Life: A Modern Invention by Davide Tarizzo

Author:Davide Tarizzo
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2017-11-27T08:23:43+00:00

a region of purer light, and whose wide-spreading branches, twigs,

sprays, and leaflets, infinitely diversified, manifest the energy of the

life within.” In this passage from 1828 (cited by Sloan 1992, 36), one

should not only emphasize the idea of the tree of life, or the refer-

ence to “the energy of the life within,” but also and above all the idea

of an “infinite” diversification of life/nature. For it is precisely this

idea, detaching an infinite force of life from the finitude of the liv-

ing, that then became crucial for Darwin. This is the idea that Dar-

win, for example, surreptitiously introduces in his reading of Müller,

where he notices that the latter speaks of the “propagation of infinite

numbers of individuals from one.” As a matter of fact, in Müller’s

paper, the word “infinite” does not appear. And for many reasons,

previously discussed, it could not appear. Müller just remarks, while probably scratching his head, that life (or vitality) is a quantity, to be sure, but the exact measure of this quantity escapes us, and so does

the secret of life. Since, quite literally, things don’t add up in nature.

3.3.8. All of this illustrates, at least partially, the deep embarrassment of the naturalists of the period, and perhaps explains why Darwin

now and again began to leaf through essays by authors who were

certainly not among his favorites. One of these essays is On the King-

doms of Nature by Carl Gustav Carus, a pupil of Schelling, published in the Scientific Memoirs of 1837. Darwin’s notes about it are few

but curious. He is particularly struck by one idea: life conceived as

a “unity through multiplicity.” It is the idea of a life autonomous

from living forms, which Carus had inherited from Schelling. “After

reading ‘Carus on the Kingdoms of Nature, their life & affinity’ in

Scientific Memoirs I can see that perfection may be talked of with respect to life generally.—where [‘]unity constantly develops multiplicity[’] (his definition “constant manifestation of unity through

126 LIFE

multiplicity” this unity,—this distinctness of laws from rest of) uni-

verse «which Carus considers big animal» becomes more developed

in higher animals than in vegetables” (Darwin 1987, 269–70). These

notes are confused, as are many contained in the notebooks, but

one can still derive a couple of reflections from them. The first is

that Darwin is struck by the counterposition of the unity of life and

the multiplicity of forms in which life is expressed or “manifests”

itself. The second is that Darwin now seems to understand that one

can speak of the “perfection” of life without considering its various

embodiments. Said in a slightly different way, Carus makes him see

that life perfects itself as life, according to its own laws, according

to the laws of life that should be distinguished from the remaining

laws of the universe. This idea did not originate with Carus, as we

already know. But what matters most is Darwin’s enthusiasm: “Good

idea, to show life only laws. like universe.” Good idea. But what was it exactly? Carus’s text, which Darwin underlines and glosses, reads

as follows: “As it follows from the foregoing observations that life is

not a single isolated reality, we shall be obliged

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