Útržky ze zápisníku zemřelého přírodovědce - O duši Země a romantické vědě – Purkyně Jan Evangelista (2019)

One hundred seventy years ago, in 1850, Jan Evangelista Purkyně (1787–1869) published an anonymous commentary on the widely discussed opinions of the time, just as today, regarding whether the Earth is a being, whether it has its own spirit, and how evolution occurred. He gave this long unfinished essay the romantic title Fragments from the Notebook of a Deceased Naturalist. In the philosophical confession and synthesis of the life views of the most significant Czech naturalist of his time, we can see a classic work of Czech literature from the mid-19th century, which, however, had the historical misfortune of being published anonymously, in German, and far from Prague. It can be read as a perspective on evolution before Darwin as well as a natural philosophical and poetic complement to the works of K. H. Mácha or B. Němcová, with which it resonates. In the Central European context, the notes of the 'deceased' naturalist hold a similar position to Edgar A. Poe's essay on the material and spiritual universe, Eureka, in the Anglo-Saxon world. Purkyně's work is thus part of the reflections that Europe and America engaged in around the tumultuous year of 1848 to understand their place in the stream of changes. This book, in a new, revised edition, presents a commented complete translation of Purkyně's classic text and a collection of essays organized by Tomáš Hermann and Václav Cílek.