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Whitehead's Philosophy of Science in the Light of Wordsworth's Poetry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2022
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Admirers of Whitehead who know him best have suggested that Wordsworth had possibly a greater influence upon him than anyone except Plato. Nowhere apparently has Whitehead admitted such an influence, as he has that of Plato and Locke and that of William James, Bergson, and Alexander among traditional and contemporary philosophers But he had a predilection for poetry, and attributes to the great poets philosophical importance. They capture uniquely, he says, “a fragrance of experience”; and “… express deep intuitions of mankind penetrating into what is universal in concrete fact.” As observers of nature both Wordsworth and Whitehead ascribed to animate and inanimate life a degree of feeling or satisfaction in the course of being and becoming. Like the poet, Whitehead must have found “joy in widest commonalty spread.” The multiplication table, he noted at one time, “… is no good to the realist. It shuts him up with Plato's ideas out of space and out of time” when “… like Wordsworth and the rest of us he wants to hear the throstle sing.”
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- Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1956
References
1 V. Lowe, “The Philosophy of Whitehead,” Antioch Review (Summer, 1948) and “Whitehead's Philosophical Development,” The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, ed. P. A. Schilpp (Chicago, sec. ed., 1951), 118.
2 Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead as recorded by L. Price (Boston, 1954), 195, 369; Science and the Modern World (New York, 7th reprinting, 1931), 126.
3 “The Recluse.” Passage from conclusion used as Preface of 1914 ed. of Excursion.
4 “The Philosophical Aspects of the Principle of Relativity,” Proceedings of Aristotelian Society, New Series, XXII (London, 1922), 216.
5 Information given by Miss Jessie Whitehead, November, 1953.
6 See Lowe, op. cit., ed. Schilpp, 98; A. N. Whitehead, Religion in the Making (New York, 1926), 90–93; and Charles Hartshorne, “Whitehead's Idea of God,” in Schilpp, op. cit., 526, 527.
7 Process and Reality (New York, 1929), 408.
8 Ibid., 224; Cf. Science and the Modern World, 228 e.s.
9 Process and Reality, 113.
10 Adventures of Ideas (New York, 1933), 226.
11 Process and Reality, 374; Cf. also Science and the Modern World, 136, 257.
12 Process and Reality, 130.
13 The Prelude, XIV, 1.70 and 1.112. “Such minds are truly from the Deity.” As Whitehead's family believe he never saw Selincourt's work on the manuscripts of The Prelude quotations are taken from the 1850 version.
14 “The Recluse,” passage already cited, 11.69-72.
15 This is the substance of a remark made to Professor Victor Lowe and kindly reported to me.
16 Process and Reality, 317–326, Part II, Chapter X.
17 Adventures of Ideas, 227.
18 See S. G. Dunn, “A Note on Wordsworth's Metaphysical System,” English Association Essays and Studies, XVIII (Oxford, 1932), 75, 76. See also S. T. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Chapter IX.
19 Adventures of Ideas, 231, 232.
20 The Prelude, XIII, ll.291-294. See Whitehead's comment on Wordsworth's theme: “nature in solido,” Science and the Modern World, 121, 122.
21 The Prelude, II, ll.324-327.
22 Process and Reality, 222.
23 Ibid., 133.
24 Ibid., 28.
25 “Nature's Education of Man—Some Remarks on the Philosophy of Wordsworth,” Philosophy, XXIII (London, 1948), 303. See Excursion, IV, l.1143.
26 Process and Reality, 353.
27 Ibid., 124.
28 Ibid., 92.
29 The Prelude, III, l.144.
30 Ibid., ll.136-141.
31 Process and Reality, 179–192. Part II, Chap. IV, Sections V-IX. Cf. Adventures of Ideas, Chap. XIV.
32 The Prelude, VI, ll.221-223.
33 Space, Time, and Deity, I (London, 1927), 106.
34 The Spirit of St. Louis (New York, 1953), 228, 292.
35 The Prelude, I, ll.452-460.
36 Process and Reality, 258.
37 The Prelude, ll.605-607.
38 Ibid., 1.587.
39 Ibid., I, ll.599-609.
40 Process and Reality, 255–279. Part II, Chap. VIII. Cf. his discussion of appearance and reality in Adventures of Ideas, 344, 348.
41 The Prelude, VI, ll.624-640.
42 See R. W. Sellars on substance and W. E. Hocking on mind in Schilpp, op. cit., 429, 400.
43 Process and Reality, 49. Cf. Adventures of Ideas, 270.
44 Process and Reality, 423. Cf. Adventures of Ideas, 272.
45 The Prelude, II, ll.255-258.
46 Adventures of Ideas, 154.
47 The Prelude, XIII, ll.1-10.
48 Process and Reality, 343. Cf. Science and the Modern World, 257.
49 Lines 323–332.
50 The Prelude, XIII, ll.375, 376.
51 Ibid., ll.226, 227.
52 Ibid., ll.340-344.
53 Adventures of Ideas, 240, 241.
54 Religion in the Making, 90.
55 Process and Reality, 40, 381, 410.
56 Professor Clarke notes that “Wordsworth believed in the creative principle in all things—the power which creates unity out of a given multiplicity,” op. cit., Philosophy, 1948, 304.
57 Process and Reality, 423.
58 Ibid., 320. Cf. Adventures of Ideas, 272.
59 Lines 287–305.
60 Process and Reality, 326.
61 The Prelude, XII, ll.317-326. See here also an example of Wordsworth's theme as noted by Whitehead: “nature in solido.”
62 The Prelude, XIII, ll.150, 151.
63 See B. Morris, “The Art Process and the Aesthetic Fact in Whitehead's Philosophy,” Schilpp, op. cit., 463–486.
64 See Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1800.
65 Religion in the Making, 105.
66 Morris, op. cit., 465; Adventures of Ideas, 324.
67 S. C. Pepper, Aesthetic Quality (N. Y., 1937), 11, 32.
68 N. P. Stallknecht, “Nature and Imagination in Wordsworth's Meditation upon Mt. Snowdon,” PMLA, Vol. 52 B (N. Y., 1937), 838.
69 Lines 81–86.
70 Lines 67–69.
71 Lines 74–77.
72 “Immortality,” Schilpp, op. cit., 688.