Arguments about whether heroes in sctence are "great men" or products of their culture rest on
a false dichotomy created, in part, by the participants themselves. History may be modeled as
a contingency matrix—a massively conditioned and crucially dependent multitude of linkages
across space and time. The hero is molded into, and helps to mold the shape of, those connections.
A hero in history is a great individual who altered history's contingencies irreversibly. Darwin
and Freud provide historical case studies to understand the origin of the hero in science.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Barzun, J. (1958). Darwin, Marx, Wagner. New York: Doubleday.
2.
Boorstin, D. (1987). From hero to celebrity. In D. Boorstin, Hidden history (pp. 284-296). New York: Harper & Row.
3.
Brackman, A. (1980). A delicate arrangement: The strange case ofAlfred Russel Wallace. New York: Times Books.
4.
Brooks, J. L. (1984). Just before the origin. New York: Columbia University Press.
5.
Butterfield, H. (1931). The Whig interpretation of history. London: G. Bell.
6.
Campbell, J. (1949). The hero with a thousand faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
7.
Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selectcon, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. London: Murray.
8.
Darwin, C. (1862). On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilized by insects . London: Murray.
9.
Darwin, C. (1864). Darwin Papers Nos. 82, 106, 107. Handlist of Darwin Papers in University Library, Cambridge .
10.
Darwin, C. (1868). The variation of animals and plants under domestication (Vols. 1 & 2). London: Murray.
11.
Darwin, C. (1871). The descent of man. London: Murray.
12.
Fromm, E. (1959). Sigmund Freud's mission: An analysis of his personality and influence. New York: Harper & Row.
13.
Gould, S. J. (1980). Natural selection and the human brain: Darwin vs. Wallace. In S. J. Gould, The panda's thumb. New York: Norton.
14.
Gould, S. J. (1986). Knight takes bishop?Natural History, 5, 33-37.
15.
Himmelfarb, G. (1959). Darwin and the Darwinian revolution. New York: Doubleday.
16.
Hitching, F. (1982). The neck of the giraffe. New York: New American Library.
17.
Hook, S. (1943). The hero in history: A study in limitation and possibility. Boston : Beacon Press.
18.
Korey, K. (1984). The essential Darwin. Boston: Little, Brown.
19.
Krieger, L. (1977). Ranke: The meaning of history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
20.
Lyell, C. (1830-1833). Principles of geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation (3 vols.). London: Murray.
21.
Mayr, E. (1982). The growth of biological thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
22.
McKinney, H. L. (1972). Wallace and natural selection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
23.
Mencken, H. L. (1987). A new dictionary of quotations on historical principles from ancient and modern sources. New York: Knopf.
24.
Seldes, G. (1983). The great quotations. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press.
25.
Shermer, M. (1988, November). The historical matrix model: A theory of historical contingency. Paper presented at the annual meeting of Interface 88, Atlanta.
26.
Sulloway, F. J. (1979). Freud, biologist of the mindNew York: Basic Books.
