Darwin and Hamlet

During my lifetime I have read, or at least delved into many books. Some were thrust upon me, as the Bible and other Lutheran literature or textbooks throughout my education. Others I sought out as in the public libraries that I have encountered. Some have been literature of worth, but a good share have simply been for the diversion they offered. From this array of books there are two that have affected and reflect my thinking the most and which I consider the key pieces of literature in my life. Have I read them completely? No. I have not but I know what they contain and that determines their significance to me.

The first is “The Origin of the Species” by Charles Darwin. This remarkable work transformed the world view for me, and I daresay for all mankind whether it is accepted or not. For me it clarified the uninterrupted sequence of events that has marked the existence of life on this earth we live on. Philosophically it also demoted that the evolutionary process is inherent in the nature of the physical world and that it proceeds in a way that is goalless as to the outcome. Species come and die out and the process goes on. Mankind has evolved but whether it survives as a species or not, nature does not care. It has happened but its existence is meaningless as to any defined goal.

The other work of literature that has influenced my thinking is the tragedy “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare. This work indicates that all lives are basically tragedies, and in a way epitomizes what Darwin’s work has established. A pessimistic viewpoint it is true but I think the only realistic and tenable one.

Implicit in Darwin’s analysis of the life of mankind is that each life begins and ends solely as a small segment in the human life process on the earth. Each person born arises solely from the circumstances of his or her birth; no consciousness preexists. When the individual dies, the consciousness of being ends, the individual as such — his physical being, his thoughts — end abruptly. There is no afterlife.