Skip to content

Zoonomia

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

a placeholder for Zoonomia

Zoonomia

some material from Wikipedia's Erasmus Darwin entry

Erasmus Darwin (December 12, 1731 - April 18, 1802) trained as a physician and wrote extensively on medicine and botany, as well as poetry. Living in Birmingham and Lichfield, England. He was one of the founder members of the Lunar Society. His Zoonomia (1794-6) is widely considered to foreshadow the pre-Darwinian theories of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, and maybe even the theory of evolution formulated by his grandson Charles Darwin. Another of his grandsons was Francis Galton. His experiments in galvanism inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein.

George Bernard Shaw, in the preface to Back to Methuselah (Collected Plays With Prefaces, (New York, 1960) II, xxi), describes Erasmus Darwin as one of the originators of evolutionary theory, and quotes an excerpt from the following passage[1]: " … The late Mr. David Hume, in his posthumous works, places the powers of generation much above those of our boasted reason; and adds, that reason can only make a machine, as a clock or a ship, but the power of generation makes the maker of the machine; and probably from having observed, that the greatest part of the earth had been formed out of organic recrements; as the immense beds of limestone, chalk, marble, from the shells of fish; and the extensive provinces of clay, sandstone, ironstone, coals from decomposed vegetables; all of which have been first produced by generation, or by the secretions of organic life; he concludes, that the world itself might have been generated, rather than created; that is, it might have been gradually produced from very small beginnings, increasing by the activity of its inherent principles, rather than by a sudden of evolution of the whole by the Almighty fiat.--What a magnificent idea of the infiinite power of THE GREAT ARCHITECT! THE CAUSE OF CAUSES! PARENT OF PARENTS! ENS ENTIUM!

For if we may compare infinities, it would seem to require a greater infinity of power to cause the causes of effects, than to cause the effects themselves. This idea is analogous to to the improving excellence observable in every part of the creation; such as in the prgressive increase of the solid or habitable parts of the earth from water; and in the progressive increase of the wisdom and happiness of its inhabitants; and is consonant to the idea of our present siutation being a state of probation, which by our exertion we may improve, and are consequently responsible for our actions. [Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, vol. 1 (London: 1794) 509.] …"

Darwin first proposes that reason is inferior to generation. The reasoning being that generation produces the cause of the effect rather than the effect. Generations are linked in series. "The great architect," is reminiscent of William Blake's frontispiece to Europe, which shows Urizen laying out the world with a compass. It also encompasses that view of deity as a designer that was present in Newton. The "cause of causes" harkens back to the Aristotelian/Thomistic definition of God as the prime mover who sets all things in motion. Darwin then implicitly postulates that the direct creation of life is one infinity, and the capacity to cause the generation of life is another infinity.