Loren Eiseley's Substitution

Bart Kahr

doi:10.36253/substantia-1040

Abstract

The anthropologist and acclaimed essayist, Loren Eiseley, in the midst of recounting a vision in the conclusion of a draft of a 1960 composition, “Creativity and Modern Science,” invoked Charles Darwin as the essay’s animating spirit. Eiseley modified his draft the next year and published it in no less than three of his subsequent books. The most striking differences between his draft and published texts is the substitution of Darwin in the final moments of the narrative with Francis Bacon, a barrister and philosopher who died nearly two centuries before the famous biologist was born. Here, is crafted a rationale for this unlikely switch, to the extent that the intent of another can be uncovered, by closely reading Eiseley’s psychologically charged work. Eiseley’s own struggles as both a scientist and an artist, identities respectively epitomized by Darwin and Bacon, reveal how and why the writer permitted his foremost heroes to be substituted, one for the other.

Highlights

EISELEY AND RACHEL CARSON “If the world were lit solely by lightning flashes how much more we would see?” is the leading question in an 11-page typewritten essay called “Creativity and Modern Science” by Loren Eiseley (1907-1977) dated 19 September 1960
Christianson’s comprehensive biography is especially recommended,[8] as is Eiseley’s autobiography.[19]
Eiseley is slipping between a defense of Bacon and of himself, a writer of great powers “incapable of writing a dull or inelegant sentence.”[43]. In CMS, Eiseley recounted a visit by a serious young scientist who, “With utter and devastating confidence...had paid me a call in order to correct my deviations,” following the publication of The Immense Journey,4 “and to lead me back to the proper road of scholarship

Summary

INTRODUCTION

EISELEY AND RACHEL CARSON “If the world were lit solely by lightning flashes how much more we would see?” is the leading question in an 11-page typewritten essay called “Creativity and Modern Science” (hereafter CMS) by Loren Eiseley Eiseley searched for artifacts of ice-age humans, an occupation that strengthened his interest in the developing field of anthropology, the subject in which he earned a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. All the while, he wrote poetry and short stories. Eiseley became an assistant professor at the University of Kansas, moved to Oberlin College as department chair, and returned to the University of Pennsylvania When he wrote CMS, he was provost at Penn, an administrative position to which he, his friends, and his colleagues thought him ill-suited.[8]. He has been the subject of several biographies,[8,13,14,15] and volumes of critical analysis.[16,17,18] Christianson’s comprehensive biography is especially recommended,[8] as is Eiseley’s autobiography.[19]

DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION