Bárbara Jiménez

Es recurrente la tendencia a considerar a Alexander von Humboldt como autor ro-mántico-naturalista, dada la combinación del método científico de análisis empírico de la naturaleza con su visión estético-subjetiva que posee ciertos rasgos “románticos”. Un estudio del léxico empleado por Humboldt en las descripciones de la naturaleza revela, sin embargo, el predominio del lenguaje estrictamente científico e intersubjeti-vo sobre el subjetivo. La presencia de rasgos semánticos “románticos” no es, empero, meramente ornamental, sino que cumple una función estética que, en la percepción humboldtiana de la naturaleza, es un complemento subjetivo indispensable dentro de su imagen holística del mundo.

This body of work is motivated by an apparent contradiction between, on the one hand, Darwin’s testimony in his autobiographical text about a supposed perceptual colour blindness before the aesthetic magnificence of natural landscapes, and, on the other hand, the last paragraph of On the Origin of Species, where he claims to perceive the forms of nature as beautiful and wonderful. My aim is to delve into the essence of the Darwinian perception of beauty in the context of the Weberian concept of “disenchantment of the world”, assumed as a possible conceptual axis that enables the unravelling of the core of this contrast of perceptions. In acknowledging the theory of evolution as one of the most prominent scientific theories likely to have contributed to disenchantment, a number of questions arise: Is disenchantment compatible with aesthetic experience and sensibility before natural beauty? Was it Darwin’s disenchanted conception of the world that led him to believe he was colour blind? To answer these questions, a computer-assisted semantic analysis of lexical frequency and variability, most especially focused on aesthetic-emotional and religious or spiritual adverbs and adjectives, has been undertaken across the six editions of The Origin. The semantic analysis demonstrates that, although disenchanted, Darwin’s descriptions of, mainly, the adaptational excellence of living beings, reflect an aesthetically enriched perception of nature. It is concluded that Darwin’s perceptual colour blindness, then, might be based on a confusion rooted in the equation of equality between aesthetic sensibility in nature and the perception of its beauty as part of the vestigia Dei.

It is not hard to see how two visions of nature are intertwined in Darwin’s Journal of Researches: one vision, the province of romantic authors depicting the sentiments awakened by certain landscapes, the other, the domain of natural scientists describing the world without reference to the aesthetic qualities of the scenery. Nevertheless, analyses of this double perspective in Darwin’s work are relatively rare. Most scholars focus on Darwin, the scientist, and more or less ignore the aesthetic aspects of his work. Perceiving the gradual transformation of Darwin’s world view, however, depends on analyzing the two different modes in which Darwin approached and perceived the world. While one can, on occasion, find commentaries on the beauty of the natural world in Darwin’s early work, the passage of time produces a modification in the naturalist’s manner of perceiving nature. This does not, however, mean that Darwin ceases to find beauty in nature; on the contrary, the disenchantment, in Max Weber’s words, that Darwin’s theory produces should not be understood in a pejorative, but rather in a literal sense. The theory of evolution, in effect, divests nature of its magical character and begins to explain it in terms of natural selection, according it, in the process a new and more intense attraction. In the present work, the metaphysical implications of this new vision of the world are analyzed through the eyes of its discoverer.

The aesthetically optimistic view of life in the last paragraph of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species contrasts with the evidence in his autobiography of a supposed perceptive colour blindness to the magnificence of nature. Accepting the theory of evolution as one of the scientific theories that has contributed to disenchantment, my aim is to delve into the Darwinian perception of natural beauty and solve this contrast of perceptions within the framework of the Weberian concept of “disenchantment of the world.” To do this, I have carried out a computer-assisted study of Darwin’s language focusing on the frequency of aesthetic-emotional and religious adjectives and adverbs in the six editions of the Origin. A semantic analysis of the lexicon shows that, although disenchanted, Darwin perceives nature as aesthetically enhanced. I arrive at the conclusion that Darwin’s alleged colour blindness does not come from a loss of his capacity to aesthetically perceive nature, but from his loss of religious belief.

Este artículo rastrea los orígenes del choque de ideas que vertebra el debate que Michael Ruse y Robert J. Richards llevan a cabo en Debating Darwin. En esta obra, los autores discuten sobre el contexto sociocultural que alimentó la teoría de la evolución de Charles Darwin para reconocer las similitudes conceptuales que comparte con dicotomías clásicas sobre las formas humanística o científica de percibir e interpretar el mundo. El objetivo de este artículo es, pues, reflexionar, a la luz de las tesis del desencantamiento del mundo y de la incidencia del conocimiento científico en las imágenes del mundo, sobre la raíz de la que brota el malestar cultural que fundamenta estas formas duales de percepción y descripción del mundo en la historia de las ideas: la supuesta incapacidad de la concepción científica del mundo para satisfacer impulsos estético-existenciales básicos de la naturaleza humana.

Teniendo en cuenta la cuestión en disputa sobre el encantamiento o el desencantamiento del mundo causado por la ciencia moderna, este artículo examina comparativamente la semántica del léxico en Journal of Researches y The Origin of Species de Charles Darwin utilizando estrategias de minería de textos. El objetivo es mostrar que existe un camino semántico directo, comenzando en Journal y culminando en Origin, que confirma una tendencia hacia un tipo de lenguaje desencantado empleado por Darwin en sus descripciones de la naturaleza. Esto queda demostrado por el análisis léxico y semántico de ambos textos. Taking into accountthe disputed question about enchantment or disenchantment of the world caused by modern science, this paper comparatively examines the semantics of the lexicon of Charles Darwin’s Journal of Researches and The Origin of Species using the software package Wordsmith Tools. Its aim is to show that there is a direct semantic path, starting with the Journaland culminating in the Origin, which confirms a tendency towards a gradually disenchanting, in a non-pejorative sense, type of language used by Darwin in his descriptions of nature. This is demonstrated by the lexical and semantic analysis of the texts.

Given the scientific, socio-cultural, philosophical, and anthropological implications of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, it should be within reach of every motivated reader to discover its theoretical intricacies by reading the original source, On the Origin of Species. That said, many students, researchers, or interested readers in general admit that the dense prose and complex explanations have led them to abandon their reading of it. Therefore, in this chapter, I propose a linguistic remedy, through semantic analysis of some of the most emphatically expressive parts of the work, to avoid renouncing its reading in a fit of desperation. To do this, I analyze exclamatory passages from the Origin that denote scientific-aesthetic emotions, especially Darwin’s admiration, passion, and respect for nature and the study of it. My aim is to awaken in the reader a similar interest by paying detailed attention to Darwin’s sensibility and expressiveness throughout these passages. The desired result would be for the reader to empathize with the author and his enthusiasm for transmitting the grandeur that characterizes the view of life explained throughout the Origin and, therefore, to wish to go on reading it, despite the cognitive fatigue Darwin’s arguments might sometimes cause.