The World: Or, Instability by Constantine S. Rafinesque

A natural scientist’s cosmological poem

Constantine Rafinesque

Naturalist Constantine Rafinesque (1783-1840) was born in Constantinople to French and German parents. In his adulthood he moved to America, where he remained. Like John James Audubon, whom he knew, Rafinesque wandered the wilds of America, studying its natural wonders and logging new species. Unlike Audubon, who specialized in birds and mammals, Rafinesque studied everything—animals, plants, rocks, Native American tribes, and more—and considered himself an expert on just about every subject under the sun. He published research in dozens of fields but was considered by many of his scientific contemporaries to be a dilettante, a crackpot, or a fraud. Rafinesque did not confine his pursuits to the sciences but dabbled in the humanities as well, including poetry. In 1836, he published The World: Or, Instability, an extended poem in which he expounds upon his scientific and philosophical views.

In the 19th century, when everyone read poetry and it seems nearly everyone wrote it, poetic verse was considered a legitimate medium through which to convey scientific observations and theories, at least to the general public. Rafinesque uses The World to outline his own personal cosmology, encompassing everything from science to religion to ethics. The nearest equivalent in American literature might be Edgar Allen Poe’s Eureka: A Prose Poem. A flattering preface to The World, likely written by Rafinesque himself, overstates that “it is as if Newton had explained his laws of attraction and repulsion in a poem, instead of a mathematical work.” Rafinesque’s main “law” is that all matter is in a state of instability and change, destruction and renewal. This is hardly a groundbreaking thesis, but his argument does contain some foreshadowings of evolutionary theory. While the concept of instability is constantly referred to in the poem, it is really just a vague foundation from which Rafinesque pontificates on a variety of subjects.

The main body of The World is a poem of 5400 lines. This is supplemented by some introductory matter, appendices, and 88 endnotes. The entire poem is written in metric verse, unrhymed but for the occasional random rhyming couplet. The text is thematically divided into twenty chapters, then closes with “The Universal Prayer and Hymn of Mankind.” Religion is a main concern of the poem, perhaps more so than science. Rafinesque believes strongly in God, and also in angels, though he criticizes organized religion and does not hold to a literal creationist interpretation of the Bible. Although he sees nature as the ultimate expression of God, he makes it clear that he is no subscriber to pantheism, which he ridicules. Nor is he a materialist. He believes in the dualism of Descartes, not the monism of Spinoza, and in human free will. Rafinesque also asserts himself an abolitionist, a pacifist, and a Republican in the French sense of the word. He also speaks of life on other worlds and reincarnation. The poem occasionally brings up some antiquated scientific beliefs, such as volcanoes on the moon and spontaneous combustion caused by alcoholism.

The World is unlikely to garner praise from poetry critics. As someone who is not a habitual reader of poetry, however, I enjoyed the clear didactic style of Rafinesque’s poesy. He often uses metaphoric imagery and lofty turns of phrase, but never to the point where such flourishes obscure the lesson he is trying to impart. This work is primarily valuable not for its literary quality or even its scientific content, but rather for the insight it gives us into Rafinesque’s personality and values. Readers are unlikely to agree with everything he has to say, but one can still find practical pearls of wisdom. I would have preferred much less talk about God and angels and far more about the natural world, but I nonetheless enjoyed The World as an inspiring celebration of natural science, even if it is a bit heavy on Christian sermonizing.
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.
https://www.amazon.com/review/R3KMVSU0QM1CN2/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm