“The Esthetic Instinct in Action”: Charles Darwin and Mental Science in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Abstract

Many critics have investigated Joyce's use of classical, medieval, philosophical, and literary sources in creating Stephen's theory of aesthetics in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.1 What is missing is a consideration of the theories of art and beauty articulated by contemporary scientists. No one has yet pursued the clue offered when Stephen refers to On the Origin of Species in his discussion with Lynch about aesthetics (P 209).2 It may surprise some to discover that scientists such as Charles Darwin actually thought about and worked to create theories of beauty, but, in fact, at least two mental scientists of the period theorized beauty and art, linking the aesthetics of Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and others to contemporary understandings of biology and physiology.3 Given that Joyce's method of composition was very like T. S. Eliot's, the imaginative absorption of stray material (JJII 250), it is not, then, surprising to discover that Joyce used these to create a scientifically plausible conception of universal beauty and the evolution of genre in art. The three texts relevant to this study are The Descent of Man by Darwin, Mental and Moral by Alexander Bain (1818-1903), and Physiological Aesthetics by Grant Allen (1848-1899). Bain, the founder of the prestigious journal Mind in 1876, was a prominent philosopher and psychologist. Described on its title page as A Text-Book For HighSchools and Colleges, his publication was the kind that Stephen and his peers would have studied at University College, Dublin, under the guidance of their young professor of mental science (P 192). In fact, in Stephen Hero, O'Neill works towards a degree in Mental and Moral Science (SH 106). Bain's text was, no doubt, particularly