Steinbeck and the Environment: Interdisciplinary Approaches

7. Searching for "What Is"

SEVEN Searching for "What Is": Charles Darwin and John Steinbeck Brian Railsback Steinbeck patterned his attitude and approach to the Sea ofCortez adventure on Darwin's Beagle voyage and when he returned commented that the Western Flyer expedition had tried to bring back Darwin's broader view of the biological world. Like Darwin, Steinbeck went to "see what we see, record what wefind, and notfool ourselves with conventional scientific strictures." Steinbeck actively sought the objective viewpoint that Darwin strove to achieve ("is" thinking) but like Darwin recognized that his own humanity would ultimately prevent his attaining total objectivity. Darwin's influence is seminal for The Log from the Sea of Cortez, and his "biological view ofour species" pervades many other Steinbeck works as well. The Sea of Cortez was for John Steinbeck what the Galapagos archipelago was for Charles Darwin: a pristine panorama of the natural world, perfect for the illustration of profound interpretations of biology . Steinbeck clearly realized the parallels between his and Ed Ricketts's expedition aboard the Western Flyer and Darwin's aboard the Beagle. Yet Steinbeck's recognition of Darwin's achievement goes beyond the superficial comparison of voyages. Evolutionary theory underscores the power ofinductive, objective reasoning; it represents the first thorough attempt at a holistic view of Homo sapiens and nature that successfully challenges theological or philosophical preconceptions . For a novelist fascinated by evolutionary progress, natural selection, and the inductive search for truth-all things of central importance to his version of "what is" thinking-we should not be surprised to find Darwin's name mentioned with feeling and reverence in Steinbeck's most important treatise: The Logfrom the Sea ofCortez. Trying to determine Steinbeck's first contact with Darwin and his 128 Railsback theories is impossible, but he had a formal dose of evolutionary theory when he took general zoology at Hopkins Marine Station in the summer of 1923. Of all the important naturalists arid biologists with interpretations of Darwinian theory that Steinbeck learned from, the first was William Emerson Ritter. Richard Astro has shown that Steinbeck's professor at Hopkins was C. V. Taylor, who studied at Berkeley under Charles Kofoid, who in turn "undoubtedly had come under the influence of the ideas of William Emerson Ritter," so that "Ritter's ideas were transmitted via Kofoid and Taylor to the impressionable Steinbeck" (1973, 44). In his biography The True Adventures ofJohn Steinbeck, Writer, Jackson J. Benson suggests Steinbeck may have read some of Ritter's The Unity ofthe Organism; or, The Organismal Conception ofLife (240). In discussing the great naturalists, who possess a wider view than modern specialized scientis~s, Ritter writes: "Three names that stand out with mountain like conspicuousness among those who in modern times have made the idea of evolution a household possession [are] Lamarck, Darwin, and Wallace" (I, 75). Later, Ritter applauds the inductive method of Darwin and examines the unfolding of the naturalist's discovery of evolution from the intense curiosity of a youth aboard the Beagle, to the long consideration of parts that became a theory years later. Ritter's reflections on Darwin, few as they are, set a trend of admiration typical of other evolutionary thinkers Steinbeck read at a crucial period in the writer's development . Because of Ritter's influence in the course at Hopkins, the positive view of Darwin in Steinbeck's mind was probably set even before he met Edward F. Ricketts in 1930. As much as Steinbeck's experience at Hopkins Marine Station may have given him some of the foundations upon which he built his'mature work, class really began at Cannery Row with Rickettswho was less a teacher and more a fellow classmate. As Benson and Astro have demonstrated, Ricketts, proprietor of Pacific Biological Laboratories and an enthusiastic naturalist/philosopher, exposed Steinbeck to a number of ideas relating to biology. Steinbeck came to Ricketts with some of his own ideas, however, as Joel W. Hedgpeth writes: "Steinbeck's interest in marine biology did not arise out of his association with Ed Ricketts.... the friendship with Ricketts probably developed in part out of a common interest inbiology" (As- Darwin and Steinbeck 129 tro and Hayashi 1971, 96). In the makeshift library at the lab, Steinbeck encountered many of the scientific books he read between 1930 and 1940-the period in which most of his ideas concerning biology were formed. Looking through some of these books, a perusal now...