ABSTRACT
The Deism of Descartes and Newton had shaped the 18th century's optimistic, orderly worldview, which neatly separated God and nature. Human beings and all other species were thought of as separate creations that had specially assigned places in a grand scheme; each was systematically classifiable and each conformed to an established pattern. A divine being, although in control of creation, stood apart from it. As a result, science and religion (or materialism and spiritualism) were not in conflict. It was possible to believe in determinism and free will at the same time. This worldview was dominant in Europe, especially in England, and persisted well into the 19th century, finding expression in several novels by Charles Dickens and in the work of the Spanish writer Jose Marfa de Pereda, to mention just two examples. But then Western thought shifted from a dualistic view of the world to a unitary concept of being. Newtonian and Cartesian dualism was slowly abandoned in favor of a philosophical monism that discarded religion as a valid consideration in the attempt to reach an understanding of nature. This monism ushered in the age of the naturalistic novel, colored in large measure by advances in the biological sciences.
