On inevitability of personification in Darwin's "Origin of Species"

Abstract

The paper investigates the sources of the personification of nature and natural selection in the work On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. The study based on the Conceptual Metaphor theory and Cognitive Grammar has demonstrated that Darwin’s use of personification is motivated by multiple interrelated factors such as the concept of change, conceptual grounding of the sentence subject, an analogy with artificial selection, the competing scenario of creation and the pre-existing personification of Mother Nature. The analysis has revealed that in spite of criticism, Darwin was unable to remove personification from his theory without destroying the coherence of his argument and the style of the text.