Synthesizing Puritan, Transcendentalist, and Darwinian Ideas in American Public Beliefs in the Last Third of the 19th c

Впливова течія в американській суспільній думці цього періоду намагалася інтерпретувати дарвінівські боротьбу за існування та природний відбір як підтвердження знайомих пуританських уявлень про те, що “лише небагатьом вибраним душам судилося врятуватися, а решта заслуговує на свою долю”. Дарвінізм, таким чином, легко перетворювався на “кальвінізм з науковим обличчям”, на мало не релігійне віддзеркалення доби, яка, на жаль, все більше оперувала утилітарними цінностями. Цей елемент соціального еволюціонізма і взяли на озброєння американські мислителі останньої третини ХІХ ст. з тим, щоб побудувати на його ґрунті нову доктрину національної самосвідомості..

Значний вплив на американську філософську та історичну прозу цього періоду справила школа еволюційної думки, пов’язана з іменем Герберта Спенсера, який поширював дарвінівське вчення про еволюцію на суспільство, і насамперед, через те, що вона перегукувалася з певними елементами в національних традиціях.... Спенсера, як і американців, що, як і раніш, сприймали себе як богообраний народ, відзначало потаємне бажання об’єднати та примирити науку і релігію...

Спенсер, по суті, запропонував нову природну релігію, альтернативу ортодоксальному християнству...Спенсерові принципи “свободи і різноманіття” постали науковим підгрунтям індивідуалізму і економіки laissez-faire, трактованих як прогресивні завоювання, що невдовзі перетягнуло на бік еволюціонізму левову частку американських підприємців, економістів і соціологів. Спенсер, якому, власне, і належить надзвичайно популярна фраза “виживає найпристосованіший”, що хутко перетворилася на “виживання найсильнішого”, стверджував, що природний відбір діє лише у примітивних суспільствах і на ранніх стадіях суспільного розвитку. Цей етап буде незабаром подоланий в Америці, якій він передрікав велике майбутнє вінця цивілізації, вважаючи її демократичне правління найвищою формою державного устрою. Більше того, боротьбу Спенсер зображував на як боротьбу людину з людиною, а радше як зіткнення індивідів з умовами “середовища”, жертви котрого виправдовувалися майбутнім розквітом цивілізації.

(М.Тлостанова, “Историческая, философская и социальная проза //История литературы США. Литература последней трети ХIХ в. Т.4, М., 2003, с.805-807)

The concept of “the survival of the fittest” at the individual psycho-biological level

[later modifications of the “strong man”/ macho line will reverberate in Ernest Hemingway’s characters and in Hollywood action films]

Jack London (1876-1916), Love of Life (1905)

Then began as grim a tragedy of existence as was ever played -- a sick man that crawled, a sick wolf that limped, two creatures dragging their dying carcasses across the desolation and hunting each other's lives.

Had it been a well wolf, it would not have mattered so much to the man; but the thought of going to feed the maw of that loathsome and all but dead thing was repugnant to him. He was finicky. His mind had begun to wander again, and to be perplexed by hallucinations, while his lucid intervals grew rarer and shorter.

He was awakened once from a faint by a wheeze close in his ear. The wolf leaped lamely back, losing its footing and falling in its weakness. It was ludicrous, but he was not amused. Nor was he even afraid. He was too far gone for that. But his mind was for the moment clear, and he lay and considered. The ship was no more than four miles away. He could see it quite distinctly when he rubbed the mists out of his eyes, and he could see the white sail of a small boat cutting the water of the shining sea. But he could never crawl those four miles. He knew that, and was very calm in the knowledge. He knew that he could not crawl half a mile. And yet he wanted to live. It was unreasonable that he should die after all he had undergone. Fate asked too much of him. And, dying, he declined to die. It was stark madness, perhaps, but in the very grip of Death he defied Death and refused to die.

He closed his eyes and composed himself with infinite precaution. He steeled himself to keep above the suffocating languor that lapped like a rising tide through all the wells of his being. It was very like a sea, this deadly languor, that rose and rose and drowned his consciousness bit by bit. Sometimes he was all but submerged, swimming through oblivion with a faltering stroke; and again, by some strange alchemy of soul, he would find another shred of will and strike out more strongly.

Without movement he lay on his back, and he could hear, slowly drawing near and nearer, the wheezing intake and output of the sick wolf's breath. It drew closer, ever closer, through an infinitude of time, and he did not move. It was at his ear. The harsh dry tongue grated like sandpaper against his cheek. His hands shot out -- or at least he willed them to shoot out. The fingers were curved like talons, but they closed on empty air. Swiftness and certitude require strength, and the man had not this strength.

The patience of the wolf was terrible. The man's patience was no less terrible. For half a day he lay motionless, fighting off unconsciousness and waiting for the thing that was to feed upon him and upon which he wished to feed. Sometimes the languid sea rose over him and he dreamed long dreams; but ever through it all, waking and dreaming, he waited for the wheezing breath and the harsh caress of the tongue.

He did not hear the breath, and he slipped slowly from some dream to the feel of the tongue along his hand. He waited. The fangs pressed softly; the pressure increased; the wolf was exerting its last strength in an effort to sink teeth in the food for which it had waited so long. But the man had waited long, and the lacerated hand closed on the jaw. Slowly, while the wolf struggled feebly and the hand clutched feebly, the other hand crept across to a grip. Five minutes later the whole weight of the man's body was on top of the wolf. The hands had not sufficient strength to choke the wolf, but the face of the man was pressed close to the throat of the wolf and the mouth of the man was full of hair. At the end of half an hour the man was aware of a warm trickle in his throat. It was not pleasant. It was like molten lead being forced into his stomach, and it was forced by his will alone. Later the man rolled over on his back and slept.

There were some members of a scientific expedition on the whale-ship Bedford. From the deck they remarked a strange object on the shore. It was moving down the beach toward the water. They were unable to classify it, and, being scientific men, they climbed into the whale-boat alongside and went ashore to see. And they saw something that was alive but which could hardly be called a man. It was blind, unconscious. It squirmed along the ground like some monstrous worm. Most of its efforts were ineffectual, but it was persistent, and it writhed and twisted and went ahead perhaps a score of feet an hour

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