Darwin, Hardy, and Bergson — A Glimpse of Continuity?

Abstract “The principle of spontaneity” is a central idea in Hardy's poetry; his passion for irregularity (intensifying the appearance of spontaneity) had been learned while working as an architect. See “Memories of Church Restoration”: nature is always discarding the matter while retaining the form. Here Hardy's view can be linked to Darwin's own theories. Natural Selection, as Darwin says, “is as immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art.” The aim of this paper is to highlight how Hardy starts from Darwin's concept of inheritance, to come close to Bergson's statement about the innate “autonomy” of the past which is able constantly to preserve itself, without any special faculty.