Episode 3. George Eliot: positivism, Darwin, Spinoza

Auguste Comte's positivism and alternative religion

This is the second part of my research into George Eliot's philosophical development so it is better to read the first part first.

Today we continue looking at Eliot's philosophical influences and in order to do that we will return to the journal she worked at, The Westminster review. Because it introduced Eliot to the philosophy of one more contemporary thinker – Auguste Comte and his positivism.

Comte is considered the father of sociology, because he was the one who proclaimed that society and all social phenomena should be studied the same way physics is studied. Positive knowledge is acquired by the scientific method: through observation and experiment. Scientific thinking is the basis of positivism.

"he creates a whole Religion of Humanity which promotes devotion to humanity, instead of any celestial divinity."

His precursor was Saint-Simon, the father of socialism, so Comte was influenced by socialistic ideas. He saw society as an organism and for him individuals matter only as parts of the whole, so a person's life purpose should be their role in society, their contribution to society. And, finally, he creates a whole Religion of Humanity which promotes devotion to humanity, instead of any celestial divinity.

In England positivism was popularized by John Stuart Mill and George Henry Lewes, Eliot's future partner. Socialistic ideas of Saint-Simon were already known in England which prepared the way for Comte's ideas.

John Stuart Mill was the chief positivist in England. He promoted Comte's ideas and kept correspondence with Comte himself. But he was an independent thinker. As with Bentham, he didn't take up the ideas of others uncritically. He admired Comte's ideas and was the chief propagator of his ideas in England but he also criticized them and expressed his criticism openly to Comte. By the way, one of the universal criticisms was that Comte's writing style was bad. He didn't revise his writing, his sentences were very long and repetitive. So his translators essentially took it upon themselves to make his writing more readable and clear; so his works were actually better, clearer in translation.

Later Mill fell out with Comte because of multiple disagreements. One of the reasons was their views on women. As we've seen, Mill believed in the equality of sexes and advocated for full emancipation of women. Comte believed that by nature women are morally better than men, and so society should worship them, but physically and intellectually they are inferior to men. This was a big disagreement between the two philosophers.

Eliot also as usual didn't agree with everything. She certainly believed more in the value of an individual, just as we've seen in her appreciation of individual love. This was another of her objections to utilitarianism too. Because "the greatest good for the greatest number" implies that sacrificing an individual is acceptable if it is for the greater good, and Eliot could not accept that. Both the memories of people who knew her and her own books testify that she always saw people as individuals, every one of them worthy of her attention and sympathy.

Once she was asked to write a story that would illustrate Comtian ideas. She answered,

“That is a tremendously difficult problem which you have laid before me; and I think you see its difficulties, though they can hardly press on you as they do on me, who have gone through again and again the severe effort of trying to make certain ideas thoroughly incarnate, as if they had revealed themselves to me just in the flesh, and not in the spirit. I think æsthetic teaching is the highest of all teaching, because it deals with life in its highest complexity; but if it ceases to be purely æsthetic, if it lapses anywhere from the picture to the diagram, it becomes the most offensive of all teaching.”

This paragraph shows three things:

• First, it reveals Eliot's method of writing: she started with abstract ideas, with philosophical constructs, and then looked for ways to express them in realistic stories.

• Second, it's clear that she consciously intended her books to be instructive; she wanted them to teach others philosophical concepts.

• And, finally, it implicates a criticism of Comtian system: basically, it's not realistic, it's too schematic.

She wouldn't take it upon herself to illustrate his system in a story because his system does not allow the complexity of life. As with utilitarianism she sees the simplification which is incompatible with life. As we've seen earlier, she thinks that

"There is no general doctrine which is not capable of eating out our mortality."

She's very careful about any "general doctrine" because all of them are more or less schematic and cannot include the full complexity of life.

Though she didn't subscribe to the Religion of Humanity, she appreciated it as a comprehensive and thoughtful alternative to traditional religions. The concept of people as parts of one organism clearly spoke to her, as did the ideas that issued from this concept. The ideas of duty and of service to others which were her main principles since her religious childhood so she appreciated a secular worldview that maintained those ideals. Also Comte saw family as the basis of society, the first step toward community, and the source of morality. In this he actually agreed with Feuerbach, and in Eliot's fiction family is always an important matter and how people treat it characterizes them.

Then, causation is an important principle in positivist thinking: one event is always caused by another, and we can always observe this causal connection between things. And Eliot purposefully shows this in her novels: all the events carefully follow this principle; we clearly see causes and effects, events or actions and their consequences. And the characters themselves reflect on that causal connection, on the consequences of their actions for example, and they can learn by analyzing their experience through this principle of causation.

Another idea of Comte is his three stages of the development of humanity:

• theological, when one believes in supernatural beings, in a personified God or gods;

• metaphysical, when one believes in abstract forces, so that a concrete God doesn't exist anymore but the world is ruled by those abstract and obscure essences and forces;

• and, a final, positive stage, that is scientific thinking.

These stages reflect the historical development of human culture but they can play out in individual lives. And George Eliot's personal development followed exactly that pattern: she was brought up religious and was an ardent believer but she had an inquiring mind that prompted her to reason about the religious dogma, to read various theological texts and develop critical thinking which finally led her to abandon faith altogether in favor of rationality and scientific thinking.

As always she was very thorough in her studies. There is a notebook from the time when she studied Comte in which she traces the roots of Positivism to Greek philosophy through British empiricism.

The theory of evolution and science influence literature

But let's return to the Westminster review yet again. Because it is the source of yet another influence on George Eliot and another part of her intellectual life. In the 1850s the journal was joined by several scientists who ran the science section. They formed a group of evolutionists who paved the way for Charles Darwin. Among them was Thomas Huxley who championed Darwin's theory of evolution when it was published so much that he even got a nickname "Darwin's Bulldog" for his efforts.

Darwin's book On the Origin of Species, which first introduced his theory, was published in 1859. George Eliot read it with her partner Lewes immediately as it was published and said that the book made 'an epoch'. Eliot wrote to a friend that the book would have a

"great effect in the scientific world, causing a thorough and open discussion of a question about which people hitherto felt timid. So the world gets on step by step towards brave clearness and honesty!"

So at the time when the theory was largely criticized, especially from a religious point of view, Eliot immediately recognized its importance and embraced the changes in human understanding of the world that the book caused.

Though in truth, probably thanks to the Westminster review, evolutionary ideas were not new to her. The Mill on the Floss was published the next year and was full of the terminology of evolution: she writes that the nature "had provided Tom and the peas for the speedy destruction of this weak individual" and describes a character's thumb as "a singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey." But actually she had already written the most of the book before On the Origin of Species came out so she already internalized those ideas from other evolutionists. And since then evolutionary theory influenced both the structure and the themes of her novels; she even used evolutionary principles to analyze people's motivations.

In fact, she was often criticized by contemporaries for constant scientific allusions. Henry James criticized Middlemarch for being 'too often an echo of Messrs. Darwin and Huxley’.

Her proximity to the scientific world and interest in science influenced the language she used. Another contemporary objected to the word 'dynamic' in her last novel 'Daniel Deronda'. This is the opening line of the novel:

‘Was she beautiful or not beautiful? and what was the secret of form or expression which gave the dynamic quality to her glance?’

To that critic the word 'dynamic' sounded overscientific. Now we don't even notice the use of the word and don't think about its scientific origins. But at the time such words stood out and characterized the author's education and even their views. Embracing Darwin's theory and on the whole supporting scientific ideas was rather revolutionary because those ideas so often went against the religious beliefs of the time. This highlights how society has changed by now. Today science surrounds us every day and we're used to it. With the spread of technology and education scientific language became a part of everyday language, and we don't even think that a lot of our words came from science and the use of them might've been controversial before.

Darwin's theory as a call for universal community

Another word that is unexpectedly connected to science and Darwin is "web". This word is important to Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Darwin uses the image of a web to describe the relations between all the living things. Here's a quote:

"I am tempted to give one more instance showing how plants and animals, most remote in the scale of nature, are bound together by a web of complex relations."

And another one:

"We shall never, probably, disentangle the inextricable web of affinities between the members of any one class."

Let's remember this "web of complex relations", and "disentangling of the inextricable web of affinities".

And here are some quotes from Middlemarch:

"I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe."

And another one:

"The fragment of a life, however typical, is not the sample of an even web."

Henry James certainly had a reason to complain about the influence of Darwin on this novel. In Middlemarch Eliot uses the image of a web repeatedly to describe the interconnection between her characters. The interconnectedness of all is one of the main points of Eliot's philosophy and the discovery of Darwin gave her a scientific confirmation of the same idea.

 Instead of preaching universal war for survival this idea promotes the feeling of universal community and consequently the necessity of cooperation.

It's so fascinating. While some deplored – and still deplore, I swear – how Darwin undermined religion and hence morality – others saw in it another basis for morality. A lot of people concentrated on the fact that people are just animals and their main purpose is survival and they thought that it diminishes human nature and human spiritual potential and also promotes competition and animosity towards one another. But others, like Eliot, focused on another implication of Darwin's theory: the fact that all the living creatures are connected to one another, even related to one another. Instead of preaching universal war for survival this idea promotes the feeling of universal community and consequently the necessity of cooperation. Thomas Hardy, who was another early supporter of Darwin, thought that this idea was bound to eventually change people's attitude towards animals; that it would lead people to recognize animals as part of their own family, of our mutual existence.

It's also a nice detail that Darwin and his family in return read and loved Eliot's novels. They were acquainted and Darwin visited at least one of the public afternoons at the London house of George Eliot and her partner.

Baruch Spinoza's similarities to George Eliot

But there was another huge influence on Eliot's ideas and works and it stands out among all those conspicuously modern influences. Baruch Spinoza was a philosopher who lived in the 17th century. Spinoza's origin also stands out: he came from a Portuguese-Jewish family that fled from Portugal before his birth. So he was born in Amsterdam and lived in the Dutch republic. There he had a traditional Jewish upbringing, but just as Eliot herself, he started seeing discrepancies in religious dogmas and eventually gave up traditional religious beliefs and criticized them in his works. He questioned the divine origin of the Hebrew Bible and claimed that religious authorities should not take part in governing the state.

Baruch Spinoza is also known as Benedict de Spinoza: he took the name Benedict after he was expelled from his Jewish community for his blasphemous ideas. Benedict is just a Latin version of the name Baruch which means "blessed". It's interesting that the name Benedict is strongly associated with Christianity but after his expulsion Spinoza determinately never joined any church. I wonder whether, beside the purely intellectual interest in his philosophical ideas, Eliot felt some comradeship with him because of those similarities in their biographies that could produce psychological similarities. They were both brought up religious but then questioned the dogmas and gave them up and they were both harshly alienated from society because of their ideas and unconventional behavior.

Translating Spinoza into English and into fiction

In the middle of the 19th century, Spinoza's works were not yet translated into English. He was admired by German romantics, like Goethe, Hegel, Schelling and Heine. But to England the knowledge of his philosophy came only in 1840s. Poet Samuel Coleridge was his early English admirer but his enthusiasm didn't catch on. In the end it was George Henry Lewes, again and still the future partner of George Eliot, who introduced Spinoza to the British public in an article published in 1843 in that same Westminster Review where Eliot was going to work a decade later.

But Eliot didn't learn about Spinoza through the article and it's years before she meets Lewes himself. They happened to discover Spinoza independently but simultaneously. That same year she learned about Spinoza through her Coventry social circle. Coleridge’s doctor lent her a copy of Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise. She was deeply impressed by the book and then started translating it. Under the impression she wrote to a friend,

“We must part with the crutches of superstition. Are we to go on cherishing superstitions out of a fear that seems inconsistent with any faith in a Supreme Being?” and “We cannot fight and struggle enough for freedom of enquiry.”

After her pious youth Spinoza gave her a powerful, insightful alternative to conventional religion. Her eager mind appreciated his careful precise argumentation.

However it wasn't his theology that influenced Eliot the most. German romantics and Lewes concentrated on his theology and metaphysics whereas Eliot was even more impressed by his ethical philosophy.

Eliot and Lewes met in 1851 and discovered their mutual profound interest in Spinoza. Then the idea of translating Spinoza's Ethics was born. It was Eliot's work but Lewes evidently took active part in the translation and he was the one who negotiated its publication. However there was a misunderstanding with the publisher; Lewes expected a higher payment and refused to go on with the deal. The translation wasn't published. It was finished in 1856 but in the end it wasn't published until more than a century later, in 1981.

So the public didn't see the translation at the time, but the effort wasn't in vain. Spinoza's ideas informed Eliot's thinking and novel writing. Eliot began writing fiction seven months after she completed work on the translation. Especially Middlemarch is sometimes seen as a fictional retelling of Spinoza's Ethics. And perhaps her novels were even a better medium to convey those ideas, because in the form of a novel philosophical ideas are easier to grasp; they can be absorbed intuitively and they can reach a much larger audience. With her novels she made these ideas accessible to ordinary people who just didn't have education enough to read Spinoza even in translation, not to mention in the original. And her novels were very popular, proving that complicated concepts can be told in an engaging way. Though there's also a supposition that if the translation had been published, her works would've been understood better at the time.

Spinoza: how emotional intelligence increases our inner power

But how exactly did Spinoza's philosophy inform her writing? His reflections on human nature and human condition influenced her the most.

Spinoza argued that emotions are good information that can help us understand ourselves better.

Long before the development of psychology Spinoza argued that emotions are good information that can help us understand ourselves better. Spinoza said that we are driven by a desire to preserve ourselves – it's interesting that this is a philosophical idea and he means it spiritually but this statement does sound exactly as something evolutionists would say. It's one of the instances of interconnection between Eliot's philosophical influences that show how consistent her thinking was. Her influences, though very different at first sight, have strong similarities in their essence. They fall into place forming one thoughtful, well-organized picture of her worldview.

So we are driven by a desire to preserve ourselves. But, according to Spinoza, our power of self-preservation is not constant, it's fluctuating. And our emotions are signaling those fluctuations of power. He distinguished two basic emotions: joy and sadness. All other emotions come from one or the other. And the idea is that we feel joy and all the other positive emotions when our power increases and sadness and all the negative emotions when it decreases.

"By studying our emotions we can deepen our understanding of ourselves, and we can grow our inner power by the right actions, the actions that take care of our body and our mind."

This power of self-preservation means both physical and mental power. We can increase our physical power by taking care of our health, our body, eating healthy and exercising. And we can improve our mental power by intellectual work or by a meaningful relationship. Love and any good deeds nourish our mental power. So in this Spinoza is following the idea of Socrates that knowledge and morality are connected: knowledge is necessary for virtue and intellectual development improves morality. The idea is arguable but to a certain degree it is true: without knowledge you cannot know what is moral. Only knowing it you have a choice to act according to or against it. And though Spinoza himself doesn't believe in free will, he's advocating for more active and thoughtful life. He thinks that by studying our emotions we can deepen our understanding of ourselves, and we can grow our inner power by the right actions, the actions that take care of our body and our mind. In fact he writes:

“the more [a being] acts the more perfect it is.”

The same goes for the mind: the more the mind acts, works, the more perfect it is. And he highlights that such self-improvement and deeper understanding are possible only when we apply reason to our emotions, when we rationally analyze them and learn to direct our passions.

This attention to emotions and this rational approach to them are evident in Eliot's novels: her characters are complex, multi-layered, sometimes contradictory but psychologically they are convincing and very human. This shows a deep study of human emotions, human psychology, and her studious work on Spinoza's Ethics provided her with the structure for this study.

At the same time we should remember that for Eliot, just as for Spinoza, morality stands in the first place. Celebrating rationality they don't place it above virtue – they embrace rationality only as a way to achieve virtue. Personal development for them necessarily means leading a moral life. Actually Spinoza's power of self-preservation is virtue. It is always the ultimate goal for both of them.

The freedom of knowledge and the interconnectedness of all

"freedom is not something given, it is a goal to which we should strive"

And, according to Spinoza, practicing this emotional self-analysis and taking care of our inner power we can pave our way to freedom. And here we come to an idea very important to Eliot too: that freedom is not something given, it is a goal to which we should strive; we have to work on ourselves to achieve freedom. Utilitarian ideas influenced the theme of happiness in her novels which all of her characters try to achieve, and Spinozian ideas inspired her characters, especially her heroines, with this strive for freedom. Her heroines suffer from the constraints of society and always strive to be freer.

But we remember that for Eliot morality is always the goal, so their stories are not about rejecting the conventions, their freedom is not about doing whatever they want. And freedom for Spinoza is the same as happiness. People can achieve this real happiness by realizing the unity of the world, the interconnectedness of everything. The true knowledge and the ability to see the bigger picture bring inner peace and freedom. Spinoza was a determinist so his freedom is freedom in a determined world – the freedom of seeing the truth.

The interconnectedness of all was the reason why Spinoza was a determinist. We are influenced by the circumstances and the people around us and our connections with them so much that Spinoza doubted that we have free will at all. Indeed, aren't we preconditioned by our upbringing and all the previous experience to make certain choices or react to things in a certain way? In Ethics Spinoza wrote,

“we can never bring ourselves to a state in which we should want nothing external in order to preserve our existence, or so live as to have no commerce with things outside ourselves.”

And this is a quote from Eliot's Middlemarch:

“There is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it.”

Learning to navigate reality and live in a way that empowers us

Eliot doesn't become a determinist but this struggle between the inner and outer world is a constant theme in her novels. This is what impedes the freedom of her heroines – constant outer circumstances that are beyond their power but that determine their lives. Often they put themselves in unhappy circumstances because they lack insight and don't see the likely consequences. Essentially, they don't yet realize the amount and strength of this outer influence.

You know, they say that egocentrism is a feature characteristic of babies up to a certain age: in a healthy environment, where they are taken care of, little babies see how all their whims are satisfied and think that the world literally exists for them. As they grow they start to notice that people do other things and live their lives independent of one's wishes. This extreme egocentrism passes but it takes conscious work to get rid of it completely. Eliot writes about Casaubon in Middlemarch,

"if he was liable to think that others were providentially made for him, this trait is not quite alien to us, and, like the other mendicant hopes of mortals, claims some of our pity."

Egocentrism is an infantile trait. Realizing the complexity of the world that doesn't revolve around us is essential for growing up and having a deeper and more realistic understanding of the world.

This is essentially what Eliot's characters go through. They have their own wishes and plans, but then they meet with reality and realize that their plans don't exist in isolation from the rest of the world and they have to grow up and come to a better understanding of themselves and of how to navigate their lives considering the influences and limits that others impose on them.

And of course there are lots of things in society that could improve and would lessen the suffering of some people. When I read classic novels I always see things that wouldn't be such tragedies now because the society, thankfully, has changed in some ways. But it is impossible to get rid of the influence of others completely, so some limits are inevitable. We can do whatever we want, but we'll always have to deal with the consequences. Just as Eliot's characters do. They make mistakes, their plans and hopes are thwarted but some of them learn on this experience and make better decisions in future.

"It is essentially the question of how to be in harmony both with yourself and the world."

This navigating between one's wishes and an outside reality is an important theme of Eliot's novels and a subject relevant to any human being. It is essentially the question of how to be in harmony both with yourself and the world. Because accepting the fact that the outer influence is inevitable doesn't mean giving up free will or individuality. It only means that now you see the world more clearly and, better informed, you can look for better ways to express and develop yourself, ways that will not conflict with reality but instead will cooperate with it so that outside circumstances will help you grow.

In her novels Eliot asks and explores how in a world with so many conflicting influences and limitations we can live in a way that empowers us.

It's actually a popular self-help advice. You know, when they say that you shouldn't rely on your willpower too much because it is limited and you're exhausting yourself when you're constantly restricting yourself or forcing yourself to do something. And instead you should rather change your environment so that you wouldn't be tempted to repeat the behavior that you want to avoid and you would be motivated to repeat the behavior you want to adopt. This principle is based on the idea that you have to accept that the outside world influences you a lot. And instead of fighting it you can adapt it to your needs. In her novels Eliot asks and explores how in a world with so many conflicting influences and limitations we can live in a way that empowers us.

Learning by experience is another important point for Spinoza and for George Eliot. She always insisted that personal relationships teach a bigger truth about life than any philosophical constructs and hands-on experience is necessary to learn. This is what she wrote in a letter about her own relationship with Lewes which they both called marriage:

“It is a great experience — this marriage! All one’s notions of things before seem like the reading of a mystic inscription without the key.”

This is what a committed relationship felt like to her – it was an enlightening experience that gave you the key to the true knowledge of the world. So in her novels she constantly gives her characters reality checks because this provides them with experience they need to learn and understand life better.

Spinoza believed that by experience and conscious reflection we acquire 'adequate ideas', that is the ability to see the connections between things and thus the true causes of things. And, because of the interconnectedness, by developing our individual selves we develop the society around us. So, in a very utilitarian way, this personal search for truth is beneficial for all.

The characters who reflect and learn from their experience come to the realization of the interconnectedness. They grow spiritually and start seeing the bigger picture.

In Eliot's fiction, characters who don't take into account the interconnectedness and act egoistically suffer and fail. The characters who reflect and learn from their experience come to the realization of the interconnectedness. They grow spiritually and start seeing the bigger picture.

In Middlemarch Dorothea:

"...felt the largeness of the world and the manifold wakings of mental labor and endurance. She was a part of involuntary, palpitating life, and could neither look out on it from her luxurious shelter as a mere spectator, nor hide her eyes in selfish complaining."

In Romola Romola says:

"We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves."

And in Adam Bede the narrator writes:

"The growth of higher feeling within us is like the growth of faculty, bringing with it a sense of added strength: we can no more wish to return to a narrower sympathy, than a painter or a musician can wish to return to his crude manner, or a philosopher to his less complete formula."

For George Eliot this larger perspective is a sign and a necessary part of personal growth.

Among all the philosophers who influenced Eliot, Spinoza was the one who created the most consistent and comprehensive, all-encompassing system that her methodical mind really appreciated and embraced.

How Eliot practiced what she preached

"The most important theme which unites all of Eliot's philosophical influences is the interconnectedness of all."

If we look back at all the influences I mentioned, we'll see that the most important theme which unites all of Eliot's philosophical influences is the interconnectedness of all. It is the preoccupation of utilitarianism with the greatest number, it's the idea of society as one organism of Comte, it's the spiritual conception of the world of Spinoza and even the scientific theory of Darwin. They all in very different ways talk about this interconnection between everything. And the most important way to serve this interconnectedness for Eliot is having loving personal relationships with which such different personages as Comte and Feuerbach essentially agreed.

But what is especially pleasant to know is that Eliot practiced what she preached. She sympathized with everyone. Public gatherings exhausted her because she wanted to give her utmost attention to every individual and afterwards she felt guilty when she thought that she failed. Smaller circles were more comfortable to her. They said she was especially motherly to women and always supported the young. She loved seeing young energy and encouraged their endeavors. She wrote,

"the elder mind, dissatisfied with itself, delights to entertain with regard to those younger, whose years and powers hold a larger measure of unspoiled life."

The young journalist Edith Simcox, the one who fell in love with her, wrote,

"Her character seemed to include every possibility of action and emotion; no human passion was wanting in her nature, there were no blanks or negations; and the marvellous thing was to see how, in this wealth of impulses and desires, there was no crash of internal discord, no painful collisions with other human interests outside; how, in all her life, passions of volcanic strength were harnessed in the service of those nearest her, and so inspired by the permanent instinct of devotion to her kind, that it seemed as if it were by her own choice they spent themselves there only where their force was welcome."

It sounds like Eliot indeed mastered that Spinozian principle that the mind should control passions and not suppressing them but directing them in the right way.

Eliot was extremely smart and well-educated. They said that she spoke as she wrote – her thoughts always well-formed and expressed in the best style. But she wasn't boring, her speech fascinated people, she had a charm and a pleasant voice, and she didn't speak much preferring to listen. She never looked down on others, never made anybody feel stupid, on the contrary – people said that she listened attentively and managed to direct the conversation in such a way that she seemed to raise everyone to her own level.

This is what she wrote in Adam Bede:

"I would not, even if I had the choice, be the clever novelist who could create a world so much better than this, in which we get up in the morning to do our daily work, that you would be likely to turn a harder, colder eye on the dusty streets and the common green fields —on the real breathing men and women, who can be chilled by your indifference or injured by your prejudice; who can be cheered and helped onward by your fellow-feeling, your forbearance, your outspoken, brave justice."

And this is from her essay Silly novels by lady novelists:

"A really cultured woman, like a really cultured man, is all the simpler and the less obtrusive for her knowledge; it has made her see herself and her opinions in something like just proportions; she does not make it a pedestal from which she flatters herself that she commands a complete view of men and things, but makes it a point of observation from which to form a right estimate of herself. … She does not write books to confound philosophers, perhaps because she is able to write books that delight them. In conversation she is the least formidable of women, because she understands you, without wanting to make you aware that you can’t understand her. She does not give you information, which is the raw material of culture—she gives you sympathy, which is its subtlest essence."

And the comments of all the people who met her prove that she followed her own advice.

***

So this was the story of Eliot's philosophy that also reveals a lot about her character. I admire the breadth of Eliot's interest in life and her eagerness to learn and to find the truth. It's like she didn't just read everything, she lived through it, she absorbed, worked it through. And her intellectual life is an endless search for truth. She was a real philosopher in this, always looking for the truth, giving up the ideas which didn't make sense anymore.

Giving up any beliefs is always hard. Our beliefs support us – we need them because we need to make some sense of the world, to feel some kind of order. The uncertainty of life is too scary and this fear can overwhelm us. Some basic ideas about the order of the world help to deal with this fear. So giving them up is hard. It can make you feel lost and everything seem meaningless. It requires courage to inquire into your core beliefs and even more to give them up when you realize they don't hold. For Eliot the cost was even higher because of the social consequences. Yet she always did what she thought was right, acted according to her own beliefs and her own conscience.

Overall I think that George Eliot is a beautiful and inspiring person and I hope that you also learned something from her story.

You can visit the podcast's instagram no_inkling and look at the visual materials I make and share your opinions there or message me.

And next time I will finally get down to George Eliot's novels and will talk about The Mill on the Floss.

Thank you a lot for listening. And please join me next time, it's going to be fun I promise.