulty similar to Lydgate's in understanding a rudi-
!mentary Rosamond or Lush's in correctly interpreting the
insect-like Grandcourt's responses).
Dinah had never seen Hetty affected in this way before,
and, with her usual benign hopefulness, she trusted it
was the stirring of a divine impulse. She kissed the
sobbing thing, and began to cry with her for grateful joy.
But Hetty was simply in that excitable state of mind in
which there is no calculating what turn the feelings may
take from one moment to another, my italics and for tne
first time she became irritated under Dinah's caress. She
pushed her away impatiently . . . with a childish sobbing
voice . . . .21
So the lower, psychically disorganized specimen responds
only with a spasmodic, incalculable, surface irritibility,
merely with a defensive discharge of tension, which must not
be mistaken for the harmonious emotional response of the
whole psychical mechanism, characteristic of the highly or
ganized individual with settled pathways of response.
Further, the altruistic individual integrates itself
more harmoniously within the larger organic whole of socie-
21AB, p. 164, bk. I, ch. XV.
144
ty, submitting his own desires to the claims of others in
stead of lashing out convulsively like the unintegrated in
fant in pursuit of pleasure or in repulsion of the painful.
This submission of individuality to the needs of the larger
whole means that the altruistic person renounces all secre
cy; so far is George Eliot willing to carry her organic
monism. All this is implicit in the "strange contrast" be
tween Hetty*s "sparkling, self-engrossed loveliness" and
"Dinah’s calm pitying face, with its open glance which told
that her heart lived in no cherished secrets of its own, but
22
in feelings which it longed to share with all the world."
Another personality characteristic invariably associa
ted in the fiction of George Eliot with the juxtaposition
of the egoistic individual and the altruistic specimen is
the contrasting lack or presence of a higher imaginative
faculty. Imagination, or the power of evoking physical
images and making new mental combinations of reality, is
for Lewes together with the logic of signs a part of the
conceptual faculty which separates man from brute. Further,
to the degree that a man has imagination he will be able to
extend his sympathies, for imagination allows him to put
himself in his suffering fellow creature's place as well as
extending his mental horizon into the future and past so
that he becomes aware of the organic interdependence of
22P. 1/fZf, bk. I , ch. XIV.
145
life. So the coldly egoistic Tito Melema has an animal-like
fear of pain but lacks the higher imaginative faculty: "He
was not apprehensive or timid through his imagination, but
through his sensations and perceptions he could easily be
23
made to shrink and turn pale like a maiden." He, like
Hetty, is a sensual personality, luxurious and vain, opera
ting by perceptions more than conceptions, and is contrasted
with the emotional, passionate, sympathetic, imaginative
Romola. Hetty, lacking imagination as well as vital, har-
i
monious emotional guidance, is "unsympathetic as a butter
fly." Her "little silly imagination" directed only toward
direct and impossible self-gratification cannot even conjure
up fellow-feeling for animals or children.^ She cannot
enter sympathetically into Dinah*s life because of her imag
inative limitations, even though Dinah "had never said any
thing disapproving or reproachful to Hetty":
Dinah was a riddle to her; Hetty looked at her much in the
same way as one might imagine a little perching bird that
could only flutter from bough to bough to look at the
swoop of the swallow or the mounting of the lark; but she
| did not care to solve such riddles, any more than she
cared to know what was meant by the pictures in the "Pil
grim's Progress," or in the old folio Bible, that Marty
and Tommy always plagued her about on a Sunday.25
Dinah Morris* passionate, sympathetic imaginative powers
2^Rm., p. 120, bk. I, ch. X.
2lfAB, pp. 102, 103, bk. I, ch. IX; p. 377, bk. V,
ch. XXXTT.
25P. 1/fZf, bk. I , ch. XIV.
146
stand in explicit contrast to Hetty's cold, unloving egois
tic isolation ordained by her paucity of imagination. Di
nah, realizing this blankness in Hetty's character, is
touched only with prescient pity:
. . . this feeling about Hetty had gathered a painful in
tensity; her imagination had created a thorny thicket of
sin and sorrow, in which she saw the poor thing struggling
torn and bleeding, looking with tears for rescue and find
ing none. It was in this way that Dinah's imagination and
sympathy acted and reacted habitually, each heightening
the other. She felt a deep longing to go now and pour in
to Hetty's ear all the words of tender warning and appeal
that rushed to her m in d .26
i
Dinah thus is juxtaposed to limited little Hetty "with her
poor narrow thoughts . . . repeating again and again the
same small round of memories— shaping again and again the
same childish, doubtful images of what was to come— seeing
nothing in this wide world but the little history of her own
27
pleasures and pains." ' And a Hetty with a childish imagi
nation unable to reach into the future to perceive the con
sequences of her selfish, pleasure-seeking actions is in
implicit contrast with an Adam Bede who learns sympathy
through pain in ceasing "to imagine a condition of perfect
ease as possible for us," so that "desire is chastened into
submission" and the acknowledgement of organic dependence:
into the realization that our lives have "visible and in
visible relations beyond any of which either our present or
26P. 161, bk. I, ch. XV.
27P. 3 7 3 , bk. V, ch. XXXVI.
w
p o
prospective self is the centre." Adam is an ideal, al
truistic character from the first with his imperative sense
of duty and "a large fund of reverence in his nature, which
inclined him to admit all established claims."29 It is only
through suffering, however, that he is able to move up the
evolutionary scale from Reverence to the highest level of
Universal Benevolence through an even richer sense of organ
ic dependence. This progression parallels the concomitant
movement of Hetty on a much lower level from Vanity to At-
i
tachment.
28P. 463, bk. V I , ch. L.
29P. 167, bk. I , ch. X V I.
CHAPTER VI
GRANDCOURT--THE EXEMPLAR
OF THE RUDIMENTARY ORGANISM
I
In this chapter we will analyze in some detail the
character who is portrayed most persistently, consistently,
iand explicitly in terms of Lewes' mature evolutionary psy
chology— Grandcourt. We will first note the parallels
Grandcourt bears to a possible fictional precursor in Lewes'
Lord Hawbucke; make a close theoretical examination of his
psychical makeup in terms of Lewes' evolutionary doctrines;
and, finally, discuss him in terms of the contrasting char
acter—-of the contrasting psychological traits and character
codes— of George Eliot's highest evolutionary specimen,
Daniel Deronda.
Not only does the evolutionary psychology of Lewes
serve as a commentary on Grandcourt's characterization,
but Lord Hawbucke in Lewes' 18^8 novel Ranthorne. though
an often melodramatic and inconsistent creation, is in many
significant ways a fictional precursor of Grandcourt. There
are indeed more differences than similarities in the two
characterizations, and, furthermore, Lewes' presentation
lacks the clarity and psychological consistency of
1Zf8
1J*9
Grandcourt. Still, they are similar in essential character
typology. Both epitomize the handsome, reticent Saxon gen
tleman. Both are motivated by pride, exhibited in a satur
nine desire for mastery of their wives, who, for their part,
have entered into marriage with a cold, coquettish calcula
tion that they will be able to do as they please with their
taciturn mates. This delusion is shattered, and Florence
and Gwendolyn are soon oppressed by their impotence and an
almost irrational fear of their coldly overbearing, impla
cable, silently watchful husbands, who are now primarily
moved by what Lewes characterizes as an objective form of
jealousy, the surface concern for their honor, for the ap
pearances only, rather than by love. Ironically, much of
the consistency of characterization which Hawbucke lacks
and Grandcourt exhibits is due to a rigorous and detailed
incorporation of Lewes' evolutionary psychology into George
Eliot's formulation of the character. But the full schema
had not been available to the earlier Lewes since the inter-
j vening twenty-five years between Ranthorne and Daniel Der-
onda were largely spent in its development.
Both Hawbucke and Grandcourt may be characterized in
terms of the positivist evolutionary scale as representa
tives of Pride, the love of power. There are, however, in
congruities and hesitancies in Lewes' character portrait
which may be traced to other early emphases of Lewes, which
in the perspective of his later work, proved to be
150
intellectual dead ends. Hawbucke is not so much the repre
sentative of an intermediate evolutionary stage as a nation
al type, whereas Grandcourt is primarily a representative of
a psychological type and only secondarily of a national
type. Lewes' first book, The Spanish Drama (18^-6), had
turned upon an analysis of national character in terms of
the objective (Southern) versus subjective (Northern) moral
attitudes. Lewes still believed in a rather crude Tainian
doctrine of the creation of racial types by "climate, soil,
j
and temperature," whereas later he came to believe that
these make up only a few of the complex conditions which
modify races.^ The notion of the General Mind eventually
evolves from this racial concern, though modified by put
ting racial characteristics in the context of the organic
evolutionary psychology— in terms of psychological types
who gain certain racial interests through tradition and the
generalized inheritance of an acquired if semi-mystical
sense of racial solidarity--, but this later racial doc
trine is only peripherally involved in Grandcourt's char
acterization.
Lewes' starting point in the characterization of Sir
Frederick Hawbucke is the stereotype of the taciturn but
brave aristocratic Englishman, but he gives it a paradoxical
twist by the addition of the Southern, objective, Spanish
1DE, p. 100; "Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses," IV, n.s., 63.
151
ty p e o f je a lo u s y based on a p a s s io n a te concern f o r honor and
a p p e a ra n c e s. T h is em phasis on fo rm al o b je c tiv e honor r a t h e r
th an a s u b je c tiv e concern f o r th e a c t u a l s o le p o sse ssio n o f
th e b elo v ed was a c e n tr a l d i s t i n c t i o n in h is d is c u s s io n in
The S p an ish Drama o f th e p la y s o f C alderdn and Lope De Vega
in th e l i g h t o f n a tio n a l c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s su g g e ste d by A. W .
S c h le g e l's d is c rim in a tio n o f o b je c tiv e and s u b je c tiv e na
t i o n a l ty p e s . Hawbucke i s i n i t i a l l y p ic tu r e d a s th e s te r e o
ty p ed Englishm an w ith
t h a t want o f im p u lsiv e n e ss which d is tin g u is h e s th e Saxon—
t h a t h e a v y , p h leg m atic o r g a n iz a tio n , which g iv e s i t s pe
c u l i a r i t y to th e E n g lish s ta n d a rd o f good b re e d in g , and
which re g a rd s th e d em o n stratio n o f any f e e lin g w hatever as
b o rd e rin g on v u lg a r ity — th a t v e ry E n g lish v i r t u e , " r e
s e rv e 1 1 —make S i r F re d e ric k alw ays a p p ear to h i s d isa d v a n
ta g e . (R a n ., p . 221j.)
T here i s from th e f i r s t th e su g g e stio n t h a t he i s " t e r r i b l e
in p a ssio n " w ith a " tim id , p a s s io n a te h e a r t" (p p . 224, 2 2 7 ),
and th e em phasis on th e S o u th e rn -ty p e je a lo u s y and revenge
o f in ju r e d honor s e rv e s to r e in f o r c e th e im p re ssio n th a t
v o lc a n ic p a s s io n s simmer b en eath th e d e c e p tiv e ly a lo o f ,
2
snow -capped N o rth ern e x te r io r .
2
In d e e d , t h i s theme of S o u th ern je a lo u s y and revenge
i s one t h a t c o n tin u e s to f a s c in a te Lewes in h i s second no
v e l , R ose. B lan c h e, and V i o l e t , where th e t r o p i c a l , S outh
ern h e ro , Marmaduke (a name C a rly le found r i d i c u l o u s ) , i s
f i n a l l y p ersu ad ed by tr u e lo v e to renounce je a lo u s y and r e
venge. W e can o n ly s p e c u la te w hether Lewes' em phasis on th e
r e l a t i v e in s ig n if ic a n c e of e x te r n a l honor had a n y th in g to do
w ith h i s lo n g - s u f f e r in g acc ep tan c e o f h i s w i f e 's i n f i d e l i
t i e s , a t o l e r a t i o n which u ltim a te ly made d iv o rc e from h e r
and re m a rria g e to Mary Anne Evans im p o ssib le u n der V ic to ria n
law .
152
However, h is w ife soon d is c o v e rs th a t he i s n o t " s tr u g
g lin g w ith u n speakable em o tio n s"; he i s in r e a l i t y in s e n s i
t i v e and c o ld (p p . 231, 2 3 9 ). From t h i s p o in t on th e r e i s
a le s s e n in g o f Lewes* i n t e r e s t in th e m elodram atic paradox
o f S outhern p assio n and N o rth ern phlegm , b u t in th e r e s id u a l
c ro s sb re e d in g o f S outhern o b je c tiv e p rid e w ith Saxon c o ld
n e ss we have a g erm in al G ran d co u rt.
T here i s in th e l i z a r d - l i k e , p h leg m atic G randcourt some
o f th e Saxon blood o f a Hawbucke whose " p u ls e s s c a rc e ly
I
b e a t ," b u t G ra n d co u rt, w h ile r e p r e s e n tin g a n a tio n a l ty p e ,
i s o n ly s e c o n d a rily t h a t (and t h i s may r e a l l y be s a id to a
l e s s e r degree of th e l a t e r Hawbucke). I t i s tr u e G rand-
c o u rt* s m anners in t h e i r c o ld r e s e rv e and in d if f e r e n c e
"m ight be ex p ected to p re s e n t th e extrem e ty p e o f th e na
t i o n a l t a s t e . A n d th e p ic tu r e o f G randcourt and Gwendolyn
em barking f o r a f a t a l s a i l a ro u s e s s im ila r r e f l e c t i o n s in
George E li o t on th e n a tu re o f th e E n g lish ra c e to th o se ex
p re s se d e a r l i e r by Lewes in S ea-S id e S tu d ie s . Lewes had ob-
| se rv e d t h a t th e E n g lish a re se a-d o g s l i k e G reeks and ducks.
Even when s e a s ic k a B rito n "goes th ro u g h i t w ith a c e r ta in
c a r e le s s g ra c e , a manly h a u g h tin e s s , o r a t th e lo w est a
c e r ta in o f f i c i a l re s e rv e n o t o b se rv a b le in a fo re ig n e r." * 1 -
5DD, p. Zf15, bk. V, ch. XXXV.
**£SS, p . 199. Again we can o n ly v a in ly s p e c u la te whe
t h e r a m u tu a lly observed e p ito m iz a tio n o f E n g lish c h a ra c te r
d u rin g th e s e c a re fre e S c i l l y I s l e days m ight n o t have been
th e b a s is f o r th e d ockside scene some tw enty y e a rs l a t e r .
153
When G ran d co u rt and Gwendolyn embark from th e Genoan dock in
th e f u l l g lo ry o f E n g lish s u p e r c ilio u s n e s s " i t was a th in g
to go o u t and s e e , a th in g to p a in t" : "T h is handsom e, f a i r
sk in n ed E n g lish couple m a n ife s tin g th e u s u a l e c c e n t r ic i ty - o f
t h e i r n a tio n , b o th o f them proud, p a le , and calm , w ith o u t a
sm ile on t h e i r f a c e s , moving l ik e c re a tu r e s who were f u l
f i l l i n g a s u p e r n a tu r a l d e s tin y . . . The I t a l i a n dock-
s id e o b s e rv e rs a re cowed: "Some s u g g e s tio n s were p r o ff e re d
co n cern in g a p o s s ib le change in th e b re e z e and th e n e c e ssa ry
c a re in p u ttin g a b o u t, b u t G ra n d co u rt1s manner made th e
sp e a k e rs u n d e rsta n d t h a t th e y were too o f f i c i o u s , and th a t
he knew b e t t e r th an th ey ."'* S t i l l , th e c h a r a c te r iz a tio n of
G randcourt a s th e q u in te s s e n tia l Englishm an rem ain s a sub
s i d i a r y elem ent in h i s p o r t r a i t u r e .
Both Hawbucke and G randcourt a re d e s c rib e d a s hand
some, E n g lish a r i s t o c r a t s . Where Hawbucke i s H e rc u le a n ,
G randcourt h a s a fa d e d , f la c c id a i r ( th e m ature psychology
o f Lewes r e q u i r e s , a s we have se e n , t h a t th e t r a n s i t i o n a l
r
p e r s o n a lity have a low er le v e l o f v i t a l e n e rg y ). Both ex
h i b i t u n u su a l p h y s ic a l co u rag e. Hawbucke*s courage i s p a r t
l y in th e n a tu re o f th e s p e c ie s : "B rave a s a l i o n , and as
f e r o c io u s , h i s n a tu re was e x c e s s iv e ly E n g lis h ." And i t i s
a ls o m o tiv a te d by v a n ity in th a t he i s "m o rb id ly a li v e to
5DD, PP. 68 5 -6 8 6 , bk. V II, ch. LV.
6R a n ., pp. 223-224; DD, p. 108, bk. I I , ch . X I.
154
th e o p in io n of th e w orld upon th e s l i g h t e s t m a tte r connected
w ith h im se lf" though "w h o lly i n d i f f e r e n t to e v ery th in g con
c e rn in g o th e r s ; b u t he co n cealed th e form er under th e same
mask o f in d if f e r e n c e a s th e l a t t e r " (R an. . p . 2 2 4 ). H is
c o u ra g e, lik e h is je a lo u s y i s based upon concern fo r o p in
io n . G ra n d c o u rt's "rem ark ab le p h y s ic a l courage" comes p r i
m a rily from p rid e : f o r h i s " s o u l was g a rris o n e d a g a in s t
p re s e n tim e n ts and f e a r s : he had th e courage and co n fid e n ce
7
th a t belong to dom ination . . . H is courage i s b e s t
i
i
u n d ersto o d in term s o f Lewes' m ature e v o lu tio n a ry p sy c h o l
ogy a s p ro ceed in g from th e i n s e n s i t i v i t y o f th e ru d im e n ta ry
human o rganism , which em braces i t s p rey w ith i n s e c t - l i k e
(th e predom inate m etaphor f o r G ran d co u rt) t e n a c ity . Both
la c k p a s s io n , b u t , a g a in , w hereas t h i s c h a r a c t e r i s t i c i s a
p a r t o f th e s te re o ty p e o f th e Saxon a r i s t o c r a t in Hawbucke,
G ra n d c o u rt's la c k o f p a ssio n m ust be u n d ersto o d to in d ic a te
Q
h is em bryonic p h y c h ic a l developm ent.
The predom inate theme o f b o th c h a r a c te r iz a tio n s i s d e -
|s i r e f o r m astery over th e o n c e -friv o lo u s c o q u e ttis h w ife ,
!
and t h i s d e s ir e fo r m astery i s , fo r b o th , based on a co ld
p rid e which cannot p e rm it i t s e x te r n a l honor to be s tr a in e d .
In both c a se s th e m orbid je a lo u s y o f th e a r i s t o c r a t i c h u s
band i s u n j u s t if i e d . The d e s ir e fo r d o m in atio n , f o r c o n tro l
7DD, pp. 6 85-686, bk. V I I , ch. L IV .
8P. 404, bk. V , ch. XXXV.
155
o f th e w ife i s e x p l i c i t l y s t a te d in b o th books. Lewes w ith
c h a r a c t e r i s t i c undram atic s c r u t a b i l i t y s t a t e s : " I t was n o t
sim ply a d isag reem en t betw een man and w ife ; i t was a s tr u g
g le fo r m astery" ( Ran. . p . 2 3 8 ). The o b je c tiv e n a tu re of
th e je a lo u s y , stemming from p rid e and based on a d e s ir e f o r
th e good o p in io n of s o c ie ty r a th e r than lo v e , i s a ls o
s p e lle d o u t:
I t i s m o stly p rid e t h a t f e e l s je a lo u s y , seldom lo v e .
A lo v e r may be j e a lo u s , b u t i t i s alm o st alw ays h is p rid e
t h a t s u f f e r s . When a husband c e a se s to lo v e h is w ife , he
does n o t cease to f e e l th e pangs o ccasio n ed by th e s u s
p ic io n o f h e r p re fe re n c e fo r a n o th e r; which i s enough to
prove my p o s itio n , (p . 240)
As w ith G randcourt H aw bucke's " s e n s i t iv e p rid e s u f fe r e d from
a p ro s p e c tiv e je a lo u s y ," and i t becomes " th e o ccu p atio n of
h is l i f e " to p re v e n t h i s honor b ein g s ta in e d . He i s i n t e r
e s te d p rim a rily in th e a p p e a ra n c e , r a t h e r than th e su b sta n c e
o f i n f i d e l i t y : "Y es, th e r e was th e pang—t h a t a n o th e r
should know h i s w ife lo v ed him n o t" (p p . 240, 245, 241) .
Hawbucke, l ik e G ra n d c o u rt, sp u rre d on by je a lo u s y ta k e s to a
s i l e n t , c o n s ta n t u n b lin k in g s c r u tin iz in g of h is w ife in th e
| e f f o r t to d e te c t any i n f i d e l i t y . He in d eed n o tic e s th a t
when h is w ife i s dancing she g iv e s "a s l i g h t s t a r t , im per
c e p tib le to any b u t a je a lo u s e y e , and saw th e c o lo r mount
to h e r cheek . . . , b u t he p re se rv e d th e calm nonchalance
o f h is p o s itio n . . . " ( p . 2 4 5 ). T here i s in r e a l i t y no
i n f i d e l i t y by h i s w ife , b u t Hawbucke, tr u e to h is S panish
p ro to ty p e , ta k e s a t e r r i b l e re v e n g e , k i l l i n g h is p ro s p e c tiv e
r i v a l w ith c o ld , grim im p la c a b ility . However, he manages
156
to g iv e i t th e appearan ce o f a d u e l o v er a n o th e r woman, so
th e r e w i l l be no in d ic a tio n t h a t h i s w ife p r e f e r s a n o th e r
man.
T his m elodram atic clim ax i s q u i n te s s e n t i a l Lewes and
c o n tr a s ts s h a rp ly w ith George E l i o t 's p r a c tic e . G randcourt
drowns in a s a i li n g a c c id e n t, b u t h is d e ath only h e ig h te n s
G w endolyn's m oral dilem m a. I t m ust be acknowledged a ls o
t h a t Lewes' je a lo u s husband i s so i n f e r i o r a c re a tio n to
George E l i o t 's je a lo u s husband t h a t a s u rfa c e survey w i l l
!
make them ap p ear d i f f e r e n t in k in d . I t i s tr u e th a t one of
Lewes' m ost p e r s i s t e n t c r i t i c a l b e l i e f s i s th a t i t i s th e
d i s t i n c t i v e m e rit o f th e g r e a t c r e a tiv e a r t i s t to be a b le
to work o u t v a r ia tio n s on b a s ic c h a r a c te r ty p e s , and d i s
c rim in a te them "so d e l i c a t e l y and firm ly " w ith such "m ani
f e s t l y d i f f e r e n t . . . i n d i v i d u a l i t i e s " th a t no one w ill
e v e r th in k of confounding them (DE, p. 9 5 ). He i l l u s t r a t e s
t h i s concept w ith exam ples o f th e je a lo u s man taken from
d ram atic l i t e r a t u r e . But Lewes' f a i l u r e w ith Hawbucke a s
j a l i t e r a r y c re a tio n i s in n o t b e in g a b le to do th a t fo r
which he commends S h ak esp eare: S h a k e s p e a re 's "m astery l i e s
in d e p ic tin g je a lo u s men. n o t a b s t r a c t je a lo u sy " (p . 168).
Despite the great surface differences in the character
ization of the two jealous husbands, explainable in part by
the lack of artistic viability of Lewes' character, Hawbucke
is in the essentials noted above something of a paradigm for
Grandcourt. Grandcourt's predominate characteristic, like
157
Hawbucke*s, is pride and its concomitant desire of domina
tion. This is, of course, the schematic terminology of
Gall, and George Eliot puts it precisely in these terms,
though Grandcourt*s character has much more complexity than
such surface categorization would suggest (and that is ex
actly the greatest failure of Hawbucke— he is primarily an
abstract schematization). The greater complexity of Grand
court comes in good measure from probably the most sustained
analysis in terms of Lewes' mature evolutionary psychology
!
of any of George Eliot's characters. But still Grandcourt
is relentlessly and most explicitly identified in terms of
his dominant trait, or we almost might say, humor: "...
while there was breath in this man he would have the mastery
over her. His words had the power of thumb-screws and the
cold touch of the rack."9 The monomaniac desire for domi
nation stemming from pride expresses itself in "the disposi
tion to exercise power either by cowing or disappointing
others, or exciting in them the rage which they dared not
express . . . His jealousy, like Hawbucke's, stems
from this pride: he is among "those who prefer command to
love"; Gwendolyn is an object "to exert hie will upon; and
he had n o t re p e n te d of his choice" even when engulfed by
cold jealousy. But,
9DD, p. 685, bk. V I I , ch. L IV .
10P. 342, bk. IV , ch. XXX.
158
he would have denied that he was jealous; because jealousy
would have implied some doubt of his own power to hinder
what he had determined against. That his wife should have
more inclination to another man's society than to his own
would not pain him: what he required was that she would
be as fully aware as she would have been of a locked hand
cuff, that her inclination was helpless to decide anything
in contradiction with his resolve.!1
Further, Grandcourt's jealousy is of, what Lewes has termed,
the objective kind; his pride, like that of Lope de Vega's
Spanish cavaliers and Hawbucke's, is concerned with appear
ances only; as Lewes had said of Hawbucke, it is unthinkable
"that another should know his wife loved him not":
. . . having taken on himself the part of husband, he was
not going in any way to be fooled, or allow himself to be
seen in a light that could be regarded as pitiable. This
was his state of mind~not jealousy; still, his behavior
in some respects was as like jealousy as yellow is to yel
low, which color we know may be the effect of very differ
ent causes.!2
And, as with Hawbucke, this "prospective jealousy" expresses
itself in a relentless, immobile silent observation of his
wife when she is with other men for detection of any devel
oping relationship which might stain his honor:
Grandcourt has a delusive mood of observing whatever had
an interest for him, which could be surpassed by no sleep-
y-eyed animal on the watch for prey . . . and an incau
tious person might have supposed it safe to telegraph se
crets in front of him, the common prejudice being that
your quick observer is one whose eyes have quick move
ments. Not at all .... If Grandcourt cared to keep
any one under his power, he saw them out of the corners of
his long narrow eyes; and if they went behind him, he had
n P. 589, bk. V I , ch. X L V III.
12P. 590, bk. V I , ch. X L V III.
159
a c o n s tru c tiv e p ro c e ss by which he knew what th e y were
doing th e r e . He knew p e r f e c tly w e ll where h is w ife w as,
and how she was b e h a v in g .13
H ere, and th ro u g h o u t we have a f le s h in g o u t, a d e ta ile d and
c o n s is te n t a n a ly s is o f c h a ra c te r and p ro c e s s e s r a t h e r than
th e sch em atic and frag m en tary s ta te m e n t o f f a c t o f Lewes'
f i c t i o n .
F in a lly G ra n d c o u rt's s e c r e t iv e , t a c it u r n o b se rv a tio n
y ie ld s r e s u l t s ; he (a s Hawbucke had done) o b se rv e s h is w ife
b lu s h in g .
j
I f any had n o tic e d h e r b lu sh a s s i g n i f i c a n t , th e y had
c e r t a i n l y n o t i n te r p r e t e d i t by th e s e c r e t w indings and
r e c e s s e s o f h e r f e e l in g . A b lu sh i s no la n g u a g e : only
a dubious f l a g - s i g n a l which may mean e i t h e r of two con
t r a d i c t i o n s . D eronda a lo n e had a f a i n t g u ess a t some p a rt
o f h e r f e e lin g ; b u t w h ile he was o b se rv in g h e r he was him
s e l f under o b s e rv a tio n . 4
T h is b lu sh in g i s th e r e s u l t o f complex em otions stemming
from G w endolyn's grow ing r e a l i z a t i o n o f th e dilemma she has
put h e r s e l f i n to by m arrying G randcourt f o r s e lf - a g g r a n d iz e
ment a t th e expense o f o th e r s . She l i k e F lo re n c e Hawbucke
had been convinced t h a t she could have c o q u e ttis h m astery
over h e r husband, b u t in G w endolyn's case th e r e a l i z a t i o n
of im potence g iv e s an o p p o rtu n ity f o r a grow th i n t o a h ig h e r
m oral c o n sc io u s n e ss , f o r a movement up th e e v o lu tio n a ry
s c a le from P rid e and V an ity to sym pathy th ro u g h s p i r i t u a l
s u f f e r in g . T here i s no s im ila r theme in t h i s e a r ly work of
13P. Zf13, bk. V , ch. XXXV.
1ZfPp. 4 21-422, bk. V , ch. XXXV.
Lewes—F lo re n c e i s m erely w eighed down by th e r e a l i z a t i o n o f
h e r m ista k e and by h o rro r when she le a r n s o f h e r demonic
h u sb a n d 's revenge on a p ro s p e c tiv e s u i t o r . Lewes h as a s
su red u s t h a t n o th in g would come o f t h i s f l i r t a t i o n , becau se
F lo re n c e and h e r s u i t o r a re to o s im ila r p e r s o n a lity ty p e s ,
b u t a " b i l l e t doux" does p reced e h e r b lu s h , w hereas Gwendo
l y n 's b lu sh i s th e e x p re ssio n o f a s u b tle m oral dilem m a.
The consequences a re c o rre sp o n d in g ly more m elodram atic in
Lewes' n o v e l. ^ A fte r a n o th e r f a r c i c a l f l i r t a t i o n i s d i s -
[
covered by Hawfucke fo llo w ed by th e h a s ty f l i g h t o f th e
frig h te n e d p ro s p e c tiv e lo v e r , Hawbucke c o n s p ire s to make
h im s e lf a p p ea r in v o lv e d in a lo v e a f f a i r and th en p e rm its
h im s e lf to be d iv o rc e d by F lo r e n c e , who tu rn s C a th o lic .
G ra n d co u rt, how ever, ru s h e s Gwendolyn away on an i s o l a t e d
M ed iterran ean c r u is e to escap e D eronda, having m is in te r p r e
te d what i s e s s e n t i a l l y a t u t o r i a l sympathy f o r a lo v e a f
f a i r . G randcourt then drow ns, le a v in g h e r w ith th e con
s c io u sn e ss o f h e r d e s ir e f o r h i s d eath and th e a tte n d a n t
j u n re so lv e d q u e s tio n w hether she m ight have been a b le to
save him.
1 5
^Lewes was aware of t h i s l i t e r a r y flam boyancy. When
he f i r s t met C h a rlo tte B ro n te s h o r tly a f t e r Jan e E yre ap
p eared he le a n e d a c ro s s George S m ith 's d in n e r ta b le w ith
th e comment: "T here ought to be a bond of sym pathy betw een
u s , M iss B ro n te , f o r we have b o th w r itte n nau g h ty b o o k s."
(W inifred G d rin , C h a rlo tte B ro n te [O xford, 19o9] , p . 4 3 0 .)
In G randcourt we have th e d e f i n i t i v e tre a tm e n t o f th e
ru d im e n ta ry , t r a n s i t i o n a l o rg a n iz a tio n in term s o f Lewes*
and George E lio t* s e v o lu tio n a ry psychology. G ran d co u rt i s
th e fundam ental e g o is t, m o tiv a te d o n ly by th e e le m e n tary
s y s te m a tic em o tio n s. In d e e d , Lewes e x p la in s t h a t " a l l emo
t io n s in th e b eg in n in g a re e g o is tic " in th a t th e em bryonic
n e u ra l o rg a n iz a tio n i s m o tiv a te d by sim ple a t t r a c t i o n - r e p u l -
sio n in se a rc h f o r r e l i e f from th r e a te n in g o r p a in f u l stim
u l i o r by th e n u t r i t i o n a l and re p ro d u c tiv e im p u lse s. From
th e prim ary a p p e t i t e s , w hich a r i s e in th e sy stem ic i n t e r n a l
s e n s a tio n s , and which a lo n e se rv e th e ru d im e n ta ry c re a tu re
a s i t s m o tiv a tin g em otions " a r i s e th e a g g re s s iv e and de
fe n s iv e im p u lse s, which would rem ain f i e r c e l y and s o le ly
e g o is ti c b u t f o r t h a t se n se o f dependence" i m p l i c i t l y in th e
se x u a l and p a r e n ta l r e l a t i o n s . " In th e h ig h e r e v o lu tio n a ry
specim ens th e r e i s a f u r t h e r grow th tow ard a ltr u is m w ith th e
developm ent o f th e c o n c e p tu a l f a c u lty and o f th e more h ig h ly
d i f f e r e n t i a t e d and in te g r a te d o rg a n ic s o c ie ty o f human be
in g s which form s a " s o c i a l medium which r a i s e s em otions
i n to s e n tim e n ts , so t h a t th e re i s a c o n scio u sn ess o f depen
dence" a s a " c o n tin u a l check on th e e g o is tic d e s i r e s ."
G randcourt i s a s exem plary a specim en o f th e em bryonic human
b e in g m o tiv a te d by th e e g o is tic lo v e o f dom ination a s D an iel
Deronda i s of th e h ig h e s t p ro d u ct o f e v o lu tio n , one o f th o se
" h ig h ly w rought n a tu re s " in whom "we f i n a l l y see . . . a
162
complete submergence (or, if you will, a transference) of
egoistic desire, and an habitual outrush of the emotional
force in sympathetic channels” (PIM. V, 386-387).
G randcourt p a ra d o x ic a lly e x e m p lifie s e i t h e r th e in c o
h e re n t d if f u s iv e n e s s o r th e m ech an ical in v a ria n c y c h a r a c te r
i s t i c o f th e ru d im en tary p s y c h ic a l o rg a n iz a tio n . He e i t h e r
a c t s w ith im p u lsiv e u n p r e d i c ta b i li t y o r w ith m echanical i n
v a ria n c y . H is re sp o n se s a t one tim e may approxim ate th o se
I o f th e in f a n t seek in g r e l i e f by d i f f u s i v e , u n d ire c te d move
m ents o r th e u n d if f e r e n tia te d th re s h in g ab o u t o f th e g e n e r
a liz e d o n e -c e lle d anim al answ ering to th e vague sy stem ic
p ro m p tin g s. At a n o th e r tim e he may e x h ib it th e m echanical
in v a ria n c y o f th e e le m e n tary organism which l i k e th e in s e c t s
d e s c rib e d by Lewes w ill r e s o l u te ly c o n tin u e e a tin g w h ile
p inned to th e t a b l e . G ran d co u rt may "show sudden im p u lse s”
which ap p ear in e x p lic a b le to th e o b s e rv e r o r "may be o b s t i
n a te o r p e r s i s t e n t a t th e same low r a te " o f d iff u s e d v i t a l
e n e r g y .^ In b o th th e s e prim ary c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s G rand-
|c o u r t 's p s y c h ic a l o rg a n iz a tio n resem b les in i t s o p e ra tio n s
th o se o f th e i n s e c t . G ra n d c o u rt's s e r v a n t - o f - a l l - t a s k s ,
L ush, w ith a l l h is sh rew d n ess, d e s p a ir s o f p re d ic tin g G rand
c o u r t' s a c tio n s , f o r " o f what u se . . . i s a g e n e ra l c e r
t a i n t y th a t an in s e c t w i l l n o t w alk w ith h is head h in d m o st,
when what you need to know i s th e p la y o f inw ard stim u lu s
16DD, p. 156, bk. I l l , ch. XV.
163
th a t sends h i t h e r and t h i t h e r in a netw ork o f p o s s ib le
p a t h s . S o he i s even c a p a b le , l i k e th e e s s e n t i a l l y ego
i s t i c and im p u lsiv e Mary Vynor o f R ose. B lan c h e, and V i o l e t ,
o f unexpected a c t s o f g e n e ro s ity (RBV. I I , 7 0 ). He i s moved
by th e p rim a rily u n p re d ic ta b le d if f u s iv e sy ste m ic prom pt
in g s —he l i v e s th e " p a s s iv e l i f e " o f i n s e c t s . T hat i s , in
Lewes' term in o lo g y , th e preponderance o f h i s p s y c h ic a l l i f e
i s found in th e f i r s t p o rtio n of th e t r i p l e p ro c e s s —in
s p u t t e r i n g , g e n e r a liz e d , i n t e r n a l n e u ra l s t i m u l i , n o t s y s
te m a tic a lly grouped and then t r a n s la te d to th e d ir e c te d
a p p ro p ria te re s p o n siv e a c t i v i t i e s which Lewes e q u a te s w ith
th e fu n c tio n in g o f th e w i l l . In o th e r w ords, he s ta n d s
l ik e a l l ru d im e n ta ry o rg a n iz a tio n s in in c o h e r e n t, e g o is tic
i s o l a t i o n from th e e x te r n a l w o rld , moved p rim a rily by i n
c a lc u la b le i n t e r n a l sy ste m ic s t im u li. He la c k s o rg a n ic i n
te g r a ti o n , b o th in h i s i n t e r n a l o rg a n iz a tio n and w ith th e
e x te r n a l w o rld . H is e g o is tic i s o l a t i o n means t h a t h is de
s i r e s a re n o t a p p re c ia b ly m o d ified by c o n s id e ra tio n of
o th e r s . A gain, t h i s i s c h a r a c t e r i s t i c o f th e ru d im en tary
n e u ra l o rg a n iz a tio n —an d , s p e c i f i c a l l y , o f i n s e c t s , who in
t h e i r "narrow te n a c ity " a re "unshaken by th o u g h ts beyond
18
th e re a c h e s o f t h e i r a n te n n a e .1 1 G ran d co u rt* s c o ld , u n -
sy m p a th e tic detachm ent from th e co n cern s o f o th e r s i s a ls o
17P. 283, bk. IV , ch. XXV.
18DD, p. 689, bk. V I I , ch. LV.
164
a p p ro p r ia te ly d e s c rib e d in term s of such low er c re a tu r e s as
f i s h and r e p t i l e s : he lo o k s a s n e u tr a l a s an a l l i g a t o r " ;
he m a in ta in s th e "unw inking s ile n c e " o f a f i s h ; he has a
19
" l i z a r d - l i k e e x p re s s io n ." 7
G ra n d c o u rt1s th o u g h t p ro c e ss e s a r e , how ever, c h a r a c te r
iz e d in term s o f a h ig h e r a n im al—th e dog. W e may remember
t h a t Lewes* psychology d e n ie s t h a t th e r e i s a d i s t i n c t d i f
fe re n c e in th e c o n c e p tu a l p ro c e ss e s o f a n im als and human be
in g s . Though o n ly human b e in g s a re a b le to th in k in th e
|
lo g ic o f s ig n s a s w e ll a s in th e lo g ic o f im ag es, b o th men
and a n im als (and p a r t i c u l a r l y d o g s, who a re im m ed iately b e
low man on th e s c a le ) can c o n c e p tu a liz e so a s to form i n
t u i t i o n s . In Lewes* p h e n o m e n a listic te rm s, i n t u i t i o n s a re
n e u ra l g ro u p in g s which e n ab le th e organism to le a r n from
e x p e rie n c e by a d ju s tin g i t s e l f to i t s environm ent w ith p re
c is io n ( PH I. V, 3 8 9 ). In th e case of a n im als th e s e nervous
a d ju stm e n ts a r e , o f c o u rs e , in th e form o f im ag es, n o t
w ords. I t i s in t h i s l i g h t t h a t we m ust u n d e rsta n d George
jE lio t* s ir o n ic re f e r e n c e s to G ran d co u rt* s " d o g -lik e i n t u i -
20 21
t i o n ," to h i s dogs faw ning on him , and to h is n o t b ein g
19DD, p. 157, b k . I I , ch. XV; p. 284, bk. I l l , ch. XXV;
p . 592,"E k. V I, ch. XLVIII.
20DD, p . 682, bk. V II , ch. LIV.
21P. 592, bk. V I , ch. X L V III.
165
22
a wordy thinker."
Grandcourt is, however, more characteristically identi
fied with creatures even lower on the evolutionary scale
than the dog, signifying the primitiveness of his psychical
makeup. So his "neutral" or "fitful obstinacy," his love
of dominion, is a cold, mindless necessity of his crude
psychical organization. It is, in Lewes* homogenous evolu
tionary psychology, literally kindred to the automatic, un
impassioned, relentless tenacity of an insect or crustacean
feeding on its prey. It is the elemental aggressive egois
tic impulse common to all lower evolutionary specimens.
Grandcourt*s love of mastery is also an expression of the
satisfaction or relief derived by lower organisms in over
coming obstacles. The aggressive impulses stem from the
elementary drive to assuage discomfort or overcome contra
diction. On a somewhat higher level this fundamental need
to resolve "the feeling of resisted effort" is the basis of
the "intellectual perception of inconsistency or contradic
tion," but this is a less vivid satisfaction than that of
the organism*s "relieved effort" in overcoming "the actual
resistance of some obstacle to action" (PLM, V, 386). The
tenacious, self-aggrandizing search of the rudimentary or
ganism for sustenance and sex originates in the massive but
vague and generalized systemic impulses driving it toward
22P . 132, b k . I I , ch. X I I I .
166
assimilation and conquest--that is, toward dominion and
mastery. So Grandcourt*s "intense obstinacy and tenacity of
rule" which is "like the main trunk of an exorbitant egoism"
has its source in a "phantasmal world" where "impulse is
born and dies." In Grandcourt's incoherent inner world
motivations "were like the circlets one sees in a dark pool
continually dying out and continually started again by some
impulse from the surface." The "deeper central impulse" in
connection with Gwendolyn was for mastery, and, more than
that, to overcome obstacles. The piquancy of Gwendolyn
Harleth for him is precisely that she does not love him. He
prefers "command to love,"2Zf and opposition merely hardens
his desire:2^ "From the very first there had been a exas
perating fascination in the trickiness with which she had—
not met his advances, but-wheeled away from him." The
pleasure for him is "in mastering reluctance," first in be
ing "brought to accept him in spite of everything— brought
to kneel down like a horse under training for the arena,
though she might have an objection to it all the while,"
and secondly in the mastering "of a woman who would have
liked to master him, and who perhaps would have been capable
23DD, p . 318, b k . IV , ch . XXVIII.
22fP. 389, bk. V I , ch. X L V III.
25P. 2 8 8 , b k. I l l , ch. XXV.
167
26
of mastering another man.'1 Gwendolyn's attraction for
Grandcourt is that of the coquette whose secret, as Lewes
had observed in Sea-Side Studies lies in the difficulty of
attaining her (pp. 12-13).
Indeed, the egoistic aggressiveness extends to a per
verse satisfaction in defeating expectation. This "vague,
hazy obstinacy" moves Grandcourt to "start away" from a de
sired decision just when it becomes obtainable for him sole
ly from the irrational aggressive delight in "the feeling of
resisted effort": there was, therefore, a
langour of intention that came over Grandcourt, like a
fit of diseased numbness, when an end seemed within easy
reach: to desist then, when all expectation was to the
contrary, became another gratification of mere will, sub
limely independent of definite motive.2?
In sum, Grandcourt is the fullest embodiment in the works of
Lewes and George Eliot of the rudimentary psychical life of
the individual so governed by inferior instincts alone that,
in Lewes' words, he "can have neither stability or fixed
purposes." He is the archetypal representative of the
| paradoxical combination of irrational tenacity, impulsive
ness, and catatonic inanition of those human specimens on
the transitional level where the psychological characteris
tics of the higher animal and the lower human organisms
overlap. This rudimentary human type is described early by
26Pp. 3 1 8 -3 1 9 , bk. IV , ch. X X V III.
27DD, p . 1^9, bk. I I , ch. X IV .
168
Lewes (1853) in C om tek P h ilo so p h y o f th e S cien ce in con
ju n c tio n w ith h i s d is c u s s io n o f th e e v o lu tio n a ry s c a le a s
"condemned to th e m ise ra b le a lt e r n a t io n o f e i t h e r ig n o b le
to rp o r o r f e v e r is h a c t i v i t y " (p . 1 2 1 ). S im ila r ly , in George
E lio t* s d e s c r ip tio n , G randcourt "may be o b s tin a te o r p e r s i s
t e n t a t th e same slow r a t e , and may even show sudden im
p u ls e s which have a f a l s e a i r o f daem onic s tr e n g th ." Or
th e "ooze and mud" o f h is n a tu re which " a t any p re ssu re
y ie ld s n o th in g b u t a s p u rt o r a puddle" may r e s u l t in a
• pQ
"lazy stagnation or even a cottony milkness."
I l l
George Eliot observes that Daniel Deronda when seen
with Grandcourt "might have been a subject for those old
29
painters who liked contrasts of temperament." 7 In this
explicit contrast of temperaments we have George Eliot's
most ambitious and sustained exploration of Lewes* evolu
tionary psychology in the form Of the examination of con
trasting higher and lower specimens on the evolutionary lad-
i
! der— explicitly, in an examination of representatives of
Universal Benevolence and of Pride. This contrast is made
in terms of the same homogenous schema of psychological
traits and character signatures we examined in connection
with the analysis of Hetty Sorrel and Dinah Morris.
28DD, p. 156, b k . I I , ch. XV; p . 3 1 8 , b k. IV , ch. X X V I.
29£D , P. 162, b k. I I , ch. XV.
169
Grandcourt is incapable of higher sympathy because he
lacks the imagination, passion, and vital energy necessary
to enter into the life of others in organic, harmonious
communion.3^ He is a disorganized, unpredictable, subjec
tive psychical instrument, condemned to live in an isolated
"lotos-eater's stupor" or in cold, calculating opposition to
those with whom he comes into contact. His slow pulses can
only be aroused by an opposition hardening his desire. His
*1 32
love of secrecy, his desire for mastery, his jealousy,
the "toneless drawl" of his voice^ reflect this insulation
from his fellow men, and thus his essential unimaginative
egoism. Lacking emotional power, he lacks the motivating
force which, implicitly in Lewes' and George Eliot's sys
tem, drives mankind toward organic harmony. His mind is
diffusive and his passions are "of the intermittent, flick
ering kind" since his vital energies are not channeled into
appropriate, harmonious motor discharge. Grandcourt's calm,
cold manner and his unanimated, flaccid bearing, his "faded
fairness" and the extensive baldness of his reddish-blond
hair3* * show this lack of passion and the corresponding lack
3°Pp. 600, bk. VI, ch. XLVIII; 404, bk. V, ch. XXXV;
156, bk. II, ch. XV.
31P. 600, bk. VI, ch. XLVIII
32P. 342, bk. IV, ch. XXX.
33P. 329, bk. IV, ch. XXXIX.
3ZfP. 108, bk. II, ch. XI.
170
of vital energy (for in Lewes* system all neural energy or
life force is identical in its undifferentiated essence,
even as all conception and emotion is sensation).
Daniel Deronda has, by contrast, thick curls and "abun-
dant soft waves of beard.As a boy he had a thrilling
voice and a fine musical instinct,^ and his adult voice
when heard by Gwendolyn for the first time "was to Grand-
court's toneless drawl, which had been in her ears every
day, as the deep notes of a violincello to the broken dis-
!
course of poultry and other lazy gentry in the afternoon
v j
sunshine.”-" We must stop here to remember Lewes' and
George Eliot's identification of musical harmony with emo
tional harmony and social organicism. The suffusive or
ganic connections in reality are the identity and homogene
ity of the organizing evolutionary principles in the natural
world, and thus, for Lewes, "Musical Emotion, which furnish
es the metaphors, will also furnish a physiological inter
pretation" for the psychical life. So even as music is
I pleasurable if the arrangement of notes is "orderly and
rhythmical" and unpleasurable if the arrangement is "disor
derly and unrhythmical," so is the operation of the emotion
al life pleasurable or painful depending on whether there is
35P. 186, b k . I I , ch. XVII.
36P . 168, b k . I I , ch. XVI.
57P. 3 2 9 , b k. I V , ch. XXIX .
171
organic harmony or disharmony, and this is reflected in
one's relations with the external social world. If there is
a "normal dependence" or balance in the operation of the in
ternal organs, for instance, so that the neural "excitation
is . . . irradiated" throughout the system harmoniously,
then the emotions are pleasurable, but if "this normal de
pendence" or balance of function organs is "interfered with
by an exaggeration or arrest of one or more of the organs"
there will be depressive, painful emotions. (Here is, of
course, the physiological explanation for systemic mal-
etre.) He is attempting to explain, then, in entirely
phenomenalistic terms the socially undesirable emotions such
as "Anger, Jealousy, Awe, etc."-^ which "disturb the harmony
of the consensus," and those desirable ones such as "Joy,
Hope, Love, etc." which "permit the harmony." And "the
wave of excitation" from these organically inspired emo
tions issue in a correspondingly inharmonious or harmonious
manner into the external world in the form of a "prevision
of obstacles" or of "facilities." In other words, the in
harmonious organism— a Hetty, or a Grandcourt to an even
greater extent— is characterized by imbalanced, unintegrated
internal organic oscillations which issue into the external
■ 3 8
^ "Awe" is used here in a pejorative sense similar to
that of John Stuart Mill's use of it in his essay on "Na
ture" to mean a fearful reverence for the incomprehensible
works of nature, hypostatized into credulous superstitious
religious belief.
world through volitional action or motor discharge in the
form of "resisted effort" so that such an organism finds
satisfaction "in the feeling ... of relieved effort in
overcoming an obstacle." Thus Grandcourt's jealousy would
be explained by Lewes' psychology as an inharmony in his
nature in its neural activity corresponding quite literally
to the inharmony of musical tonal vibrations. Furthermore,
this inharmony is characteristic of all rudimentary organ
isms, for "all emotions in the beginning are egoistic, and
their root-manifestation is probably a form of Fear." The
rudimentary organism finds its satisfactions "in the col
lision of appetites, whether of hunger or sexuality from
which "arise the aggressive and defensive impulses" which
are ameliorated only slightly by individual attachments
(the lowest level of Altruism) formed by "that sense of
dependence on individual beings or otherselves which lies
implicitly in the sexual and parental relations" (PLM. V,
3 8 5 -3 8 7 ).
With this background George Eliot's contrast between
the "toneless drawl" and "broken discourse" like that of
poultry of Grandcourt's voice to the "thrilling voice" and
deep, harmonious violincello tones of Daniel Deronda be
comes understandable. And the theme is developed further
in the explanation of Daniel Deronda's concomitantly con
trasting character. Daniel has an "innate balance" which
makes him unable to take up "any antagonism." His relations
173
to others are invariably harmonious—-may we say "musical1 ’--
and organically integrative, and thus self-abnegating:
" as soon as he took up any antagonism, though only
in thought, he seemed to himself like the Sabine warriors
in the memorable story— with nothing to meet his spear but
flesh of his flesh, and objects that he loved." And with a
"many-sided sympathy" and an "innate balance he was fervid
ly democratic in his feeling for the multitude, and yet,
through his affections and imagination, intensely conserva
tive . . . ;"39 This rage for organic unity, of which Dan
iel Deronda is the ideal embodiment, is also exemplified in
his instinctive openness and dislike of secrecy, and in the
contrasting love of secrecy of Grandcourt, who "like all
proud, closely wrapped natures . . . shrank from explicit
ness and detail, even on trivialities even if they were
personal."^
Daniel, standing as he does at the pinnacle of the
evolutionary ladder, is enabled to integrate himself har
moniously with the objective "social life" by virtue of his
superior psychical equipment. The "calm intensity and rich
ness of tint in his face that on a sudden gaze from him was
rather startling, and often made him seem to have spoken,
so that servants and officials asked him automatically,
39DD, pp. 36 4 -3 6 5 , b k . IV, ch. XXXII.
**°P. 600, bk. VI, ch . XLVIII.
174
'What did you say, sir?' when he had been quite silent"**'* ~
this ideal excess of physical vitality resulting from the
harmony of internal operation is directed smoothly and har
moniously into the external world. -In this he is in con
trast with the unvital, sputtering or torpid psychical mech
anism of the flaccid, thin-haired Grandcourt. This calmness
is based on inner integration which releases energy to the
external world smoothly and without the wastage of a short-
circuited psychical mechanism like Grandcourt's, whose
"calm, cold manner" reflects only comatose disharmony. Dan
iel's internal harmony is expressed also in "his ardent
clinging nature" which affectionately reaches out to appro
priate the concrete objective reality around him, in the
"active perceptions" which enable him to "easily forget his
own existence,"**2 and in the fervent and "tender imagina
tion" which allows him to conceive the situation of others
and to transmute his "frustrated claim" and "inexorable sor
row" into fellowship and sympathy**- ^ in his willingness to
accept pain in contrast to a Grandcourt's instinctive re
pulsion of it.Z f Zf
Daniel Deronda in all this is thus admirably equipped
^P. 162, bk. II, ch. XV.
* * 2P. 169, b k . I I , ch. XVI.
* * 3Pp. 179, 176, bk. I I , ch. XVI.
Zf Z f P. 180, bk. II, ch. XVI.
175
to be the examplar for ideal humanity— the pure specimen of
benevolent altruism. Indeed, this Universal Benevolence
(again, at the top of Gall's scale) is such in Daniel
Deronda that he is, George Eliot tells us, in danger of
being ineffective in his sympathetic operations because he
can see all conflicting claims. It is only when he finds a
concrete sphere of action within his Jewish heritage that
his altruism can become fully effective.
45Pp. 3 6 5 -3 6 6 , bk. IV , ch. X X X II.
CHAPTER V I I
LEWES* PSYCHOLOGICAL
DETERMINISM— WILL AND HABIT
I
The mechanical and deterministic character of George
Lewes' and George. Eliot's evolutionary psychology is seen
not only on the higher level of personality development in
the concepts of habit and duty, but on the lower level of
human psychic organization in the doctrine of the uncontrol
lable perverse impulse and in the fixed idea. We have seen
in our analysis of Grandcourt that he is characterized by a
mindless, self-defeating, stimulus-response resistance to
obstacles. Gwendolyn Harleth is moved by much the same
egoistic primitive satisfaction in overcoming resistance or
contradiction when she is losing heavily at the gambling
table but still irrationally persists:
. . . she was in that mood of defiance in which the mind
loses sight of any end beyond the satisfaction of enraged
resistance, and with the peurile stupidity of a dominant
impulse included luck among its objects of defiance. 1
This theme of irrational defiance from the mere love of de
feating expectations or expressing the elemental impulse to
*DD. p. 9» bk. I * ch. I .
176
177
overcome obstacles is one which had long fascinated Lewes.
He had, in fact, observed this quixotic tendency in himself,
for he "has turned down pleasant excursions or refused ad
vantageous offers for the same reason" and then couldn't
retreat from his perverse and obstinate refusal. And Rose
Vynor in Rose. Blanche, and Violet is made to fictionally
epitomize this tendency. Her willfulness and tendency to
resistance had been cultivated by her years at a boarding
school where she and her sister Blanche had found themselves
in a distinctly inferior financial and thus social position.
Blanche's will is crushed by this experience, but Rose's
willfulness is only exacerbated by it. So Rose, in a cli
mactic scene, quite without premeditation turns her suitor
away by refusing to give him the signal , that she loves him
even though she deeply desires him. This perverse, unex
plainable, spur-of-the-moment decision almost destroys their
happiness. But Lewes does not yet explain this desire to
defeat expectation in terms of the elemental aggressive
I egoistic tendency to resistance; that explanation which we
see in Problems of Life and Mind and in Daniel Deronda
awaits the development of his mature evolutionary psychol
ogy. In Rose. Blanche, and Violet he puts it this way:
There is a fact in human nature which will be familiar to
many, but which I am unable to explain, and that is the
occasional impulse which forces us to act diametrically
opposite to our wishes. It is a sudden spasm of wilfull-
ness, wholly irrational, but wholly irresistable. . . .
No reason, no gratification of any variety, indolence, or
temper has been at the bottom of this. The impulse has
178
been purely wilful and irrational-motiveless were not the
motive enveloped in the very impulse. (II, 104-105)
The germ of the fuller explanation is here, of course, and
in his notation that passion may be exacerbated by the re
straints put upon it— by the very fact that one is not per
mitted to breathe a word of it to a lover (II, 236). Lewes
has in his mature psychology a physiological explanation in
terms of the triple process for the impulse to act against
one's apparent desires:
All ideas are incipient actions. The idea of stammering,
the desire not to stammer, will cause a man to stammer;
the idea of yawning, or the sight of one yawning, will
cause a yawn. In some states any strong desire not to
do a thing will call up so vivid an image of the act that
the incipient stage passes into the completed stage.
Maury related that a friend of his was apt to say the very
things she wished not to say; the fear of uttering some
improper word would cause her to explode in obscenities.
One day while walking along the corridor of a chateau,
candle in hand, she was seized with terror at the thought
of being alone in the darkness— and blew out the light.2
The person with "organised experiences of sufficient
strength" will be able to defeat the perverse impulse to
commit an undesired action, but the rudimentary psychical
organisation has not learned to discipline its random im-
i
pulses into coherent, harmonious action by the cultivation
of duties and habits. Here we have Grandcourt, though the
primary explanation of Grandcourt's perversity is desire to
defeat expectations thus deriving an egoistic satisfaction
^PLM. V, 210. He refers to Maury's Du Sommeil. p. 418.
179
in overcoming obstacles.
A somewhat allied psychological concept, the Idtfe Fixe,
explains one form of monomaniacal perverse tenacity. We
will go into this doctrine briefly here before turning back
to our analysis of Grandcourt, even though Gwendolyn and not
he exemplifies it. This is a concept which interests Lewes
early and late, and as mentioned earlier (p. 83) illustrates
the mechanical, physical nature of his psychology. A path
way of discharge is set up by long imaginative concentration
on an action, so that an individual finds that he cannot
control the criminal impulse when the opportunity to per
form the acts comes, because it has become automatic and
irresistible. The grooved neural pathway is waiting for the
necessary motor discharge by the "abnormal excitability in
this direction," occasioned by the continual contemplation
of the act, and the act affords the necessary psychical
relief (PLM, V, k59)• This doctrine is expressed in a more
melodramatic form in Rant home. Oliver Thornton has con
templated the murder of his wealthy uncle for some time, and
it is becoming obsessive even though he tries to "drown the
desperate thoughts which haunted him. But it was too late.
The idea had become a fixed idea. He must either become a
murderer or a monomaniac!" (p. 190). Here is Lewes* early
psychological explanation of the process:
Some fearful thought presents itself, and makes, as
people figuratively say, a deep impression. But a law of
our nature, it is the tendency, almost invincible, of all
180
thoughts connected with that fearful one— either acciden
tally or inherently connected with it— to recall it when
ever they arise. This association of ideas therefore pre
vents the thought from evanescing. In proportion to the
horror or interest inspired by that thought, will be the
strength of the tendency to recurrence. The brain may be
then said to be in a state of partial inflammation, owing
to the great affluence of blood in one direction. And
precisely as the abnormal affluence of blood towards any
part of the body will produce chronic inflammation, if it
be not diverted, so will the current of thought in excess
in any one direction produce monomania. Fixed ideas may
thus be physiologically regarded as chronic inflammations
of the brain. (Ran. pp. 190-191)
Lewes then earnestly warns his reader that "the only effec
tual way to rid” himself of the ideas haunting him "is
comewhat analogous to that practised for inflammation of the
body.” He must set up fresh associations, must "draw the
current of [his] thought elsewhere." The mature Lewes
phrases the physiological explanation in terms of neural
vibrations rather than as an "affluence of blood," but it
is essentially the same doctrine (PIM. IV, 304-305). His
later psychology does, however, have the sophistication of
the triple process. In these terms there must be a motor
discharge, be it ever so concealed, following every stimu
lus, even abstract thought so that the criminal act is a
necessary relief to a state of irritated stimulation set up
by continuous excited contemplation of the act.
Gwendolyn and the even less highly organized Lapidoth
are George Eliot*s vehicles for exploring this concept.
Gwendolyn, having gained an absolute detestation and fear
of her husband finds "her imagination obstinately at work.
181
She was not afraid of any outward dangers—-she was afraid of
her own wishes, which were taking shapes possible and Impos
sible, like a cloud of demon-faces." She fights these im
ages by thinking of Deronda.and his sympathetic understand
ing of her moral dilemma, "and yet quick, quick, came im
ages, plans of evil that would come again and seize her in
the night, like furies preparing the deed that they would
straightway avenge."'* She is afraid of herself; she does
everything she can think of to free herself from her ob
sessive images picturing herself murdering her husband. She
throws the key to the bureau in which she keeps a knife in
to the water. She does not indeed kill Grandcourt because
of his fortuitous drowning, but the guilt still preys upon
her.** The mental processes here are akin to those leading
up to her acceptance of Grandcourt*s proposal of marriage.
The mere repetitive familiarity of the idea that she would
not marry him finally makes the inconceivable probable.^
The elder Lapidoth affords a case study of the crim
inal implementation of fixed ideas in the totally egoistic
mind. He realizes that it would be against his interest to
take a ring of Daniel Deronda*s lying on a table, but the
imaginary action of taking the ring" kept repeating itself
^DD, p. 686, bk. VII, ch. LIV.
^ p . 6 9 k , 6 9 6, b k. V I I , ch. L V I.
5Bk. Ill, ch. XXVII.
182
like an inward tune." He rejects the idea of taking the
ring for he can surely get a much larger sum by simply ask
ing Daniel for a loan. He resolves "to go below, and watch
for the moment of Deronda's departure, when he would ask
leave to join him in his walk, and boldly carry out his
meditated plan":
He rose and stood looking out of the window, but all the
while he saw what lay behind him— a brief passage he
would have to make to the door close by the table where
the ring was. However, he was resolved to go down; but—
by no distinct change of resolution, rather by a dominance
of desire, like the thirst of the drunkard— it so happened
that in passing the table his fingers fell noiselessly on
the ring, and he found himself in the passage with the
ring in his h a n d .6
In such a weak, impulsive, rudimentary organization the
repeated images of desire become its will, defeating judge
ment without any conscious decision, even against decision.
II
Implicit in these overlapping doctrines of the uncon
trollable, perverse impulse and the fixed idea is Lewes'
deterministic concept of the will (see pp. 74-79 above).
Will for Lewes is simply the motor discharge of neural ener
gy. To do something voluntarily means only that the pre
dominate impulse has won out and is consequently followed
by action (as all stimulation and grouping is followed by
by some form of motor discharge, whether overt or not). To
6Pp. 7 9 5 -7 9 6 , b k . V I I I , ch. L X V III.
183
not will something means, then, that there is either a bal
ance in alternating impulses precluding a determinative
movement, or that the countervailing impulse is, in fact,
stronger. There would seem to be no justification, there
fore, for the continuing even heightened ethical judgements
in the Judeo-Christian pattern implicit in Lewes* and George
Eliot's use of the terms "weak-willed" and "strong-willed."
If weakness of will is merely a rudimentary psychical or
ganization lacking established neural pathways tending to
ward harmonious motor discharge, the tone of moral indig
nation implicit in the portraits of Lord Hawbucke, Cecil
Chamberlayne, and Mary Vynor in Lewes or the corresponding
George Eliot characterizations of Grandcourt, Tito Melema,
and Rosamond Vincy would seem to be uncharitable at at the
very least. If strength of will is only a relatively high
er level of neural organization, what rationale is there
for a moralistic enthusiasm for it "as the quality most
needing cultivation in mankind"? Indeed, if there is no
freedom of will the characteristic Lewes-Eliot plot didacti
cally juxtaposing the weak-willed versus the strong-willed
character is rather beside the point.
It does not really resolve the dilemma to argue that
while there is no absolute or ultimate freedom of will in
Lewes' and George Eliot's system, there is a practical
autonomy or relative independence within dependence of the
individual organism— or as Lewes puts it: "The vessel
184
which is swept onwards by the waves does not determine the
individual movement of the sailors. Each sailor knows that
he moves with the vessel, but knows also that he is free to
move to and fro on deck. The voluntary actions are actions
of the organism." But for Lewes voluntary actions are "de
sires realized" and desires are neural tremors. Further,
after giving the ship-seaman illustration Lewes hastens to
make it indubitably clear that "on the physical side no one
can doubt that every stage is rigorously determined by the
co-operant conditions; the psychical mechanism is, indeed,
very imperfectly known, but we are quite sure that there is
no freedom (in the sense of indeterminism) in its actions."*'7
Lewes concludes that to suppose that the decision-mak
ing process between "conflicting motives" is anything more
than a "struggle among neural groups" is "to assume that
Will is not the function of the organism, but an indepen
dent entity: (PLM. IV, 103-104). To posit will as a sepa
rate directing entity is to retreat to Theological and Meta
physical superstitions. For both Lewes and George Eliot we
are merely the sum of our experiences; for both of them
every moment "has left its trace," in the evolution of each
'Arthur Koestler in his Act of Creation (New York,
1964) in presenting a somewhat Lewesian system does argue
that the relative independence of the organ or organism
within the hierarchical organic structure does amount to
freedom of the will.
185
Q
creature. For both a belief in the organic, evolutionary
balance of nature means a positivist recognition of neces
sary sequence and uniformity in its operations.
The justification for a moral didacticism in a deter
ministic universe lies in Lewes' conception of the evolu
tionary process. The ever-increasing unity within diversity
and harmony within differentiation provided by the evolu
tionary mechanism is equated with altruistic self-abnega
tion. In other words, organic integration is altruism. Or
ganic interdependence when translated into human affairs is
moral harmony through self-denial in the interests of the
whole social organism. Thus the basic evolutionary thrust
of the universe becomes for Lewes an ethical dynamism. It
is really beside the point to note that there is an obvious
logical equivocation here, that the organic interdependence
of organs within an organism and the rough ecological bal
ance of nature is not the same thing as the interdependence
and balance of human social relationships: the point is
that this system does provide for George Eliot a coherent
framework for her fictional world, and that, indeed, an
understanding of the outlines of this system and its hidden
ethical-mechanical presuppositions is necessary in order to
correctly interpret her fictional disquisitions, her views,
and characterizations. One of the more obvious difficulties
p . 7 0 , b k. I , ch. V I I .
186
in her fiction is the one we are concerned primarily with
here: the apparent incongruity in pleading for duty and the
highest order of self-denial through the exercise of
strength of will in a totally necessitarian universe.
But that is just the point. In lewes' system determin
ism is made to work for him; it has, in the overview, a
benevolent ethical tendency. So George Eliot contends that
there are "irreversible laws within and without . . . ,
which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and develop
ing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes
religion.These "irreversible laws" are those of Lewes*
evolutionary system, and, specifically, the formula ex
pressed as the law of Goethe and Von Baer that the thrust of
evolution is necessarily from general to specific and from
simple to complex— and thus from relative isolation and in
dependence to harmony and interdependence. We should remind
ourselves here of Lewes* (and George Eliot*s) cautious even
semi-covert, but nonetheless categorical opposition to Dar
win *s assumption of a random, unpurposive evolutionary pro
cess. Also we see, again, the significance of Lewes' in
sistence that the thrust of evolution is toward even greater
homogeneity within increasing complexity and thus is toward
fewer and fewer gaps between creatures the higher we go on
the evolutionary ladder rather than the greater and greater
gaps of Darwin's system. And we are again reminded of
9p. 3 0 2 , b k. IV , ch. I I I . ____________________________________
187
Lewes* fervent denunciation of Comte*s denial of perfection
in the arrangements of the universe. The ultimate goal of
Lewes' evolutionary mechanism is a perfect harmony in human
society through self-abnegating interdependence akin to per
fect musical harmony. Lewes' denial of teleology, vitalism,
and spiritualisms— of directing metaphysical entities, and
of a priori categories outside of the empirical processes—
serves only to conceal an implicit, rigorous teleology. The
ultimate ethical utopia is implicit in the very laws of
growth of the most rudimentary form of life. It is in this
context that Lewes' (SAL, p. 72) and George Eliot's reli
gious reverence for the natural processes become understand
able, and thus we must understand George Eliot's praise of
Adam Bede, who "had a devout mind, though he was rather
impatient of devout words; and his tenderness lay very close
to his reverence."10 It is in the light of the ultimate
harmony and perfectionism of this evolutionary system where
"nothing is wasted" and all minister to the needs of all
through submission to the organic whole that we must under
stand George Eliot's supercilious tone of scorn or indigna
tion persistently directed towards those characters who feel
10AB, p. 397, bk. V, ch. XXXVIII. We should also note
that Reverence is the middle level of Altruism between
Attachment and Universal Benevolence on Gall's evolutionary
scale.
188
it is "entirely owing to the deficiency in the scheme of
things" that things become inconvenient for one when one
does what one likes,^ and the constant corresponding praise
for those higher human specimens who have sufficient in
sight and reverence "to believe that things were not likely
12
to be arranged" for their peculiar satisfaction. This is,
of course, merely an expression of the typical monistic
solution to the problem of evil on the fictional level of
daily experience.
Ill
The mechanistic and deterministic view of the will and
the decision-making processes is frequently illustrated by
George Eliot and in terms of a balance or competing of al
ternating neural impulses. In Lewes* view the mixed feel
ings and competing impulses encountered in the decision
making process are explained at the most basic level by the
oscillating nature of the neural mechanism. Indeed, he
quotes Herbert Spencer with approval in his conclusion that
"in the lowest conceivable type of consciousness— that pro
duced by the alternation of two states— there are involved
the relations constituting the form of all thought (PLM, V,
96). At a higher human level the oscillation of alternating
11P . 127, b k . I , ch. X I I .
12M d ., p. 3 1 8 , bk. I l l , ch. X X X III.
189
impulses accounts for common difficulties in decision, for
the impulsive negation which the positive resolution brings
in its train (as with Rose Vynor), and even the conscious
ness of "two different principles . . . at work, two dif
ferent personalities struggling within" us. Lewes raises
the question then whether this being of two minds, of having
alternating desires and "antagonistic feelings" is "due to
the reactions of two separate centres or to two different
stimulations of one and the same centre, the attention os
cillating rapidly from one to the other?" He opts for "suc
cessive alternations in the attitude of the one Sensorium,"
for "psychological and physiological analysis seems to prove
that the c rim in a l impulses are feelings which have their
conditions in sensory stimulations and logical combinations.
involving .judgments and motor-combinations of precisely the
same nature as those impulses which restrain them [my ital
ics]." Lewes explains this further:
The impulse to destroy an object, or to murder some
one, arises from some obscure desire, some hallucination,
or some clearly apprehended idea of gratification; this
impulse represents the state of the Sensorium at that in
stant; but no sooner does it emerge in Consciousness than
it brings with it an escort of other feelings; and their
impulse, which also represents a sensorial state, is one
which restrains the former. (PLM. V, 209-210)
We are in a position with this explanation to understand
what George Eliot is talking about when she describes the
"meditative struggle" of Dorothea as to whether she will
express her "rebellious anger" toward Casaubon:
190
Dorothea sat almost motionless in her meditative strug
gle, while the evening slowly deepened into night. But
the struggle changed continually, as that of a man who be
gins with a movement toward striking and ends with con
quering his desire to strike. The energy that would ani
mate a crime is not more than is wanted to inspire a re
solved submission T my italics] when the noble habit of
soul reasserts itself.13
Here as elsewhere we see with what accuracy George Eliot
applies Lewes* psychological doctrines to specific situa
tions, even as these doctrines serve as an invaluable the
oretical commentary on her concrete case studies.
The relatively unorganized psychical mechanism is thus
I
at the mercy of the adventitious impulse and the constantly
counterbalancing escort of alternating neural movement.
However, that impasse in decision-making which an even rela
tively healthy higher psychical organism may reach at times
is also thought of in these quantitative, mechanical terms.
An absolute balance of competing alternating impulses makes
decision impossible since decision is merely the discharge
of tension built up by stimulation in the path of least re
sistance. This is the case with Gwendolyn Harleth:
. . . she had been so occupied with perpetually alterna
ting images and arguments for and against the possibility
of her marrying Grandcourt, that the conclusion which she
had determined on beforehand ceased to have any hold on
her consciousness: the alternating dip of counterbalanc
ing desires had brought her into a state in which no con
clusion could look fixed to her.14
13M d ., p. 4 3 1, b k . IV , ch. X L II.
1 Z *DD, p. 2 9 7 , b k . I l l , ch. X X V II.
191
Similarly, Maggie Tulliver is brought to a state of
passivity, sitting "quite still, far into the night, with no
impulse to change her attitude, without active force enough
even for the mental act of prayer" by the balancing impulses
between desire for Stephen Guest and self-abnegating renun
ciation of him. These contradictory impulses, in the form
of alternating images creating a trembling balance inhibit
decision. In Lewes' terms there is a quantitative balancing
out of the alternating impulses, thus denying an unrestrain
ed motor-discharge. This active state of motor discharge is
identical with volition (PIM. V, 265). The inhibiting bal
ance of tension, however, while not permitting the exercise
of will, which is nothing more than the triumph by motor
discharge of one of the competing impulses, does build up a
state of unbearable inner tension, which is naturally fol
lowed in the overstimulated organism by a "great calm" as a
relief of "the tumult of emotion" when, as in the case of
Maggie, an opportunity for active resolution in physical
activity presents itself. y
Even an Adam Bede of the "iron will, as well as an iron
arm," whose way is "not to be see-saw about anything"^
can be brought to an unaccustomed state of passivity— in
this case by Hetty's trial for infanticide: "His heavy
PP. 5 3 7 -5 3 9 , bk. V I I , ch. V .
16AB, p . 170, bk. I , ch. X V I.
192
black hair hangs over his forehead, and there is no active
impulse in him which inclines him to push it off, that he
17
may be more awake to what is around him.1 1 r This temporary
state of psychical disorganization is the permanent condi
tion of a Grandcourt who is subject to a "languor of inten
tion that came over him . . . like a fit of diseased numb-
18
ness." He has the passivity of an insect, moved primarily
and unpredictably by vague systemic desires. The later Lyd
gate defeated in his higher expectations has something of
the same "languor of intention" and "diseased numbness," if
not the same vicious egoistic unpredicability, as he looks
1Q
only passively at his future self. 7
IV
It is at this point that Lewes* evolutionary monism
comes into play again, and here we will begin to make the
connections which will enable us to see the significance of
his doctrine of the will. It is through the evolutionary
processes that objective harmony and certainty through the
correlation of the objective and the subjective is brought
into subjective chaos and relativism. The mechanism for
resolution of the problem of the apparent subjective
17P. 1+2.6, bk. V, ch. XLI.
18DD, p. 1 if9, bk. II, ch. XIV.
19M d ., p . 7 8 8 , b k. V I I I , ch. LXXIX.
193
isolation of the Self from the Not-self is built into the
evolutionary system:
The external world must be at first simply a confused
chaos without shape or order, when reflected in a Senti
ence which has not acquired shaping reactions. But as the
sentient Organism develops, the external Order emerges;
not because this Order is the creation of the Organism,
stamped upon the chaos, but because this Order is assimi
lated by the Organism,— selected, according to its shaping
reactions, from the larger Order of the Real. The undif
ferentiated animal substance slowly develops into highly
differentiated tissues and organs, through the action on
it of the external agencies, which leave their traces in
a modified structure and capability of reacting: the pul
py mass of the brain acquires, through manifold experi
ences, a structure more and more variously definite, with
corresponding reactions; and as Feeling becomes differen
tiated and defined, Qualities arise in the Felt. It is
thus that the nebula of the external is condensed into
objective phenomena, and the confused irradiation of Sen
sibility is grouped into feeling. (PD1, I, 184)
So we see that the evolutionary dynamic works, in its move
ment from the general and simple to the differentiated and
complex, toward the harmonizing of the subjective with the
objective. Will is simply motor discharge in response to
stimuli, and a strong will is the appropriate, highly or
ganized and harmonious (and thus sympathetically self-abne-
j gating) contractile response of the organism to its environ-
l
ment. Even as truth for Lewes and George Eliot is the cor
respondence of the external with the internal, the growth
of a character such as Maggie Tulliver, Esther Lyon or
Dorothea Brooke toward the higher altruistic levels on the
evolutionary ladder is marked by an increasing integration
of objective with subjective, and by a resolution of the
"contrast between the outward and the inward." Maggie
Tulliver is the fictional prototype of this "conflict be
tween the inward impulse and outward fact, which is the lot
20
of every imaginative and passionate nature." This har
monizing of the inner and outer into "more and more exact
ness of relation" is finally only accomplished by a renun
ciation of egoistic desires in the realization of organic
interdependence and interconnectedness.
The evolutionary progress from the rudimentary iso
lated, undifferentiated, and chaotic subjective to the or
ganic, defined, and integrated objective (through harmoniz
ing the subjective with the objective) is the characteristic
movement in the individual growing toward altruism through a
highly organized, coordinated mode of reacting with his en
vironment, which in terms of Lewes' psychology is nothing
more nor less than the development of strength of will.
This movement is also characteristic of progress in science
and art. So Goethe is praised as epitomizing the objective
or realistic mind. The objective mind sees "in Reality the
incarnation of the Ideal," and thus always works outward as
Goethe did, from the certainty of his own emotions to the
confrontation and verification of concrete fact (LG, pp. 51-
52 ).
The rudimentary human organisms— the Hettys and
2(W , p . 2 /f8 , b k. I l l , ch. V ; p. 2 8 9 , b k . IV , ch. I I .
Grandcourts~are uniformly characterized by subjective dis
organization and are impelled by vague, incoherent prompt
ings, particularly of general systemic desires, which don*t
issue in appropriate, harmonious, objective activity. But
even the relatively more highly developed human beings in
George Eliot*s fiction are susceptible under great stress
to a subject-object disorientation. So a distraught Gwen
dolyn Harleth in recounting to Daniel Deronda her agonies
of conscience over the death of her husband nunconsciously
left intervals in her retrospect, not clearly distinguish
ing between what she said and what she had only an inward
21
vision of.*' And Mirah Lapidoth, just rescued from her
suicide attempt by Daniel Deronda, "seemed as if she were
half roused, and wondered which part of her impressions was
dreaming and which waking. Sorrowful isolation had be
numbed her sense of reality, and the power of distinguishing
outward and inward was continually slipping away from
22
her." Mirah, though an inherently ideal personality had
been cut off in her isolation from the objective, active
contact with the external which is the basis for altruism
2 ^DD, p. 697, bk. V II, ch. LVI. On th e o th e r hand,
M irah ha3 escaped a V ic to ria n " f a t e worse than death" be
cause of an added dimension of o b je c tiv e p ercep tio n in th e
moment of n e c e s s ity . She r e c a l l s : "I do b e lie v e I could
see b e t t e r then than ever I did b e fo re : th e stra n g e c le a r
ness w ith in seemed to have g o t o u ts id e me" (p. 219» bk.
Ill, ch. XX).
22P . 19*f, b k . I I , ch. X V II.
196
and sanity.2- * In Lewes* terms, the individual isolated from
the social community either by personal tragedy or by a
rudimentary psychical organization is necessarily immured
in the personal and subjective. This is true because "man
is no longer to be considered simply as an assemblage of
organs, but also as an organ in a Collective Organism." The
"higher functions," the sympathetic impulses are products of
the Social Medium with its "beliefs, opinions, institu
tions," etc., whereas we derive the "egoistic impulses or
primary needs" of food, reproduction, etc. from the per
sonal. Higher altruism derives from the social impulse,
and this comes only with the higher correlation with the
objective external characteristic of the more highly organ
ized organism (PLM, I, 166—167).
V
The distinction between the individual able to harmon
ize the subjective with the objective and those who are not
and the concomitant distinction between strength and weak
ness of will is most clearly illustrated in the contrast
27)
^Both Lewes and George Eliot think of insanity, as
distinguished from such a temporary derangement as Gwendolyn
or Mirah experience, as being the continuous inability to
recognize the unreality of subjective fantasies. So Lewes
states that "the sane man is sane only when he can control
the passing suggestion by some rapid intuition of its dis
cordance with experience" (PLM. V, 60). Romola with "a viv
id intellect and a healthy human passion" had a mind which
"was not apt to be assailed by sickly fancies" since she is
"too keenly alive to the constant relations of things" (Rm.,
p. 169, bk. I, ch. XV).
197
George Eliot draws between Grandcourt and Daniel Deronda.
In the process of examining this explicit contrast we will
go more deeply into Lewes' psychology of the will, ultimate
ly fully resolving in his (and George Eliot's) terms the
apparent paradoxical emphasis on the necessity of cultiva
tion of strength of will within a deterministic framework.
Grandcourt and Daniel Deronda afford us such an excellent
insight into Lewes' and George Eliot's evolutionary psychol
ogy, not only because they are so explicitly characterized
in terms of these doctrines, but because nowhere else in
George Eliot's fiction do we find among her many contrasts
of the lower and higher examples of psychical organization,
such a wide gap between the unideal and ideal. The Egois
tic Grandcourt*s chaotic impulses welter subjectively with
in him, not issuing smoothly in appropriate, coordinated
responses into the external, objective world along coordi
nated neural pathway. The ideal Daniel Deronda, in con
trast, even in a pensive, musing state forgets "everything
else in a half-speculative, half-involuntary identification
of himself with the objects he was looking at, thinking how
far it might be possible habitually to shift his centre till
his own personality would be no less outside him than the
landscape."2* * ' His natural altruistic impersonality express
es itself in a "many-sided sympathy" and an imagination
2Z*DD, p . 19 0, b k. I I , ch. X V II.
which had "wrought itself to the habit of seeing things as
they probably appeared to others."2^ Even as a child, his
"ardent clinging nature had appropriated" the immediate ex-
26
ternal, "the every-day scenes" of nature "with affection,"
and "he was a boy of active perceptions and easily forgot
27
his own existence in that of Robert Bruce." 1
The difference between a Daniel Deronda of objective
"active perceptions" and a subjective Grandcourt as "passive
las an insect" must, again, be understood in terms of the
triple process and its evolutionary progression. In Grand
court *s rudimentary psychical organization "action lapses
into a mere image of what has been, is, and may or might be;
where impulse is bom and dies in a phantasmal world, paus-
28
ing in rejection even of a shadowy fulfillment." Stimu
lus doesn’t issue in any meaningful, predictable response
because he lacks a sophisticated network of neural pathways
which smoothly issue the response into appropriate action.
These groupings (the middle portion of the triple process)
are formed or grooved by constant repetition, so that there
25P. 364, bk. IV, ch. XXXII.
26
There is some Hartleian-Wordsworthian nature associa-
tionism in this as there is in Lewes* fiction but more of
Lewes* evolutionary psychology.
27P. 169, bk. II, ch. XVI.
28Pp. 3 1 7 -3 1 8 , b k. IV , ch. X X V III.
199
is a ready discharge of the stimulus in motor activity along
the pathways of least resistance. The foundations for mo
rality, then, with Lewes and George Eliot are— literally—
habit. There is in this, of course, the assumption that in
creasing integration of the subjective individual with the
objective external world is in the natural course of evolu
tionary development an altruistic one— that, as we have
noted, the evolutionary dynamic in impelling toward a more
specialized and complex organic coordination of the subjec
tive and objective concomitantly issues in self-abnegating,
sympathetic altruism. Lewes, with what is a relatively rare
candor for him on this point admits that this belief in an
altruistic dynamic in the evolutionary organizing process is
something of an a priori assumption. It is a mystery: "We
can give no better reason why we ought to care for the wel
fare of others . . . than why sugar is sweet to the taste:
they are facts of the human organism" (PLM. I, b% ) . "Or
ganised tendencies" or habits leading as they do to automa
tic organic integration with the objective world are, as a
part of the same general assumption, naturally moral.
"Submission to authority" (Pill. V, 3 9 b )» and the discipline
of duty through habit are goods in themselves. It is axio
matic that "all bodies do move in the diagonal of the paral
lelogram of two incident forces; and all men are trained to
act rightly on [sic] emergencies by what is a kind of moral
instinct, organised in previous habits of acting rightly"
200
(PLM. I, 306). Similarly George Eliot affirms those "irre
versible laws within and without . . . , which, governing
the habits, become[s]morality, and developing the feelings
2 9
of submission and dependence, becomes religion . . . y
VI
Let us look at Lewes1 explanation and justification of
habit as part of the evolutionary altruistic organizing pro
cess, first in a more general sense and then in terms of his
more concrete psychology before turning back to George
Eliot's use of the doctrine. The harmonizing, integrating
principle in the evolutionary process, of which habit is one
expression, creates order on the higher levels of the evolu
tionary scale out of what would otherwise be chaos. So,
owing to the solidarity which underlies all differentia
tion, and permits of reintegration, the individualised
parts are all connected, all interdependent. Thus each
part is a new power, and because subordinated to the
whole, enhances the power of the whole, and is in turn
enhanced by it ... . In mental life the result of in
cessant stimulation would be incoherence and imbecility,
were it not for the restraint of "organised experiences,"
which assimilate to themselves the new material. It is by
the evolution of organs that the organism adapts itself
more and more to the external medium. It is by the organ
isation of its experiences that the organism enlarges its
powers. (PLM. V, 10if)
This increasing adaptation of the organism to the external
medium is explained in terms of the triple process:
The sensible affection which connects the organism with
its environment is discharged in a motor-impulse which
29M£, P. 3 0 2 , b k. I V , ch. I I I .
201
acts on the environment through the muscles. Between this
reception and this discharge there is the grouping pro
cess, which fashions the Inner Life. (p. 376)
In the course of psychical evolution there is an increasing
complexity and with that complexity an increasing efficiency
as effective responses to stimuli are learned and grouped
more or less permanently within the neural structure. An
infant no longer diffusively strikes out against irritation,
but responds with a precise and automatic brushing or swat
ting gesture. The accomplished musician or swimmer no long
er needs to concentrate on each movement; the grouped and
automatic mental combinations issue in appropriate and har
monious motor discharges (pp. 58-59). This evolution to
ward greater harmony within greater complexity is going on
not only in the individual but within general nature and,
in all human society. And the higher organization of social
as well as individual experience is transmitted by inheri
tance of tendencies as well as in the traditions and lan
guage of a society.
Again, we see the motive for Lewes* tenacious if some
what covert rejection of Darwinism. This higher organiza
tion toward appropriate linking of the internal and external
in the triple process of sensation, grouping, and motor dis
charge is transmittable as characteristics acquired in ex
perience are inherited. Mankind thus progressively acquires
"Moral and Intellectual Instincts— the action of congenital
arrangements in the mechanism when set going under
2 02
appropriate stimuli." These "structural tendencies" are, as
we understand by now, necessarily benevolent in an advanced
state of development since higher organizational fluency is,
by definition, of a higher moral character in that it organ
ically unites the individual with his environment. More
over, these structural and moral modifications of the ner
vous structure can be effected almost momentarily, both in
dividually and socially, not only in slow evolutionary
aeons. The evolutionary movement toward increasing harmony
and fewer and fewer gaps is, as we have seen, speeding up.
The nervous mechanism is not, as the Sensationalists pic
tured it, a relatively static mechanism being imprinted on;
it is indivisible organism interacting dynamically with its
environment, modifying and being modified by each experi
ence. It is the sum of its experiences, and the sum is a
new subjective entity greater than the total of its parts.
The effect of neural modifications is immediately felt; a
new level of acquired organizational harmony makes its pre
sence known immediately and is inheritable immediately:
"The nervous organism also inherits certain tendencies, and
whether these are early or late in evolution is quite a sub
sidiary consideration" (PIM. I, 166). So the habit of act
ing rightly, of harmoniously integrating the subjective in
dividual with the objective social organism becomes grouped
in the neural circuits as a moral instinct— the habit, in
deed, is a moral instinct, directing our future actions, and
203
is inheritable as a tendency, leading to the betterment of
the race in our progeny. There are no Kantian moral cate
gories for "there are no innate ideas, no innate truths, no
thoughts having a metem pirical source— simply innate ten
dencies. congenital aptitudes. which cause us to respond in
certain ways to certain stimuli; but if the stimuli differ
in kind, or in degree, or in their order of presentation,
the responses must proportionately differ" (p. 165). Moral
instincts, embodying the cultural experience of the race as
well as individual experiences may be inherited. Thus at
one generation remove Daniel Deronda even though raised a
Gentile inherits the moral consciousness of Judaism (as we
will see in our discussion of Lewes* doctrine of the General
Mind) as well as the specific moral attributes and "inborn
Lovingness" of his unknown Grandfather.-^®
In more specific terms, the evolutionary dynamic tends
to move the individual toward a more precise, concrete and
outward-looking relation with his environment by the inte
gration of more and more complex responses— which as they
show themselves harmonious and viable form themselves into
habits. These habitual responses are no longer consciously
intellectualized once they become grouped and functional:
"In the intuition of an event, a plan, a course of conduct,
3®P. 729, b k . VIII, ch. LX; p . 171, b k. II, ch. XVI.
20Zf
are condensed the experiences which have accompanied similar
events, plans, and courses, so that the intuition is now a
prompting and a guidance for all the several actions" (PLM.
V, 388). The evolutionary organizational progression from
the general and diffuse to the specific and direct and from
the subjective to the objective is paralleled both in the
development of the human race and of the individual from in
fancy to maturity in the movement from the systemic visceral
sensations and desires to the special senses of sight,
touch, hearing, etc. connecting man with the external world.
Gradually from the vague "systemic and emotive promptings
and guidance" arise
definite connections with special sensations .... In
the course of psychical evolution, these sensations be
come, as we said, massed in Tendencies; that is to say,
call up certain nervous adjustments which are reflected in
combinations of muscles, so that the organism is definite
ly determined in certain directions, and its conduct regu
lated by this mechanism with unalterable precision. These
nervous adjustments, considered in their intellectual as
pect, are intuitions; in their volitional aspect, in
stincts, habits, (pp. 388-389)
We should note in passing that though the progressive evo
lutionary movement is from the systemic, visceral sensations
to the special senses, the systemic impulses remain for Lew
es, the important psychical motor, the source of much or
most motivation and elementary desire even for the highly
developed human being. Indeed the systemic impulses deter
mine our general state of being:
The reader*s daily experience will assure him that over
and above all the particular sensations capable of being
205
separately recognized, there is a general stream of Sensa
tion which constitutes his feeling of existence— the Con
sciousness of himself as a sensitive being. The ebullient
energy which one day exalts life, and the mournful depres
sion which the next day renders life a burden almost in
tolerable, are feelings not referable to any of the parti
cular sensations; but arise from the massive yet obscure
sensibilities of the viscera, which form so important a
part of the general stream of Sensation. (PCL. II, 66)
These constant confluent streams of internal sensations,
deriving from pulsating organs and the muscle sense, which
make up our “general sense of existence" are not noticed
by us until one of these small “varied streams of sensation
. . . becomes obstructed, or increases in impetuosity."
Lewes illustrates:
When we are seated at a window, and look out at the trees
and sky, we are so occupied with the aspects and the
voices of external Nature, that no attention whatever is
given to the fact of our own existence; yet all this while
there has been a massive and diffusive sensation arising
from the organic processes; and of this we become dis
tinctly aware if we close our eyes, shut off all sounds,
and abstract the sensations of touch and temperature— it
is then perceived as a vast and powerful stream of sensa
tion, belonging to none of the special Senses, but to the
System as a whole. It is on this general stream that de
pend those well-known but indescribable bien Stre and
malaise of every day. Of two men looking from the same
window, on the same landscape, one will be moved to unut
terable sadness, yearning for the peace of death; the
other will feel his soul suffused with serenity and con
tent: the one has a gloomy background of Consciousness,
into which the sensations excited by the landscape are
merged; the other has a happy background of Consciousness,
on which the sensations play like ripples on a sunny lake.
The tone of each man's feelings is determined by the state
of his general consciousness, (pp. 67-68)
George Eliot echoes this concept when describing the
bien-8tre of Romola awakening to a lovely land and seascape
after having cast off in a small boat in a suicide attempt:
206
She lay motionless, hardly watching the scene; rather,
feeling simply the presence of peace and beauty. While
we are still in our youth there can always come, in our
early waking, moments when mere passive existence is it
self a Lethe, when the exquisiteness of subtle indefinite
sensation my italics creates a bliss which is without
memory and without desire.31
And George Eliot is also talking about this concept of the
systemic sensations when she described Lydgate's microscopic
physiological studies of the human organism:
... he wanted to pierce the obscurity of those minute
processes which prepare human misery and joy, those in
visible thoroughfares which are the first lurking places
of anguish, mania, and crime, that delicate poise and
transition which determine the growth of happy or unhappy
consciousness.32
Still, for Lewes the evolutionary movement— and a whol
ly desirable movement— is from the subjective and unpredic
table systemic to the finely tuned, more objective special
senses operating with "unalterable precision" through cer
tain habitual "nervous adjustments which are reflected in
combinations of muscles." Again, motor discharge is synony
mous with the exercise of will, and habit, insofar as it is
a predisposition by "nervous adjustment" toward coordinating
the subjective Self with the Not-self is, synonymous with
the appropriate exercise of will. But the basic psychical
process— the triple process— is essentially identical in
its operation at all levels. There is uniformity and
P- 3 6 3 , b k . I l l , ch. L X V T I.
32M d ., p. 168, b k. I I , ch. X V I.
207
homogeneity of nature*s processes, as different as they may
appear on the surface, on the higher and lower levels of
the evolutionary scale. Stimulus or sensibility is invari
ably followed by contractility or motor discharge in any
living organism. In this sense a unicellular creature is as
much engaged in volition— in an exercise of will— when it
responds to stimuli as the higher human specimen. In both
cases the response is predetermined by the psychical and
physical constitution of the creature responding. Indeed,
the response of the highest creatures is relatively more
predictable than the lower— and this is a great gain. In
George Eliot's terms, the altruistic, objective responses of
a Daniel Deronda can be counted on— as the spoiled but des
pairing Gwendolyn Harleth counts on them— whereas even the
shrewd Lush, who has devoted all his powers to the study of
Grandcourt, can never outguess his patron's responses. They
are as unpredictable as those of an insect, as we have seen,
largely because Grandcourt*s stimuli arise from the phan
tasmal visceral world of primitive systemic desires.
But it is axiomatic for Lewes and George Eliot that the
triple process is alike at work in either case. Lewes re
peatedly emphasizes that there is motor discharge (even as
there is impulse and grouping) in every form of psychic ac
tivity, though subject to varying degrees of prominence and
balance among the three components (PLM. V, 21fO, 2^6, 265) .
And if the pathways of discharge are not properly organized
208
so as to form habits, or if, as we have seen, there is a
balance between competing impulses there will be no decisive
response or only a diffusive, sputtering, impulsive voli
tional activity. This insistence of Lewes on the necessity
of the motor element in all psychical activity is subtly il
lustrated by George Eliot in her novels. So Gwendolyn Har-
leth reluctantly considering the prospect of becoming a
lady's companion "dared not answer, but the repression of
her decided dislike to the whole prospect sent an unusually
deep flush over her face and neck, subsiding as quickly as
it came."^ Stimulus must find some muscular exit— tension
must find some motor discharge. Romola's "yearning regret"
with its "tension of horror" at her marriage to Tito finds
relief when "with one great sob the tears rushed forth.
Gwendolyn's confession of her anxiety and fear of loneliness
to Daniel Deronda results in "her hands, which had been so
tightly clenched some minutes before" becoming helplessly
relaxed and trembling on the arm of her chair" as the ner
vous tension finally has found full outlet in contractile
motor discharge. And there may be a hyperbolic illustration
in her description of good Caleb Garth of Lewes' doctrine
that motor discharge is present in even the most abstract
P . 2 7 0 , b k. I l l , ch. XXIV.
5ZfP m ., p . 4 6 0 , b k. I l l , ch. L I I I .
209
psychical processes so that there is an unconscious contrac
tile forming of the words in the vocal organs even in un
spoken thought. Caleb "read his letters sometimes swaying
his head slowly, [and] sometimes screwing up his mouth in
inward debate.1,33 But it is more important to note that she
is in agreement with Lewes in his phenomenalistic, necessi
tarian view of human volition. For she, like Lewes, clearly
believes the exercise of will is merely synonymous with mo
tor discharge or muscular contractility, the third element
of the triple process, with all its deterministic implica
tions. So, for instance, Lydgate's good intentions are un
dercut by dim desires which "relax his muscles in the very
moments when he is telling himself over again the reasons
for his vow."3^
In this system, then, there is exercise of will in all
psychical activity insofar as there is motor discharge—
will is motor discharge. The question of whether it is
voluntary or involuntary is really a footless one. There is
no agency external to or independent of the functioning or
ganism making decisions. Volition is merely the discharge
of neural energy into motor activity along the paths of
least resistance. Strength of will in this deterministic
33M d ., p . 4 0 1 , bk. IV , ch. XL.
36P. 7 1 3 , b k. V I I , ch. LXX.
210
stimulus-response psychical world is distinguished from
weakness of will only by a higher, more harmonious organiza
tion, otherwise known as habit. That is, strength of will
is a state where the learned, established neural connections
have been so deeply imprinted that we can expect like or
similar responses from like or similar stimuli. Once the
connections are established— once the neural circuits or
grouping have been set up— it isn*t necessary, indeed it is
impossible, to analyze the neural groups down into their
original individual components. So "when conclusions have
become organised in our minds the date are usually quite
irrecoverable ..." (PLM. I, /+62). Or as George Eliot ex
presses it in the voice of Philip Wakem: "I don*t think any
of the strongest effects our natures are susceptible of can
ever be explained. We can neither detect the process by
which they are arrived at, nor the mode in which they act
•3 7
on us."^f Thus once a response has been learned so that the
motor discharge becomes automatic (or as Lewes puts it "re
flex") it is not really conscious, but it is, nonetheless,
voluntary. So Lewes is prepared to go further than such an
empirical psychologist as Alexander Bain by asserting that
there is no essential difference between purely sensational
responses gradually and unconsciously learned by the child
37MF, p . 3 1 9 , bk. V , ch. I .
211
or animal as he seeks to avoid pain or gain pleasure and
those ideational responses of the "intelligent" human being
also seeking an appropriate response to stimuli, but by con
ceptual problem solving. Both learned responses are voli
tional in Lewes' sense (that is, involve motor discharge)
and this is true whether they are thought of an conscious or
unconscious. Lewes summarizes his position: "We have en
deavored to show that both voluntary and involuntary actions
are reflex, following upon the stimulus given to their cen
tres, that stimulus being sensational or ideational" (PCL,
II, 220).
Lewes, however, shares fully Bain's empirical enthu-
siams for those "voluntary powers resulting from education"
to an appropriate response rather than the "primitive course
of trial and error" (p. 215). It is precisely on this em
pirical foundation, on his belief that human beings' reac
tions are primarily learned experientially and are not in
nate that he bases his emphasis on the necessity of culti
vating strength of will. Only the advanced, more highly
organized organism is fully capable of developing the inte
grating, automatic, appropriate responses to stimuli which
distinguish it from the lower organism capable only of
either the most automatic sensational responses or of inap
propriate, indecisive volition. The higher human specimen
has higher faculties to aid him in learning appropriate
responses. His conceptual faculties give him a more
212
accurate vision of consequences and more flexibility and
variety in choosing between alternatives. They also permit
him to take a shortcut to solutions instead of using the
trial and error method of the rudimentary organism. More
over, the higher organism may observe its own actions and
this enables it to consciously develop habits of duty to in
tegrate with its environment. Even the mature animal is
able to react to painful stimuli "in some definite course
to avoid the recurrence of the infliction,1 1 instead of with
a "general convulsive start, grimace, and howl."- 7 The hu
man infant, similarly, reacts only generally, but learns by
learned response "through many a cycle of annoyance" to
"localize its sensations" (pp. 210-211, 213). This move
ment from the general to the local in the development of
learned responses, we should immediately recognize by this
time, is another illustration of the working of the evolu
tionary dynamic from the general and simple to the special,
differentiated and complex.
We are at this point finally in a position to under
stand all the implications of Lewes1 emphasis on strength of
will. Strength of will is in the first place the habitual
appropriate response,— the "neural adjustment" or "estab
lished connection" which will stand the person in good stead
when the difficult decision or the unexpected temptation
70
P. 210— Lewes is quoting Bain approvingly here.
213
confronts one. In this sense strength of will is habit, and
habit is morality. Habit or the altruistic predisposition
is, as we have already indicated, so necessary because of
the subjectivity and adventitiousness of the mental pro
cesses, for the neural mechanism is not merely a tabula ra
sa. a static, imprinted set of circuits, but a mass of
"residual modifications," many "temporary, the evanescent
changes which modify the direction of the organized tenden
cies, so that the same stimulus has different effects in
health and in sickness, in joy and in sorrow, before dinner
and after" (PLM. V, 59). Such are the "residual modifica
tions" or habits in the weak-willed Mr. Vincy. They are
merely temporary and evanescent: "... he was not a rock:
he had no other fixity than the fixity of alternating im
pulses sometimes called habit . . . ." The decision to
check on Lydgate's suitability as a son-in-law "formed in
the chill hours of the morning . . . rarely persisted under
the warming influences of the day."^9
Further, the intellect is the servant of the heart; the
reasoning processes are, when there is a conflict, necessar
ily the victim of the desires unless appropriate reactions
are programmed strongly enough into the neural mechanism in
the form of permanent residual modifications, "constituting
the organised habits and tendencies." And, as we have
39M d ., p . 3k 7 , bk. IV , ch. XXXVI.
21/f
noted, the alternating nature of the psychical mechanism can
lead in the less highly organized human being to fixed ideas
and even impulsive perverse actions out of mere love of op
position quite contrary to one*s interests or apparent de
sires. We have seen this irrational perversity of the human
will when insufficiently tempered by self-abnegating habits
illustrated in Lewes* Oliver Thornton and Rose and in George
Eliot*s Gwendolyn Harleth and Grandcourt. We see the same
perversity in the undisciplined psychical organism illus
trated in Raffles* self-destructive and **unaccountable im
pulse to tell" on Bulstrode in the "fitful alternation" of
his delirium. (We recall here also Lewes' view of the al
ternating nature of the psychical life.) And Bulstrode,
who for too many years had "taken his selfish passions into
discipline" rather than subjecting them to the discipline of
altruistic habitual response is not able to fulfill his am
bition "to be better than he was," is not able to disci
pline his intention to his desire when the moment of moral
decision has come and he is now confronted with the fixed
idea, with the "images of the events he desired" presenting
themselves "with irresistible vividness.1 1 The heart undis
ciplined by the habit of self-denying sympathy in casting
itself into another*s lot is unable to resist, despite the
best of intentions, the inevitable rationalizations and the
conquest of the head by the egoistic desires. So Bulstrodete
good-intentioned moral abstractions are easily conquered
215
by the more vivid images of his desires and he fails "in
this effort to condense words into a solid mental state."
Inevitably, "in the train of those images came their apol
ogy."^ Lewes* discussion of habit is something of a com
mentary on such a passage:
Our actions being really dependent on organised tenden
cies. habits, etc., the ideas must act through them. Now
the ideas themselves are partly determined by habits of
thought acquired through Education and submission to Au
thority, and partly by the emotions; and when the habits
of thought are not in harmony with the emotions and ten
dencies, we must in vain expect these feebler impulses to
control the stronger. Bacon finely says, "Men*s thoughts
are much according to their inclinations, their discourse
and speeches according to their learning and received
opinions; but their deeds are after as they have been
accustomed. (PLM. V, 39k)
However, since our actions are "really dependent on organi
sed tendencies" since we are indeed the sum of our experi
ences— that is, because of the empirical presuppositions of
Lewes' psychology there are possibilities of control of our
activities by the directed, concentrated use of the learning
processes in the development of the permanent residual modi
fications. The neural pathways of discharge may be so com
pletely organized by repeated effort in the harmonious high
er organism that there is little that is not within the
purview of his self-discipline. And thus, paradoxically,
habit is the means to an increase of man's powers by its
very deterministic nature. So the reactions to both sensa
tional and ideational stimuli are
capable of being brought under control— that is to say, of
being restrained or originated by the influence of some
216
other centre. That we do not habitually control (that is,
interfere with) the action of the heart, the contraction
of the iris, or the activity of a gland, is true; it is on
this account that such actions are called involuntary;
they obey the immediate stimulus. But it is an error to
assert, as most physiologists and psychologists persist in
asserting, that these actions cannot be controlled, that
they are altogether beyond the interference of other cen
tres, and cannot by any effort of ours be modified. It is
an error to suppose these actions are essentially distin
guished from the voluntary movement of the hands. We have
acquired a power of definite direction in the movements of
the hands, which renders them obedient to our will; but
this acquisition has been of slow laborious growth. If we
were asked to use our toes as we use our fingers— to
grasp, paint, sew, or write with them, we should find it
not less impossible to control the movements of the toes
in these directions, than to contract the iris, or cause
a burst of perspiration to break forth. (PCL. II, 220)
But, Lewes argues, even control of the contraction of the
iris, the bursting forth of perspiration, or of the beating
of the heart can be learned:
All that is required is that certain links should be es
tablished between sensations and movements; by continual
practice these links are established; and what is impos
sible to the majority of men, becomes easy to the indivi
dual who has acquired this power.
This possibility of control of the normally involuntary
actions again leads him to question the popular distinction
between voluntary and involuntary actions— "all actions
whatever are the responses of organs to the stimulus of
their nerve-centres," and this process is uniform in kind
whether playing a violin or responding to pain by the con
traction of a limb. In both cases the process is the es
tablishment of a "link between sensation and movement." So,
it thus appears that even the actions which most distinct
ly bear the character recognised as involuntary— uncon
trollable— are only so because the ordinary processes of
217
l i f e fu rn ish no n e c e s s ity f o r t h e i r c o n tro l. W e do n ot
le a rn to c o n tro l them, though we could do so , to some ex
t e n t ; nor do we le a rn to c o n tro l th e motions of our e a rs
and to e s , although we could do so. And w hile i t appears
t h a t the in v o lu n ta ry a c tio n s can become v o lu n ta ry , i t i s
f a m ilia r to a ll. th a t the v o lu n ta ry a c tio n s te n d , by con
s t a n t r e p e t i t i o n , to become in v o lu n ta ry , and a re then
c a lle d se c o n d a rily au to m atic. (PCL. I I , 223)
So here we have it— the justification of the highest
exercise of will in radically phenomonalistic, deterministic
terms. And this high place for strength of will in his sys
tem is based on the empirical learning process— to establish
•'certain links . . . between sensations and movements . . .
by continual practice."
Thus strength of will for Lewes is obtained by or,
better expressed, is equivalent to the continual practice
of small disciplines leading by mere reiteration of the
activity to established neural pathways which make the fu
ture response certain and controlled. Strength of will is,
then, obtained not in large, glorious labors, but in the
cultivation of habits of self-discipline and duty in the
commonplace tasks of life. Lewes' emphasis on the small,
the common, the concrete has this psychological justifica
tion, and the associated philosophical justification impli
cit in the evolutionary dynamic which moves from the general
to the specific. There is also in his system, and in his
and George Eliot's repeated emphasis on the "common life" of
ordinary people and small events as proper fictional sub
jects, the belief in the concrete universal characteristic
218
of monistic philosophy. So Lewes justifies his microscopic
studies and his attention to ’ 'those minuter, or obscurer
forms, which seldom attract attention" because "the Life
that stirs within us, stirs within them. We are all 'parts
of one transcendent whole'." Similarly Lydgate's microsco
pic researches into the "minute processes" is predicated on
a belief that the "examination of the specific object"
brings one "into a suffusive sense of its connections with
all the rest of our existence.Lewes' determination to
explore the currents of life in a small, humdrum provincial
town where the "monotonously placid" existence seemed
"scarcely better than vegetation" (RBV, II, 2) is justified
by the organic monism which also vindicates George Eliot's
study of the "oppressive narrowness" of the provincial
society of the Tullivers and Dodsons:
The suffering, whether of martyr or victim, which belongs
to every historical advance of mankind, is represented in
this way in every town, and by hundreds of obscure
hearths; and we need not shrink from this comparison of
small things with great; for does not science tell us that
its highest striving is after the ascertainment of a unity
which shall bind the smallest things with the greatest?
In natural science, I have understood, there is nothing
petty to the mind that has a large vision of relations,
and to which every single object suggests a vast sum of
conditions. It is surely the same with the observation
of human life.k2.
The association of habit and duty in the performance of
if1M d ., p . 168, b k. I I , ch. X V I.
2f2MF, p . 2 8 6 , bk. IV , ch. I .
219
the concrete and specific so as to cultivate strength of
will in reaching out to the universal Not-self in self-abne
gation , then, partakes of all these associations and philo
sophical presuppositions.
VII
The concomitant themes of will and habit are omni
present in both Lewes' and George Eliot's fiction. The de
velopment of strength of will by cultivation of appropriate
habits in the daily performance of small, concrete duties is
the avowed subject of Lewes' most ambitious fictional en
deavor, Rose. Blanche, and Violet, and his villain, Cecil
Chamberlayne is his fictional prototype of the clever weak-
willed character (as well as of Vanity, the love of approba
tion) . In his preface Lewes cites the moral of his work:
Strength of Will is the quality most needing cultiva
tion in mankind. Will is the central force which gives
strength and greatness to character. We over-estimate
the value of Talent, because it dazzles us; and we are
apt to underrate the importance of Will, because its works
are less shining. Talent gracefully adorns life; but it
is Will which carries us victoriously through the strug
gle. Intellect is the torch which lights us on our way;
Will, the strong arm which rough hews the path for us.
The clever, weak man sees all the obstacles on his path;
the very torch he carries being brighter than that of
most men enables him, perhaps, to see the crooked turnings
by which he may, as he fancies, reach the goal without
encountering difficulties. (RBV, I, vi-vii)
This becomes, in effect, a program for all of George Eliot's
fiction, as well as for this one relatively unsuccessful
novel of George Lewes, and only with the full development
of his psychology of the will are we fully in a position to
220
appreciate the implications of this moral, which we see
carried out in a succession of clever, weak-willed men domi
nated by Vanity— in the portrayals of Captain Wybrow, Arthur
Donnithorne, David Faux, and preeminently, Tito Melema.
Cecil Chamberlayne is a talented artist and musician
who is "really eloquent in his scorn of the 'drudges'." He
waits for the moment of inspiration, for the flow of genius,
scorning the "laws of common sense" as utterly prosaic.
B ut, says Lewes, " r e a l men of genius were r e s o lu te w orkers,
n o t i d l e dream ers" ( I I , 168-169)* Lewes used C ecil as an
o b je c t lesso n to enforce the n e c e s s ity of h a b it which b e
comes in essence s tre n g th of w ill in the development of gen
iu s from t a l e n t . The "genius" fo rc e s h im self to the w ritin g
desk each day c u ltiv a tin g the sweet d e lig h ts of th e d a ily
ta s k , the h a b it of work in the sm all co n crete a c t of p u ttin g
of pen to paper w hether o r not on any given day su ccess f o l
lows. T his view of g enius i s , of co u rse, a commonplace one,
b u t i t has in Lewes and in i t s e x p lic a tio n s in George E l i
o t 's f i c t io n the whole w eight of Lewes* i n t r i c a t e e m p iric a l
psychology of the w ill and h a b it behind i t . So H err Klesmer
a d v ise s Gwendolyn who w ishes to e n te r upon an a c tin g c a re e r
in a n tic ip a tio n of ach iev in g immediate su ccess:
Whenever an artist has been able to say, "I came, I saw,
I conquered," it has been at the end of patient practice.
Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for
receiving discipline. Singing and acting, like the fine
dexterity of the juggler with his cups and balls, require
a shaping of the organs toward a finer and finer certainty
of effect. Your muscles— your whole frame— must go like a
221
watch, true, true, to a hair. That is the,work of spring
time, before habits have been determined."^-5
It is, however, in the performance of the small daily
duty, in the cultivation of the habit of concrete service to
others, in the doing of the work which lies immediately be
fore us that the sacredness of obedience" is learned.^
This was the lesson learned by Romola, by Fred Vincy, by
Esther Lyon, by Janet Dempster, and by Janet Dempster's men
tor, the Reverend Tom Tryan who chose "that least attractive
form of self-mortification which wears no haircloth and has
no meagre days, but accepts the vulgar, the commonplace, and
the ugly, whenever the highest duty seems to lie among
them."^ Janet recovers from alcoholism and develops
strength of will by "walking firmly on the level ground of
habit" (p. 362, ch. XXV). Now all this sounds very Carly
lean, but, as we have seen, this doctrine of work and duty
is based not on a Romantic reaching out for the hidden ideal
order shadowed in the visible real, but on an empirical the
ory of learning and will. Lewes and George Eliot do share
with Carlyle, nonetheless, a persistent monism, whereby in
touching the concrete the universal is also reached. In
deed, in the view of Lewes and George Eliot, it is only
through the concrete that the universal may be reached. So
^ D D , p. 2 5 8 , bk. I l l , ch. X X I I I .
, p. 4 8 0 , b k . I l l , ch. L V I.
^ S C L , " J a n e t's R epentance," p . 2 8 8, ch. X I.
222
Felix Holt chides Esther Lyoni "Your dunce who can't do his
sums always has a taste for the infinite."^ And sympathy
is a matter of concrete, personal devotion for faltering
ordinary individuals, not the general, abstract passion of
a Robespierre for humanity in the mass.
Others in the fiction of George Eliot at the crucial
turning point when the habit of self-abnegation must begin
to be learned, if at all, fail and fall relentlessly into a
self-indulgence, usually characterized by Vanity or the de
sire for the easy approbation of others without any real
trouble to oneself. Thus the amiable Arthur Donnithorne
impulsively launches the remorseless tragic chain of circum
stances because he lacks the discipline of settled habits
and work: "There was no knowing what impulse might seize
him to-morrow, in this confounded place, where there was
nothing to occupy him imperiously through the livelong
day."^ Others are reclaimed if they can in the springtime
of life learn the control which is strength of will through
continual practice of the small, daily duty "before habits
have been determined."^ So Lewes in Ranthorne observes of
the profligate young Harry Cavendish that he had "shaved off
his moustaches, renounced his former pursuits, and seemed
^ F H , p . 126, ch. X.
^ A B , p . 142, bk. I , ch. X I I I .
^ D D , p . 2 5 8 , bk. I l l , ch. X X I I I .
223
fast settling into a respectable member of society." He had
"sown his wild oats," and "if there are wild oats to sow,
let them be sown early; for bad habits later in life become
fixed habits, and the rake at thirty is irreclaimable" (p.
255). This sufficiently trite and pedestrian observation is
rendered significant, of course, only by the foundation of
the empirical philosophy of will which supports it. Fred
Vincy, like Harry Cavendish is reclaimed by the practice of
duty leading to habit and strength of will, in this case by
the practice of writing in account books accurately and pre
cisely and in the performance of the small daily task of
farming and land management under the tutelage of Caleb
Garth.
VIII
In Grandcourt and Daniel Deronda we again see the con
trast between the unideal and the ideal— this time between
the lower and higher states of integration and organization
through the cultivation of habits. It is precisely habit
that the self-indulgent Grandcourt lacks, and because of
his rudimentary psychical mechanism— including a lack of
passion and imagination connecting him harmoniously with the
external objective world— he is at the mercy of his subjec
tive systemic impulses. He is not one of Lewes* or George
Eliot*s reformable characters— such as a passionate and
originally impulsive Romola, who through suffering and under
222f
the discipline of daily duties learns self-abnegation so as
to be able to reject the selfish "immediate prompting." It
had become "her habit to reject her impulsive choice, and to
obey passively the guidance of outward claims. Grand
court *s mind lacks the "level ground of habit" embodied in
established neural pathways. He is subject to "sudden im
pulses which have a false air of daemonic strength because
they seem inexplicable, though perhaps their secret lies
merely in the want of regulated channels for the soul to
move in— good and sufficient ducts of habit without which
our nature easily turns to mere ooze and mud, and at any
50
pressure yields nothing but a spurt or a puddle."-^ Again,
in the headnote to Chapter XXV Grandcourt*s condition is
analyzed:
How trace the why and wherefore in a mind reduced to
the barrenness of a fastidious egoism, in which all di
rect desires are dulled, and have dwindled from motives
into a vacillating expectation of motives: a mind made
up of moods, where a fitful impulse springs here and there
conspicuously rank amid the general weediness? 'Tis a
condition apt to befall a life too much at large, un
moulded by the pressure of obligation.51
Grandcourt though identified as to his psychical con
dition by the insect metaphor is roughly at the same embry
onic neural level of organization as Lewes* frog which
^Pp. 453-454, bk. Ill, ch. LII.
50DD, p. 156, bk. II, ch. XIV.
51P . 2 7 9 , bk. I l l , ch. XXV.
225
because of crossing and recrossing reflex-feelings is unable
to respond to stimuli with appropriate motor discharge with
the result that none of the stimuli "issues in action." So
the frog "instead of hopping away when pinched, cowered and
seemed hesitating as to its escape" (PCL. II, 217). Grand
court is insect-like in that his actions are unpredictable
and inappropriate issuing often only in "ooze and mud" or in
a "lotos-eater's stupor."^2 Grandcourt having no estab
lished "ducts of habit" in making any decision other than
the impulsively irrational is like the frog cited by Lewes
in that he is always presented with the "burden of choice"
so that we are conscious of "an interval of suspense between
the moment of painful urgency and the moment of appeasing
action" (PCL. II, 217) in contrast to such an altruistic,
highly organized individual as the later Romola who is freed
"from that burden of choice which presses with heavier and
heavier weight when claims have loosed their guiding
hold."^ When the individual reaches a high enough level
on the evolutionary scale, the altruistic responses become
automatic, or reflexive through the ministrations of habit.
So paradoxically (but not in the Pauline sense) we become
free only by losing our freedom of choice in becoming the
passive instrument through which "outward claims" are
52DD, p. 134, bk. I I , ch. X I I I .
53Rm., p. 5 1 6, bk. I l l , ch. L X I I .
£26
channeled into appropriate, automatic responses.
In Daniel Deronda we find the direct contrast to Grand
court of one who is innately and joyfully responsive to out
side claims and the solicitations of duty, who delights in
•'habitual beliefs,” and whose imagination had "the habit of
seeing things as they probably appeared to others:"^1 - "his
disposition was one in which every-day scenes and habits
beget not ennui or rebellion but delight, affection, apti
tudes."^
IX
The most detailed treatments in the fiction of Lewes
and George Eliot of the weak-willed character who through
lack of settled habits, not out of malice, falls into vil
lainy are Cecil Chamberlayne and Tito Melema. Both are
exemplars of weakness of will and of, concomitantly, Vanity.
They are, moreover, remarkably parallel constructions, not
only in the psychological overview, but in the details of
motivation and character traits.
Lewes, both as author and dramatic critic, favors the
type of villainy exemplified by a Cecil or a Tito. The ap
pealing, weak man, who gradually slips into villainy because
of a desire to avoid uncomfortable obstacles is his approved
5Z*DD, pp. 172, b k. I I , ch. X V I; 169, bk. I I , ch. X V I;
36 lf, bk. IV , ch. X X X II.
55P. 170, bk. I I , ch. X V I.
227
model. He praises the acting of Charles Mathews, who "is a
polished villain—-a D*Orsay without conscience, and without
any of the scowlings, stampings, or intonations of the ap
proved stage villain" (DE, pp. 124-125). Villainy, says
Lewes of Cecil, should be prepossessing; the true villain is
able to fool everyone. So with Iago: "... everybody
places confidence in him; he is *honest Iago*" (RBV, pp.
177-178). The same view is expressed by George Eliot in the
words of the painter Piero di Cosimo who upon observing Tito
asks him to pose as "Sinon deceiving old Priam" and thus
justifies his choice of a face "as warm and bright as a
summer morning" to the barber Nello:
Ay, Nello . . . thou has just shown the reason why the
face of Messere will suit my traitor. A perfect traitor
should have a face which vice can write no marks on~lips
that will lie with a dimpled smile— eyes of such agate
like brightness and depth that no infamy can dull them—
cheeks that will rise from a murder and not look hag
gard. 56
This irony is not merely a stage device, however. It is
rooted psychologically in the character type. A man who is
characterized by a "desire for universal approbation" (as
Cecil is described) (RBV. II, 163)» who needs "soft looks
and caresses (p. 158) and "the pleasures that could only
come to him through the good opinions of his fellow man"
(p. 171) is (in the case of Tito) the most likely to lapse
^ R m . pp. 4 7 -4 8 , bk. I , ch. IV .
228
into the grossest evil because of his weak will97 and "soft
58
nature."^ As Lewes analyzes it, "constituted as we are, it
is the clever, weak men who stumble most— the strong men who
are most virtuous and happy. In this world there cannot be
virtue without a strong will; the weak 'know the right, and
yet the wrong pursue'" (RBV, I, viii). The weak-willed,
charming man is selfishly occupied in reaching "the goal
without encountering difficulties" (p. vii). So Tito shrank
"from all relations that were not easy and agreeable."99
Romola posthumously summarizes Tito's character to his
child:
"There was a man to whom I was very near, so that I
could see a great deal of his life, who made almost every
one fond of him, for he was young, and clever, and beauti
ful, and his manners to all were gentle and kind. I be
lieve, when I first knew him, he never thought of anything
cruel or base. But because he tried to slip away from
everything that was unpleasant, and cared for nothing else
so much as his own safety, he came at last to commit some
of the basest deeds— such as make men infamous. He de
nied his father, and left him to misery; he betrayed every
trust that was reposed in him, that he might keep himself
safe^and get rich and prosperous. Yet calamity overtook
him"60
The handsome, amiable, clever and weak Cecil exhibits
a similar perfidy toward his wife. Beginning his career as
97RBV, I, 122, vii, and viii; Rm., p. 359, bk. II,
ch. XXXTTT
98Rm., p. 310, bk. II, ch. XXXIV.
99Rm., p. if27, bk. Ill, ch. XLVIII.
6°P . 3 9 5 , b k . I l l , ch. X L IV .
229
a charming, cultivated scholar (RBV. II, 169)--even as Tito
is a scholar and the fathers of both men's wives are schol-
ars--and artist of considerable talent he sinks to theft and
forgery and finally suicide. Both Cecil and Tito failing to
cultivate habits of disciplined work and self-abnegating
duty succumb when the moment of temptation comes, illustrat
ing again the characteristic dictum of both Lewes' and
George Eliot's works that habit is morality. In Cecil's
case the practical daily discipline of work is lacking, per
mitting him to slide into infidelity, gambling and humilia
ting and destructive lies and dissimulations. Tito takes
the easy undisciplined path in a moment of self-indulgence
and finds that "since that critical moment . . . the web had
gone on spinning itself in spite of him like a growth over
which he had no power.Tito "had won no memories of
self-conquest and perfect faithfulness" to secure him in the
6 2
moment of temptation. In terms of Lewes* psychology the
neural adjustments have not been formed by the continual
practice of small duties which will issue in appropriate
harmonious action at the moment of trial. It is exactly
the clever, weak man, having found it so easy to take the
self-indulgent path through life by virtue of his charm and
his quick mind, who will fail when the moment of decision
6 lRm ., p . 3 1 0 , b k. I I , ch. XXXIV.
62P . 3 5 9 , bk. I I , ch. XXXIX.
comes (and that moment which initiates the inevitable down
hill course may appear rather insignificant and unclimactic
at the time). He does not see as the man who has accustomed
himself to take the hard way would "that the direct path is
the only safe one" and that he must "cut his way through by
manful labour" (RBV. I, vii-viii). As George Eliot ironi
cally says of Tito: "He would have been equal to any sacri
fice that was not unpleasant."^ This weakness leads both
Cecil and Tito to villainy and a concomitant secrecy and
dissimulation, with a resulting dread of discovery. A fail
ure of will— that is, of correct "habitual choice"— leads
inevitably to such villainy without the necessity for "ac
tive malignity." So even when Tito, by the force of cir
cumstances set in motion by his initial rationalizing re
solves not to look for his stepfather, is finally forced to
deny the relationship to protect his position, his fear of
discovery does not breed hatred in his gentle disposition:
His dread generated no active malignity, and he would
still have been glad not to give pain to any mortal. He
had simply chosen to make life easy to himself— to carry
his human lot, if possible, in such a way that it would
pinch him nowhere; and the choice had, at various times,
landed him in unexpected positions. The question now
was. not whether he should divide the common pressure of
destiny with his suffering fellow-men; it was whether all
the resources of lying would save him from being crushed
by the consequences of that habitual choice.
65Rm., p. 2 8 7 , b k . I I , ch. X X X I.
6l*Rm., p. 2 3 3 , b k . I I , ch. X X II.
231
This is quintessential George Eliot. This is also quintes
sential George Henry Lewes as far as the expression of phi
losophy goes— that is, of the doctrines of will, habit, and
duty, and as an exemplar of the transitional human organism
avid for approbation, motivated primarily by fear rather
than altruism, and characterized by the secrecy which iso
lates him from organic communion with society.
As far as character criteria go there is in the por
trayal of Cecil Chamberlayne some of the same tentativeness
and even self-contradiction we noted in the characterization
of Lord Hawbucke. Lewes describes Cecil as emotional in
places, but in others indicates that he lacks affection, is
unemotional, and is characterized by sensuality (RBV, I,
122-123, 129). But his overall character is clear. Cecil
lacks animal energy and resolution; he is "good tempered,
not good hearted"— he is, in other words, one of those vain,
rudimentary creatures marked by a cold-heart, by the pre
dominance of the head over the heart, and is thus incapable
of higher altruism (I, 215-216). There is no indecisiveness
in George Eliot*s characterization of Tito. He, like vain
little Hetty is characterized by a cold heart and lack of
imagination (and innate secretiveness), though he has, of
course, the cleverness she lacks. But he is as unsympathe
tic as she, for "no quickness of intellect could tell him
exactly the taste of that [ bitter] honey on the lips of the
232
the injured."89 Rationalization is easy, for "his conduct
did not look ugly to himself, and his imagination did not
suffice to show him exactly how it would look to Romola."
66
He is a "merely clever, unimpassioned" man, despite his
ingratiating charm, not unlike Hetty's "self-engrossed love
liness." He is also like Hetty in his lack of traditional
67
attachments r and in having the luxuriousness of a "soft-
coated . . . animal.1,88
Hetty with a heart as "cold as a pebble" is not unlike
Tito (except in his intellectual facility) whose "mind is a
little too nimble to be weighted with all the stuff we men
go
carry about in our hearts." 7
In the major character criteria, however, Cecil and
Tito are the real siblings. Both are clever, weak-willed,
70
and cold-hearted. Both are noted for the "fascination"
71
and the gentleness of their manner. Cecil is called
85Rm., p. 317, bk. II, ch. XXXIV.
88P. 295, bk. II, ch. XXXII.
87P. 225, bk. II, ch. XXII; p. 359, bk. II, ch. XXXIX.
88P. 66, bk. I, ch. VI.
69P. 203, bk. I, ch. XX.
?0RBV, II, 163; Rm, p. 66, bk. I, ch. VI.
71EBV, I I , 163; I , 123; R m ., pp. 7 5 , 6 6 , bk. I , c h .V I.
233
’ •good-tempered" (RBV, I, 215-216) and Tito is "good-hu-
72
mored."' But let us put two descriptive passages side by
side so as to note the similarity of portrayal; both here
could stand out as prime examples of Newman’s Oxford gen
tleman in their gentle, amiable tolerance if not in their
ingratiating, imploring air. Thus is Cecil described:
There was something so caressing in his manner, that
few people withstood it, and to her [Blanche Vynor] he
was the perfection of tenderness, delicacy and amiability.
Persons of his lively, susceptible organization are usu
ally fascinating in their manners— there is a laisser
aller (which in him was tempered with perfect good breed
ing) , a frankness, a gaiety, a general consideration for
the feelings and opinions of others founded on a desire of
universal approbation [my italics], which creates more
regard than great qualities in a less agreeable exterior.
(RBV. II, 163-164)
When Romola first sees Tito:
Tito's glance . . . had that gentle, beseeching admiration
in it which is the most propitiating of appeals to a
proud, shy woman, and is perhaps the only atonement a man
can make for being too handsome. The finished fascination
of his air came chiefly from the absence of demand and
assumption. It was that of a fleet, soft-coated, dark
eyed animal that delights you by not bounding away in in
difference from you, and unexpectedly pillows its chin on
your palm, and looks up at you desiring to be stroked~as
if it loved you.75
72Rm., p. 75, bk. I, ch. VI; p. 225, bk. II, ch. XXIII.
7-W., p. 66, bk. I, ch. VI. Tito is also characteri
zed as Having "that easy, good-humored acquiescence which
was natural to him" (p. 75, bk. I, ch. VI) and as having a
"disposition to please without further motive" (p. 87,
bk. I, ch. VII).
CHAPTER VIII
THE GENERAL MIND
Let us move full circle and return to a discussion of
evolutionary inheritance, this time in the form of the doc
trine of the General Mind in concluding this study of the
evolutionary philosophy of Lewes and George Eliot. After
Darwin*s Origin. we previously noted, Lewes modifies his
stance on the inheritance of acquired characteristics away
from an emphasis on the inheritance of learned individual
characteristics to a general social inheritance. He is
quite clearly not willing to give up the inheritance of ac
quired characteristics, for this would mean giving up belief
in a purposive, humanistic evolutionary process. There is,
accordingly, a turning to inheritance of the shared social
experience by the community or race. The mechanism for the
transmission of this inheritance of acquired tribal or
racial experiences is twofold: (1) the community*s experi
ences are incorporated into the psychical systems of the in
dividual members and are thus available to their descendants
in the form of instincts, that is, in-predetermined neural
adjustments governing the forms of reactions; and (2) the
communal experience is transmitted through tradition, pri
marily through the mediation of language. This in brief is
23b
235
the doctrine of the General Mind, an inheritance of racial
rather than purely individual traits.
Lewes is predisposed toward such a form of social evo
lutionism by his persistent interest in racial types, a not
uncommon nineteenth century preoccupation. Indeed, his
first book, The Spanish Drama, is organized around a theory
of Northern and Southern racial types propounded by Lewes
as a modification of the doctrines of the Schlegels. Lewes
sees the drama of Lope de Vega and Calderon as representa
tive of Southern objectivity versus Northern subjectivity,
exemplified in the introspective drama of Shakespeare. The
distinctions that Lewes sees in national or racial tempera
ments are early thought to be in considerable degree the
result of "climate, soil, temperature," but he later rejects
this rather crude mechanism with the avowal that these make
up only a few of the complex conditions which modify racial
types.^ So, he quotes Charcot: "... la ndvrose
hyst6rique, en Angleterre, difffere assurement de ce qu'elle
est en France, par des traits symptomatiques souvent tres-
accentu^s . . . ," even though the latitudes are compar
able (PLM. IV, 164-165). Still, the process is empirical
if more complex than originally realized in that different
external conditions will create different types, even as
identical conditions will create identical types. This law
^"Mr. Darwin*s Hypotheses," IV, n.s., 6 3.
236
of uniformitarianism accounts, thus, for the existence of
distinct national types.
This doctrine of the General Mind has its most system
atic expression in Lewes' posthumous Vol. IV of Problems of
Life and Mind and, correspondingly, in George Eliot's late
novel Daniel Deronda. but the principal assumptions of the
theory are present in Lewes' earlier works on inheritance
and in The Mill on the Floss The assumption of an orderly
evolutionary dynamic in history thrusting human society in
an upward spiral of social progress, is, of course, a part
of the empirical intellectual heritage of the pre-Darwinian
nineteenth century. Comte's three stages of advancement—
the Theological, the Metaphysical, and the Positivist— are
part of Lewes' mental furniture, and are, indeed, enthusias
tically elucidated in Lewes' early works, his Biographical
History. his Comte, and his Aristotle. The empirical put-
down of the earlier golden ages of mankind exemplified in
Lewes' conviction that Aristotle would be as a child in a
modern laboratory and that the Greeks of the Age of Pericles
were as barbarians to the modern cultivated Englishman in
both moral and intellectual culture parallels George Eliot's
debunking of the romantic illusions about the golden ages of
the past in the section on social evolution in The Mill on
the Floss. The picturesque castle ruins lining the Rhone
belonging to the "grim and drunken" robber barons are iron
ically contrasted with the adjacent crumbling commonplace
237
villages with their "narrow, ugly, groveling existence."
2
"And" she expostulates "that was the day of romance!"
Maggie Tulliver, with an inadequate education is unprepared
to fully benefit from the wisdom of the race in her inevita
ble personal struggles, lacking her full "inherited share in
the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of pain
ful toil have laid up for the race of men . . . ."3 This
truism, that human progress comes through a communal accu
mulation of experiences, is the essential component of Lew
es' doctrine of the General Mind ("General" refers to the
social experiences held in common— the common life). But
the more unique element in Lewes' doctrine is the belief
that the experiences of a racial group are not only trans
mitted by tradition, primarily through language, but by
modifications of the neural structures of that group which
are passed down to descendants as racial instincts. Fur
thermore, it is interesting to note that he had early sin
gled out the "sacred nation" (DE, p. 112) of the Jews as a
jprime example of this process. His interest in them, we
may speculate, probably parallels that of Goethe, who as
Lewes notes, perpetually roamed the Judengasse and the shops
of the "various artizans, in whose shops his curiosity
found perpetual food." The Jewish race's strong traditional
pp. 2 8 4 -2 8 3 , bk. IV, ch. I.
3P. 3 0 2, b k. IV, ch. III.
238
attachments would naturally make them a valuable exemplar of
his theory which emphasizes tradition as the major means of
i
transmitting the accumulated experiences of mankind. He
says of Goethe and his enthusiasm for Jewish traditions and
culture:
The Jews were doubly interesting to him: as social pari
ahs , over whom there" hovered a mingled mystery of terror
and contempt; and as descendants of the Chosen People, who
preserved the language, the opinions, and many of the cus
toms of the old biblical race. He was impressed by their
adherence to old customs; by their steadfastness and
courageous activity; by their strange features and ac
cents; by their bright cleverness and good nature. The
pretty Jewish maidens, also, smiled agreeably upon him.
He began to mingle with them; managed to get permission to
attend some of their ceremonies; and attended their
schools. As to artizans, he was all his life curious
about their handicrafts, and fond of being admitted into
their family circles. ILG. p. 29)
This sort of enthusiasm is obviously shared by Lewes and
George Eliot and is transmuted by her into the descriptions
of Daniel Deronda's similar affinity for Jewish culture,
artisans, and family life.**-
The second major transmission device of the General
Mind is hereditary racial modification. Indeed, his state
ment of this doctrine in his essay "Hereditary Influence,"
drawing in part on the authority of Herbert Spencer, could
almost serve as a prdcis for Daniel Deronda:
^The Life of Goethe was of course the product of those
months in Germany marking the beginning of Lewes* and George
Eliot*s permanent relationship. We can speculate that she
shared his researches into this part of Goethe's life since
she had not yet embarked on her own fictional career.
239
"Heredity transmission," says Mr. Spencer, "displayed
alike in all the plants we cultivate, in all the animals
we breed, and in the human race, applies not only to phy
sical but to psychical peculiarities. It is not simply
that a modified form of constitution, produced by new
habits of life, is bequeathed to future generations; but
it is, that the modified nervous tendencies produced by
such new habits of life are also bequeathed; and if the
new habits of life become permanent, the tendencies be
come permanent." As a consequence of this inheritance we
have what is called National Character. The Jew, whether
in Poland, in Vienna, in London, or in Paris, never alto
gether merges his original peculiarities in that of the
people among whom he dwells. He can only do this by in
termarriage, which would be a mingling of his transmitted
organization with that of the transmitted organization of
another race. This is the mystery of what is called the
permanence of races." The Mosaic Arab preserves all the
features and morbid peculiarities of his race, simply be
cause he is a descendant of that race, and not a descen
dant of the race in whose cities he dwells. That the Jew
should preserve his Judaic character while living among
Austrians or English, is little more remarkable than that
the Englishman should preserve his Anglo-Saxon type while
living among oxen and sheep ... .5
This doctrine of physiological racial interitance is suc
cinctly summarized by Lewes in his Problems of Life and
Mind;
No physiologist will deny that the organism has an inheri
ted structure which causes it to react in particular ways,
and that this structure has been determined by ancestral
modifications; that is to say, ancestral modes of reaction
help to fashion the individual modes of reaction, and the
stored-up wealth of collective experience enriches the ex
perience of succeeding generations. (IV, 173)
Now let us turn to George Eliot*s expression of the
doctrine in the rhapsodic words of Daniel Deronda, address
ing the Jewish scholar Mordecai after Daniel learns of his
Jewish heritage, which, though unsuspected, had exercised an
^"Hereditary Influence," pp. 89-90.
240
almost mystical influence upon him:
It is through your inspiration that I have discerned what
may be my life*s task. It is you who have given shape to
what, I believe, was an inherited yearning— the effect of
brooding, passionate thoughts in many ancestors— thoughts
that seem to have been intensely present in my grandfa
ther. Suppose the stolen offspring of some mountain tribe
brought up in a city of the plain, or one with an inheri
ted genius for painting, and born blind— the ancestral
life would lie within them as a dim longing for unknown
objects and sensations and the spellbound habit of their
inherited frames would be like a cunningly wrought musical
instrument, never played on, but quivering throughout in
uneasy mysterious moanings of intricate structure that,
under the right touch, gives music. Something like that,
I think, has been my experience.
In addition to "the effects prepared by generations"'— the
inheritance of acquired racial characteristics— we note here
the characteristic Lewes-Eliot comparison of musical harmony
with the operations of the ideal psychical life.
In all this there is the implicit foundation of monis
tic organicism and also the omnipresent mechanism for pur
posive evolution, the Goethian formula. The evolutionary
formula is represented, for instance, in the words of Daniel
Deronda*s grandfather quoted to Daniel by his grandfather*s
best friend Kalonymes:
"What he used to insist on was that the strength and
wealth of mankind depended on the balance of separateness
and communication, and he was bitterly against our people
losing themselves among the Gentiles; *It*s no better,*
said he, *than the many sorts of grain being back from
their variety into sameness.'"8
6DD, p. 755, bk. VIII, ch. LXIII.
7P. 6 6 7 , bk. VII, ch. LIII.
8P. 7 2 7 , bk. V I I I , ch. LX.
241
Here is expressed the belief that even as the evolutionary
dynamic moves civilization forward to greater organic har
mony, there is a greater diversification and differentiation
in the individual units making up this organic harmony.
This movement in society parallels the diversifications and
divisions of labor in biological evolution where the one-
cellular organism is succeeded by ever more complex forms,
with more diversified cooperating organs performing the
functions which were performed formerly but with less ef
ficiency by the original general, undifferentiated simple
organism. In social evolution as in biological evolution
there is an ever increasing unity within an ever-growing
diversity. So "going back from . . . variety into same
ness" or from differentiation and complexity to the general
and undifferentiated is a reversal of evolutionary progress-
ivism.
The experience of the race is at the service of the
individual member of that race. Thus, as Lewes remarks:
Human knowledge is pre-eminently distinguished from Animal
Knowledge by this collective experience. I have never in
my own person experienced the effects of a poison, but
I have made the experience of others my own, have taken
it up into my system of knowledge, and I act upon it with
confidence. I have never seen the Ganges, nor measured
the earth*s diameter; but these enter into my world of
experience, and regulate my conduct, with the same cer
tainty as my direct experience of the Trent or the acreage
of my property. What I have directly experienced by sen
sible contact forms but a small part of my mental wealth;
and even that part has been largely determined by the
experience of others. (PLM. IV, 1b6)
Similarly, Mordecai argues that through the communal
2^2
experience of mankind, "in a brief day the soul of man may
know in fuller volume the good which has been and, nay, is
to come, than all he could possess in a whole life where he
q
had to follow the creeping paths of the senses."^
But this communal experience despite all the empirical
trappings has something of the rhapsodic nature worship in
it characteristic of the early pre-Darwinian Lewes and of
Adam Bede, This is the authentic voice of George Henry Lew
es and of George Eliot reasserting itself in a new form but
|
|with the same tone of lyrical, mystical reverence for the
"temple of life" found in the early works of these authors.
It is a return to the unalloyed monistic organism (this time
applied to the development of the human race) seen in Sea-
Side Studies where Lewes could assert with fervent piety
that not even an infusory animalcule could "be annhilated
without altering the equilibrium of the universe," and
that— in Goethe's words— ,
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle, (p. 360)
So Lewes can assert of human society:
Men living always in groups co-operate like the organs in
an organism. Their actions have a common impulse and a
common end. Their desires and opinions bear the common
stamp of an impersonal direction. Much of their life is
common to all. The roads, market-places and temples, are
for each and all. The experiences, the dogmas, and the
doctrines are for each and all. Customs arise, and are
9DD, pp. 7 3 8 -7 3 9 , b k. VIII, ch. LXI.
243
formulated in laws, the restraint of all. (PLM. IV, 164)
George Eliot goes even further in the voice of Mordecai Lap-
idoth in the expression of the unity and purposeful harmony
of the evolutionary development of human society— in the.
expression of a worshipful religious humanism:
"Seest thou, Mirah," he said once, after a long si
lence, "the Shemah, wherein we briefly confess the divine
Unity, is the chief devotional exercise of the Hebrew;
and this made our religion the fundamental religion for
the whole world; for the divine Unity embraced as its
consequence the ultimate unity of mankind. See, then—
the nation which has been scoffed at for its separateness,
has given a binding theory to the human race. No, in com-
! plete unity a part possesses the whole as the whole pos
sesses every part: and in this way human life is tending
toward the image of the Supreme Unity . . . ."10
10DD, pp. 7 3 8 -7 3 9 , bk. V I I I , ch. L X I.
BIBL IOG R A P H Y
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources
George Eliot
The Works of George Eliot. 20 vols. Boston, 1900.
The George Eliot Letters, ed. Gordon S. Haight. 7 vols.
New Haven, i95*f.
George Henry Lewes
i
j
Aristotle: A Chapter in the History of Science. London,
TJSTl ”
Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences. London, 1853.
Dramatic Essays. John Forster. George Henry Lewes, eds.
William Archer and Robert W. Lowe^ London. 1896.
(Reprints Lewes’ essays from the Leader. 1850-185*f.)
"Heredity Influence, Animal and Human," Westminster Review.
LXVI (July, 1856), 75-90.
The History of Philosophy from Thales to Comte. 2 vols.
London, 18d>7.
The Life of Goethe. New York, 1965.
! The Life of Miximilien Robespierre with Extracts from His
j Unpublished Correspondence. London, 1849.
"Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses," Fortnightly Review. XVI, n.s.
(April 1 , 1868), 353-37T.
On Actors and the Art of Acting. New York, 1957.
The Physiology of Common Life. 2 vols. Leipzig, i860.
The Principles of Success in Literature, ed. Fred N. Scott.
Boston, 189*f.
2^5
246
Problems of Life and Mind. 5 vols. London, 1874-1879.
First Series: foundations of a Creed. 2 vols. 1874-
1875; Second Series: The Physical Basis of Mind.
1877; Third Series: The Study of Psychology. 1879.
Mind as a Function of the Organism. 1879.
Ranthorpe. London, 1847.
Rose. Blanche, and Violet. London, 1848.
Sea-Side Studies at Ilfracombe. Tency. the Scilly Isles, and
Jersey. Edinburgh, 1858.
The Spanish Drama. Lone de Vega and Calderdn. London, 1846.
"Spiritualism and Materialism," The Fortnightly Review. XIX,
n.s. (April 1, 1875), 479-493, 707-719.
Secondary Sources
Barzun, Jacque. Darwin. Marx. Wagner. Garden City, 1958.
Bate, Walter Jackson. From Classic to Romantic. New York,
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Espinasse, Francis. Literary Recollections and Sketches.
New York, 1893.
Gerin, Winifred. Charlotte Bronte. Oxford, 1969.
Harvey, S. J. The Art of George Eliot. London, 1963.
Huxley, Julian. Evolution the Modern Synthesis. London,
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jHuxley, Thomas Henry. "On the Physical Basis of Life,"
j Prose of the Victorian Period. Cambridge, 1958.
Kaminsky, Alice R. George Henry Lewes as Literary Critic.
Syracuse, 1968.
Koestler, Arthur. Act of Creation. New York, 1964.
Mill, John Stuart. "Utilitarianism," The Utilitarians.
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Paris, Bernard J. Experiments in Life. Detroit, 1965.
Spencer, Herbert. First Principles. New York, 1880.
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George Henry Lewes' Evolutionism In The Fiction Of George Eliot
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