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{{Short description|Intellectual attitude toward science influenced by Romanticism}}
19th-century [[Science|science]] was greatly influenced by [[Philosophy:Romanticism|Romanticism]] (or the Age of Reflection,<ref>Ernst Behler, ''German Romantic Literary Theory'', Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 137.</ref> {{circa}} 1800–1840), an intellectual movement that originated in [[Place:Western Europe|Western Europe]] as a counter-movement to the late-18th-century [[Philosophy:Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]].<ref name=Cunningham>{{cite book|editor1=Cunningham, A. |editor2=Jardine, N.|title=Romanticism and the Sciences}}</ref>{{rp|xxi}}  Romanticism incorporated many fields of study, including politics, the arts, and the [[Social:Humanities|humanities]].
[[File:JosephWright-Alchemist.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|''The Alchemist Discovering Phosphorus'', by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1795]]
In contrast to the Enlightenment's [[Biology:Mechanism|mechanistic]] [[Philosophy:Natural philosophy|natural philosophy]], European scientists of the Romantic period held that observing nature implied understanding the self and that knowledge of nature "should not be obtained by force".  They felt that the Enlightenment had encouraged the abuse of the sciences, and they sought to advance a new way to increase scientific knowledge, one that they felt would be more beneficial not only to mankind but to nature as well.<ref name=Bossi>{{cite book|editor1=Bossi, M. |editor2=Poggi, S.|title=Romanticism in Science: Science in Europe, 1790–1840}}</ref>{{rp|xii}}

Romanticism advanced a number of themes: it promoted anti-[[Philosophy:Reductionism|reductionism]] (that the whole is more valuable than the parts alone) and epistemological optimism (man was connected to nature), and encouraged creativity, experience, and [[Philosophy:Genius|genius]].<ref>Molvig, Ole, ''History of the Modern Sciences in Society'', lecture course, Sept. 26.</ref> It also emphasized the scientist's role in scientific discovery, holding that acquiring knowledge of nature meant understanding man as well; therefore, these scientists placed a high importance on respect for nature.<ref name=Bossi/>{{rp|xiv}}

Romanticism declined beginning around 1840 as a new movement, [[Philosophy:Positivism|positivism]], took hold of intellectuals, and lasted until about 1880.  As with the intellectuals who earlier had become disenchanted with the Enlightenment and had sought a new approach to science, people now lost interest in Romanticism and sought to study science using a stricter process.

==Romantic science vs. Enlightenment science==
As the Enlightenment had a firm hold in France during the last decades of the 18th century, the Romantic view on science was a movement that flourished in Great Britain and especially Germany in the first half of the 19th century.<ref name=Bossi/>{{rp|xii}}<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|22}}  Both sought to increase individual and cultural self-understanding by recognizing the limits in human knowledge through the study of nature and the intellectual capacities of man.  The Romantic movement, however, resulted as an increasing dislike by many intellectuals for the tenets promoted by the Enlightenment; it was felt by some that Enlightened thinkers' emphasis on rational thought through deductive reasoning and the mathematization of natural philosophy had created an approach to science that was too cold and that attempted to control nature, rather than to peacefully co-exist with nature.<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|3–4}}

According to the ''[[Philosophy:Philosophes|philosophes]]'' of the Enlightenment, the path to complete knowledge required dissection of information on any given subject and a division of knowledge into subcategories of subcategories, known as reductionism.  This was considered necessary in order to build upon the knowledge of the ancients, such as [[Biography:Ptolemy|Ptolemy]], and Renaissance thinkers, such as [[Biography:Nicolaus Copernicus|Copernicus]], [[Biography:Johannes Kepler|Kepler]], and [[Biography:Galileo Galilei|Galileo]]. It was widely believed that man's sheer intellectual power alone was sufficient to understanding every aspect of nature. Examples of prominent Enlightenment scholars include Sir [[Biography:Isaac Newton|Isaac Newton]] (physics and mathematics), [[Biography:Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz|Gottfried Leibniz]] (philosophy and mathematics), and [[Biography:Carl Linnaeus|Carl Linnaeus]] (botanist and physician).

==Principles of Romanticism==
[[File:Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach (I).jpg|thumb|''Paradise'', 1530 by [[Lucas Cranach]], featuring [[Religion:Adam and Eve|Adam and Eve]]]]
Romanticism had four basic principles: "the original unity of man and nature in a [[Social:Golden Age|Golden Age]]; the subsequent separation of man from nature and the fragmentation of human faculties; the interpretability of the history of the universe in human, spiritual terms; and the possibility of salvation through the contemplation of nature."<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|4}}

The above-mentioned [[Social:Golden Age|Golden Age]] is a reference from Greek mythology and legend to the [[History:Ages of Man|Ages of Man]]. Romantic thinkers sought to reunite man with nature and therefore his natural state.<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|2–4}}

To Romantics, "science must not bring about any split between nature and man." Romantics believed in the intrinsic ability of mankind to understand nature and its phenomena, much like the Enlightened ''philosophes'', but they preferred not to dissect information as some insatiable thirst for knowledge and did not advocate what they viewed as the manipulation of nature.  They saw the Enlightenment as the "cold-hearted attempt to extort knowledge from nature" that placed man above nature rather than as a harmonious part of it; conversely, they wanted to "improvise on nature as a great instrument."<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|4}}  The philosophy of nature was devoted to the observation of facts and careful experimentation, which was much more of a "hands-off" approach to understanding science than the Enlightenment view, as it was considered too controlling.<ref name=Bossi/>{{rp|xii}}

Natural science, according to the Romantics, involved rejecting mechanical metaphors in favor of organic ones; in other words, they chose to view the world as composed of living beings with sentiments, rather than objects that merely function. Sir [[Biography:Humphry Davy|Humphry Davy]], a prominent Romantic thinker, said that understanding nature required "an attitude of admiration, love and worship, ... a personal response."<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|15}} He believed that knowledge was only attainable by those who truly appreciated and respected nature.  Self-understanding was an important aspect of Romanticism.  It had less to do with proving that man was capable of understanding nature (through his budding intellect) and therefore controlling it, and more to do with the emotional appeal of connecting himself with nature and understanding it through a harmonious co-existence.<ref name=Bossi/>{{rp|xiv}}<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|2}}

==Important works in Romantic science==
When categorizing the many disciplines of science that developed during this period, Romantics believed that explanations of various phenomena should be based upon ''vera causa'', which meant that already known causes would produce similar effects elsewhere.<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|15}} It was also in this way that Romanticism was very anti-reductionist: they did not believe that inorganic sciences were at the top of the hierarchy but at the bottom, with life sciences next and psychology placed even higher.<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|19}} This hierarchy reflected Romantic ideals of science because the whole organism takes more precedence over inorganic matter, and the intricacies of the human mind take even more precedence since the human intellect was sacred and necessary to understanding nature around it and reuniting with it.

Various disciplines on the study of nature that were cultivated by Romanticism included: ''[[Philosophy:Naturphilosophie|Naturphilosophie]]''; [[Philosophy:Cosmology|cosmology]] and [[Astronomy:Cosmogony|cosmogony]]; developmental [[Earth:Geology|history of the Earth]] and its [[Biology:Paleontology|creatures]]; the new science of biology; investigations of mental states, conscious and unconscious, normal and abnormal; experimental disciplines to uncover the hidden forces of nature&nbsp;– electricity, magnetism, galvanism and other life-forces; physiognomy, phrenology, meteorology, mineralogy, "philosophical" anatomy, among others.<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|6}}

==''Naturphilosophie''==
{{main|Philosophy:Naturphilosophie}}
In [[Biography:Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling|Friedrich Schelling]]'s ''Naturphilosophie'', he explained his thesis regarding the necessity of reuniting man with nature; it was this German work that first defined the Romantic conception of science and vision of natural philosophy. He called nature "a history of the path to freedom" and encouraged a reunion of man's spirit with nature.<ref name=Bossi/>{{rp|31}}

===Biology===
The "new science of biology" was first termed ''biologie'' by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1801, and was "an independent scientific discipline born at the end of a long process of erosion of 'mechanical philosophy,' consisting in a spreading awareness that the phenomena of living nature cannot be understood in the light of the laws of physics but require an ad hoc explanation."<ref name=Bossi/>{{rp|47}} The [[Philosophy:Mechanical philosophy|mechanical philosophy]] of the 17th century sought to explain life as a system of parts that operate or interact like those of a machine.  Lamarck stated that the life sciences must detach from the physical sciences and strove to create a field of research that was different from the concepts, laws, and principles of physics. In rejecting mechanism without entirely abandoning the research of material phenomena that does occur in nature, he was able to point out that "living beings have specific characteristics which cannot be reduced to those possessed by physical bodies" and that living nature was {{Lang|fr|un ensemble d'objets métaphisiques}} ("an assemblage of metaphysical objects").<ref name=Bossi/>{{rp|63}} He did not 'discover' biology; he drew previous works together and organized them into a new science.<ref name=Bossi/>{{rp|57}}

===Goethe===
[[File:Goethe, Farbenkreis zur Symbolisierung des menschlichen Geistes- und Seelenlebens, 1809.jpg|thumb|Goethe's color ring]]
{{main|Philosophy:Goethean science}}
{{see also|Physics:Theory of Colours}}
Johann Goethe's experiments with optics were the direct result of his application of Romantic ideals of observation and disregard for Newton's own work with optics. He believed that color was not an outward physical phenomenon but internal to the human; Newton concluded that white light was a mixture of the other colors, but Goethe believed he had disproved this claim by his observational experiments.  He thus placed emphasis on the human ability to see the color, the human ability to gain knowledge through "flashes of insight", and not a mathematical equation that could analytically describe it.<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|16–17}}

===Humboldt===
{{main|Earth:Humboldtian science}}
[[Biography:Alexander von Humboldt|Alexander von Humboldt]] was a staunch advocate of empirical data collection and the necessity of the natural scientist in using experience and quantification to understand nature.  He sought to find the unity of nature, and his books ''Aspects of Nature'' and ''Kosmos'' lauded the aesthetic qualities of the natural world by describing natural science in religious tones.<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|15}}  He believed science and beauty could complement one another.

===Natural history===
Romanticism also played a large role in Natural history, particularly in biological evolutionary theory. Nichols (2005) examines the connections between science and poetry in the English-speaking world during the 18th and 19th centuries, focusing on the works of American natural historian William Bartram and British naturalist [[Biography:Charles Darwin|Charles Darwin]]. Bartram's ''Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida'' (1791) described the flora, fauna, and landscapes of the American South with a cadence and energy that lent itself to mimicry and became a source of inspiration to such Romantic poets of the era as [[Biography:William Wordsworth|William Wordsworth]], [[Biography:Samuel Taylor Coleridge|Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], and [[Biography:William Blake|William Blake]]. Darwin's work, including ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection'' (1859), marked an end to the Romantic era, when using nature as a source of creative inspiration was commonplace, and led to the rise of realism and the use of analogy in the arts.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Ashton Nichols|title=Roaring Alligators and Burning Tygers: Poetry and Science from William Bartram to Charles Darwin|journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society|year=2005|volume=149|issue=3|pages=304–315}}</ref>

===Mathematics===
Alexander (2006) argues that the nature of mathematics changed in the 19th century from an intuitive, hierarchical, and narrative practice used to solve real-world problems to a theoretical one in which logic, rigor, and internal consistency rather than application were important.  Unexpected new fields emerged, such as non-Euclidean geometry and statistics, as well as group theory, set theory and symbolic logic.  As the discipline changed, so did the nature of the men involved, and the image of the tragic Romantic genius often found in art, literature, and music may also be applied to such mathematicians as [[Biography:Évariste Galois|Évariste Galois]] (1811–1832), [[Biography:Niels Henrik Abel|Niels Henrik Abel]] (1802–1829), and [[Biography:János Bolyai|János Bolyai]] (1802–1860).  The greatest of the Romantic mathematicians was [[Biography:Carl Friedrich Gauss|Carl Friedrich Gauss]] (1777–1855), who made major contributions in many branches of mathematics.<ref>Bossi and Poggi, ed. ''Romanticism in Science''.</ref>

===Physics===
Christensen (2005) shows that the work of [[Biography:Hans Christian Ørsted|Hans Christian Ørsted]] (1777–1851) was based in Romanticism. Ørsted's discovery of [[Physics:Electromagnetism|electromagnetism]] in 1820 was directed against the mathematically based Newtonian physics of the Enlightenment; Ørsted considered technology and practical applications of science to be unconnected with true scientific research. Strongly influenced by [[Biography:Immanuel Kant|Kant]]'s critique of corpuscular theory and by his friendship and collaboration with [[Biography:Johann Wilhelm Ritter|Johann Wilhelm Ritter]] (1776–1809), Ørsted subscribed to a Romantic natural philosophy that rejected the idea of the universal extension of mechanical principles understandable through mathematics. For him the aim of natural philosophy was to detach itself from utility and become an autonomous enterprise, and he shared the Romantic belief that man himself and his interaction with nature was at the focal point of natural philosophy.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Dan Ch. Christensen|title=The Ørsted-Ritter Partnership and the Birth of Romantic Natural Philosophy|journal=Annals of Science|year=1995|volume=52|issue=2|pages=153–185|doi=10.1080/00033799500200161}}</ref>

===Astronomy===
[[File:PSM V09 D079 Herschel 40 foot telescope at slough.jpg|thumb|Herschel's 40 foot telescope]]
Astronomer William Herschel (1738–1822) and his sister [[Biography:Caroline Herschel|Caroline Herschel]] (1750–1848), were dedicated to the study of the stars; they changed the public conception of the [[Astronomy:Solar System|Solar System]], the [[Astronomy:Milky Way|Milky Way]], and the meaning of the universe.<ref name=Holmes>{{cite book|author=Richard Holmes|title=The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science|year=2009|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing |isbn=978-1-4000-3187-0}}</ref>

===Chemistry===
Sir [[Biography:Humphry Davy|Humphry Davy]] was "the most important man of science in Britain who can be described as a Romantic."<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|20}} His new take on what he called "chemical philosophy" was an example of Romantic principles in use that influenced the field of chemistry; he stressed a discovery of "the primitive, simple and limited in number causes of the phenomena and changes observed" in the physical world and the chemical elements already known, those having been discovered by [[Biography:Antoine Lavoisier|Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier]], an Enlightenment ''philosophe''.<ref name=Bossi/>{{rp|31–42}}  True to Romantic anti-reductionism, Davy claimed that it was not the individual components, but "the powers associated with them, which gave character to substances"; in other words, not what the elements were individually, but how they combined to create chemical reactions and therefore complete the science of chemistry.<ref name=Bossi/>{{rp|31–42}}<ref name=Holmes/>

====Organic chemistry====
The development of organic chemistry in the 19th century necessitated the acceptance by chemists of ideas deriving from ''Naturphilosophie'', modifying the Enlightenment concepts of organic composition put forward by Lavoisier. Of central importance was the work on the constitution and synthesis of organic substances by contemporary chemists.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Reinhard Löw|title=The Progress of Organic Chemistry During the Period of the German Romantic 'Naturphilosophie' (1795–1825)|journal=Ambix|year=1980|volume=27|issue=1|pages=1–10|doi=10.1179/amb.1980.27.1.1}}</ref>

==Popular image of science==
Another Romantic thinker, who was not a scientist but a writer, was Mary Shelley.  Her famous book ''Frankenstein'' also conveyed important aspects of Romanticism in science as she included elements of anti-reductionism and manipulation of nature, both key themes that concerned Romantics, as well as the scientific fields of chemistry, anatomy, and natural philosophy.<ref>Shelley, M. ''Frankenstein,'' p. 26–27.</ref>  She stressed the role and responsibility of society regarding science, and through the moral of her story supported the Romantic stance that science could easily go wrong unless man took more care to appreciate nature rather than control it.<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|20}}

John Keats' portrayal of "cold philosophy" in the poem "Lamia"<ref name=Cunningham/>{{rp|3}} influenced [[Biography:Edgar Allan Poe|Edgar Allan Poe]]'s 1829 sonnet "To Science" and [[Biography:Richard Dawkins|Richard Dawkins]]' 1998 book, ''Unweaving the Rainbow''.

==Decline of Romanticism==

The Scientific Romanticism is declined in the 20th century. During this time, this style was mostly replaced by positivism. 

== Scientific Neo-romanticism ==

[[Social:Scientific_Neo-romanticism|Scientific Neo-romanticism]] is the modern evolution of Scientific Romanticism, however, it places greater emphasis on [[Philosophy:Consciousness|consciousness]], [[Philosophy:Spirituality|spirituality]], and the concept of informational reality of the modern era of computers and quantum computations.

==See also==

* [[Philosophy:Coleridge's theory of life|Coleridge's theory of life]]
* [[History:History of science|History of science]]
* [[Philosophy:Romantic epistemology|Romantic epistemology]]
* Romantic linguistics
* Romantic medicine
* Romantic psychology 
* [[Vitalism]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|2}}

==References==
*{{cite journal | author = Alexander, Amir R | year = 2006 | title = Tragic Mathematics: Romantic Narratives and the Refounding of Mathematics in the Early Nineteenth Century | journal = Isis | volume = 97 | issue = 4| pages = 714–726 | doi=10.1086/509952| pmid = 17367007 | s2cid = 38520228 }}
*Bossi, M., and Poggi, S., ed. ''Romanticism in Science: Science in Europe, 1790–1840''. Kluwer: Boston, 1994.
*Cunningham, A., and Jardine, N., ed. ''Romanticism and the Sciences''. (1990). [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521356857 excerpt and text search]
* Fulford, Tim, Debbie Lee, and Peter J. Kitson, eds. ''Literature, Science and Exploration in the Romantic Era: Bodies of Knowledge'' (2007) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521039959 excerpt and text search]
* Holmes, Richard.  ''The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science'' (2009)  {{ISBN|978-1-4000-3187-0}}, focus on William Herschel the astronomer and [[Biography:Humphry Davy|Humphry Davy]] the chemist
*Holland, Jocelyn. ''German Romanticism and Science: The Procreative Poetics of Goethe, Novalis, and Ritter'' (2009) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415993261 excerpt and text search]
* McLane, Maureen N. ''Romanticism and the Human Sciences: Poetry, Population, and the Discourse of the Species'' (2006) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521028205 excerpt and text search]
*Murray, Christopher, ed. ''Encyclopedia of the romantic era, 1760–1850'' (2 vol 2004); 850 articles by experts; 1600pp
* Richardson, Alan. ''British Romanticism and the Science of the Mind'' (2005) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521020409 excerpt and text search]
* {{cite journal | author = Snelders, H. A. M. | year = 1970 | title = Romanticism and Naturphilosophie and the Inorganic Natural Sciences, 1797–1840: An Introductory Survey | journal = Studies in Romanticism | volume = 9 | issue = 3| pages = 193–215 | doi=10.2307/25599763| jstor = 25599763 }}

{{History of science}}

[[Category:Romanticist_Science]]

{{Sourceattribution|Romanticism in science}}