Coleridge and Natural Philosophy

Abstract

Coleridge’s early devotion to a close observation of the external appearances of nature was superseded in later years by a no less passionate and steady interest in the inner constitution of nature and its laws of development. For a decade after 1815 Coleridge immersed himself in a systematic study of various branches of science and works of German philosophy in order to gain comprehensive knowledge of the evolution of nature from mineral forms to plant and animal life. His concern with natural science and philosophy pervades his later writings and remains dominant to the end of his life. It converged with Coleridge’s efforts to complete his ‘Logosophia’ or magnum opus, which was to contain the results of some ‘20 years’ incessant Thought, and at least 10 years’ positive Labor’ and present ‘a compleat and perfectly original system of Logic, Natural [Philosophy] and Theology’ (CL, iv, 736). In one projected version, the ‘Logosophia’ was to include a separate treatise on ‘the Dynamic or Constructive Philosophy as opposed to the Mechanic’ and another on ‘the Systems of Giordano Bruno, Behmen, and Spinoza’ (CL, iv, 687). Although Coleridge’s magnum opus turned out to be no more than a ‘poignant illusion’, as McFarland put it,¹ some of its component pieces appear in various documents.