Dreiser’s Supernatural Naturalism 65
throw some light on his peculiar physical condition, on the
truthful prediction of the astrologer, on the signs and portents
which he had come to observe for himself as foretelling
trouble or good fortune for himself [?]8
With all allowance for the limitations of his education, and
for the fact that his fictional characters are entitled to speak
dramatically for themselves as well as didactically for their
author, the confusions of Theodore Dreiser about evolu-
tionary science run deep. His partial grasp is often firm
enough, but partial it remains; like the blind men with the
elephant, he has no encompassing vision of the whole sci-
ence, or of Science as a whole. With Solon Barnes, he was
“arrested by the various vegetative and insect forms obvi-
ously devised and energized by the Creative Force . .
Here now . . . was . . . an exquisitely colored and designed
green fly so green and translucent that it reminded one of an
emerald, only it was of a much more tender and vivid tex-
ture. . . . And what was more, . . . his mind was swiftly
filled with wonder, not only at the beauty of the fly, but at
the wisdom and the art of the Creative Impulse that had
busied itself with the creation of this physical gem. . . .
Then, after bending down and examining a blade of
grass here, a climbing vine there, a minute flower, lovely
and yet as inexplicable as his green fly, he turned in a kind
of religious awe and wonder. Surely there must be a Creative
Divinity, and so a purpose, behind all of this variety and
beauty and tragedy of life. For see how tragedy had de-
scended upon him, and still he had faith, and would have.
(The Bulwark, pp. 316-317)
In Sister Carrie, he hopefully viewed the process of evolution
as a transition from the beast’s instinctive harmony with the
forces of nature, through the unsatisfactory “middle stage”
of man’s present situation, to an assured future state in which
by reason acting through free-will man will recover the
pristine perfect harmony with nature.
We have the consolation of knowing that evolution is ever in
action, that the ideal is a fight that cannot fail. He will not