Science and Culture in an Age of Realism I.

B/w 1850 and 1870, 2 major intellectual developments are evident: the growth of scientific knowledge, w/its rapidly increasing impact on the Western worldview, and theshift from Romanticism and its focus on the inner world of reality to Rea lism and itsturning toward the outer, material world.A New Age of Science I. By the mid-19 th c, science was having an ever-greater impact on European life. A. The Scientific Revolution of the 16 th and 17 th c had fundamentally transformed theWestern worldview and led to a modern, ration al approach to the study of the naturalworld. B. Even in the 18 th c, however, these intellectual developments had remained the preserve of an educ ated elite and resulted in few practical benefits.C.The technological advances o f the early Industrial Revolution had depended little on pure science and more o n the experiments of amateur inventors.D.Advances in industrial technology, howe ver, fed an interest in basic scientificresearch, which in the 1830s and afterwa rd resulted in a rash of basic scientificdiscoveries that were soon converted in to technological improvements that affectedeverybody.II.The development of the s team engine was important in encouraging scientists to work outits theoretical f oundations, a preoccupation that led to thermodynamics, the science of therelati onship b/w heat and mechanical energy. ?????? A. The laws of thermodynamics were at the core of 19 th c physics. B. In biology, the Frenchman Louis Pasteur formulated the germ theory of disease,wh ich had enormous practical applications in the development of modern scientificm edical practices. C. In chemistry, in the 1860s, the Russian Dmitri Mendeleyev classified all the mat erialelements then known in the basis of their atomic weights and provided the s ystematicfoundation for the periodic war. D. The Englishman Michael Faraday discovered the phenomena of electromagneticinduct ion and put together a generator that laid the foundation for the use of electri city.III.The steadily increasing and often dramatic material gains generated by science andtechnology led to a growing faith in the benefits of science.A.The po pularity of scientific and technological achievement produced a widespreadaccept ance of the scientific method, based on observation, experiment, and logicalanal ysis, as the only path to objective truth and objective reality.B.This in turn u ndermined the faith of many people in religious truth. C. The 19 th c was an age of increasing secularization, particularly evident in the growthof materialism, the belief that everything mental, spiritual, or ideal was simply a result of physical forces. Truth was to be found in the concrete material existe nce of human beings and not in revelations gained by feeling. D.

The importance of materialism was evident in the most important scientific event of the 19 th c, the development of the theory of organic evolution according to naturalselect ion. On the theories of Charles Darwin could be built a picture of humans asmate rial beings that were simply part of the natural world.Charles Darwin and the Th eory of Organic Evolution I. Darwin came to discard the notion of a special creation and to believe that anim alsevolved over time and in response to their environment. A. He formed the principle of natural selection, a theory that he presented in 1859 inThe Origin of Species.The Theory of Evolution I. The basic idea of Darwin s book was that all plants and animals had evolved over a long period of time from earlier and simpler forms of life, a principle known a s organicevolution. A. Those that were naturally selected for survival survived. The unfit did not and became extinct. The fit who survived propagated and passed on the variations tha tenabled them to survive until, from Darwin s point of view, a new species emerged . II. In On the Origin of Species, Darwin discussed plant and animal species only. He was notconcerned w/humans and only later applied his theory of natural selection to humans.A.In The Descent of Man, published in 1871, he argued for the animal origins of human beings. III. Darwin s ideas were highly controversial at first. A. Some people fretted that Darwin s theory made human beings ordinary products of na ture rather than unique beings. B. Others were disturbed by the implications of life as a struggle for survival. Fo r thosewho believed in a rational order in the world, Darwin s theory seemed to el iminate purpose and design from the universe C. Gradually, however, Darwin s theory was accepted by scientists and other intellect uals. In the process of accepting Darwin s ideas, some people tried to applythem t o society.A Revolution in Health Care I. The application of natural science to the field of medicine in the 19 th c led to revolutionary break-throughs in health care. ???????? A. The first steps toward a more scientific basis for medicine were taken in Parish ospitals during the 1 st of the 19 th c.B.Clinical observation, consisting of an active physical examination of patien ts, wascombined w/the knowledge gained from detailed autopsies to create new cli nicalmedicine.Pasteur and GermsI.The major breakthrough toward a scientific medi cine occurred w/the discovery of microorganisms as the agents of disease. A. The germ theory of disease was the work of Louis Pasteur, a chemist whoapproache d medical problems in a scientific fashion. II. Government and private industry soon perceived the inherent practical value of P

asteur swork.A.In 1877, he turned his attention to human diseases.B.His desire to do more than simply identify disease-producing organisms led him in1885 to a pre ventive vaccination against rabies.C.In the 1890s, the principle of vaccination was extended to diphtheria, typhoid fever,cholera, and plague, creating modern i mmunological science. III. The work of Pasteur and others who followed him in isolating the specific bacter iologicalcauses of numerous diseases had a far-reaching impact.A.By providing a rational means of treating and preventing infectious diseases, theytransformed t he medical world. Both the practice of surgery and public healthexperienced a re naissance. New Surgical Practices I. Surgeons has already achieved a new professionalism by the end of the 18 th c, but thediscovery of germs and the introduction of anesthesia created a new en vironment for surgical operations.A.One major obstacle to successful surgery was the inevitable postoperative infection,which was rampant in hospitals. II. Joseph Lister, who developed the antiseptic principle, was one of the first to d eal w/this problem. A. Following the work of Pasteur, Lister perceived that bacteria might enter a woun dand cause infection.B.His use of carbolic acid proved effective in eliminating infections during surgery. C. Lister s discoveries dramatically transformed surgery wards as patients no longer succumbed to infections. III. The 2 nd great barrier to large-scale surgery stemmed from the inability to lessen the pa inof the patient. New Public Health Measures I. Although the great discoveries of bacteriology came after the emergence of the 1 st publichealth movement, they significantly furthered its development. A. Based on the principle of preventive rather than curative medicine, the urban pu blichealth movement of the 1840s and 1850s was largely a response to the cholera epidemic.B.The prebacteriological hygiene movement focused on providing clean wa ter,adequate sewage disposal, and less crowded housing conditions.C.Bacterial di scoveries led to greater emphasis on preventive measures such as pasteurization of milk, improved purification of water supplies, immunizationagainst disease, a nd control of waterborne diseases.D.The public health movement also resulted in the government s hiring medical doctorsnot just to treat people but to deal w/issu es of public health as well. New Medical SchoolsI.The new scientific development s also had an important impact on the training of doctorsfor professional career s in health care. ?????? A. In the 19 th c, virtually every Western country founded new medical schools, butattempts to i mpose uniform standards on them through certifying bodies metconsiderable resist ance.Women and Medical Schools I. During most of the 19 th c, medical schools in Europe and the United States were closed tofemale students

. A. Elizabeth Blackwell achieved the 1 st major breakthrough for women in medicine.She received her M.D. degree in 1849 an d eventually established a clinic in NewYork City.II.European women experienced difficulties similar to Blackwell s.A.The unwillingness of medical schools to open their doors to women led to theformation of separate medical schools for women. But even after graduation fromsuch institutions, women faced obstacles when the y tried to practice as doctors.B.Many were denied licenses, and hospitals often closed their doors to them. C. In Britain, Parliament finally capitulated to pressure and passed a bill in 1876 allowing women the right to take qualifying examinations.Science and the Study o f Society I. The importance of science in the 19 th c perhaps made it inevitable that a scientificapproach would be applied to the r ealm of human activity. A. The attempt to apply the methods of science systematically to the study of socie tywas perhaps most evident in the work of Auguste Comte.B.His major work, System of Positive Philosophy, was published b/w 1837 and 1842 but had its real impact after 1850. II. Comte created a system of positive knowledge based on a hierarchy of all the scien ces.Mathematics was the foundation on which the physical sciences, earth science s, and biological sciences were built. At the top was sociology, the study of hu man society. A. Comte saw sociology s task as a difficult one.B.The discovery of general laws of s ociety would have to be based on the collectionand analysis of data on humans an d their environment. C. Although his schemes were often dense, Comte played an important role in thegrow ing popularity of science and materialism in the mid 19 th c.Realism in LiteratureI.The belief that the world should be viewed realisticall y, frequently expressed after 1850,was closely related to the materialistic outl ook.A.The term realism was first employed in 1850 to describe a new style of pai nting andsoon spread to literature. II. The literary Realists of the mid 19 th c were distinguished by their deliberate rejection of Romanticism. A. The literary realists wanted to deal w/ordinary characters from real life rather thanRomantic heroes in unusual settings.B.They also sought to avoid flowery and sentimental language by using carefulobservation and accurate description, an a pproach that led them to eschew poetry infavor of prose and the novel. C. Realists often combined their interest in everyday life w/a searching examinatio n of social questions. III. The leading novelist of the 1850s and 60s, Gustave Flaubert, perfected the reali st novel. A. His Madame Bovary was a straight-forward description of barren and sordid smalltown life in France.

B. Flaubert s contempt for bourgeois society was evident in his portrayal of middle-c lass hypocrisy and smugness. IV. William Thackeray wrote Britain s prototypical Realist novel, Vanity Fair: A Novel Without Hero, in 1848. ?????????? A. Thackeray deliberately flouted the Romantic conventions. B. Perhaps the greatest of the Victorian novelists was Charles Dickens, whose reali sticnovels focusing on the lower and middle classes in Britain s early industrial age became extraordinarily successful.C.His descriptions of the urban poor and t he brutalization of human life were vividlyrealistic.Realism in Art I. In the 1 st of the 19 th c, Romanticism in art had been paralleled by the classical school of painting, b ut both were superseded by the new mood of the mid-19 th c. A. In art, too, Realism became dominant after 1850, although Romanticism was by nom eans dead. B. Among the most important characteristics of Realism are a desire to depict theev eryday life of ordinary people, be they peasants, workers, or prostitutes; an at temptat photographic realism; and an interest in the natural environment.Courbet I. Gustave Courbet was the most famous artist of the Realist school.A.His subjects were factory workers, peasants, and the wives of saloon keepers. B. The Stonebreakers, painted in 1849, shows 2 road workers breaking stones to buil d aroad. This representation of human misery was a scandal to those who objected to his cult of ugliness. Millet I. Jean-Francois Millet was preoccupied w/scenes from rural life, especially peasan tslaboring in fields, although his Realism still contained an element of Romanti csentimentality.A.Millet made landscape and country life an important subject ma tter for French artists, but he, too, was criticized by his contemporaries for c rude subject matter andunorthodox technique.Music: The Twilight of Romanticism I. The mid-19 th c witnessed the development of a new group of musicians known as the NewGerman S chool. It emphasized emotional content rather than abstract form andchampioned n ew methods of using music to express literary or pictorial ideas.Liszt I. Franz Liszt best exemplifies the achievements of the New German School.A.He inve nted the term symphonic poem to refer to his works, which did not strictlyobey t raditional forms and were generally based on a literary or pictorial idea.B.Unde r the guidance of Liszt and the New German School, Romantic music reachedits pea k.Wagner I. Building on the advances made by Liszt and the New German School, Wagner ultimat elyrealized the German dream for a truly national opera. A.

Wagner was not only a composer but also a propagandist and writer in support of hisunique conception of dramatic music. B. Called both the culmination of the Romantic era and the beginning of the avant-g arde, Wagner s music may be described as a monumental development in classicalmusi c. II. Wagner transformed opera into music drama through his Gesamtkunstwerk, a musicalco mposition for the theater in which music, acting, dance, poetry, and scenic desi gn aresynthesized into a harmonious whole.A.He abandoned the traditional divisio ns of opera, which interrupted the dramatic linesof work, and instead used a dev ice called leitmotiv, a recurring musical theme inwhich the human voice combined w/the line of orchestra instead of rising above it. B. For his themes, Wagner looked to myth and epic tales from the past.