The Heresies of Thomas Hardy :: Biography Biographies Essays

The Heresies of Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy is widely know as a poet who went against the conventions of his contemporaries by calling religion into question. Hardys penning style is so prone to allow random natural events to limit the course of his novels that he often seems to be asking wherefore God, if he existed, would let such bad things happen to basically good people. some other philosopher who expressed heretical views about conventional religion during Hardys era was Auguste Comte, damp of positivism. In his writings on positivism, Comte set forth a citywide theory of the historical development of human knowledge (Mitchell 619). According to Comte, human race has thus far moved through three phases theo synthetic, metaphysical and confident(p). The positive stage, ground on scientific reason, had been achieved about the time of the industrial rotary motion (Mitchell 619-620). Comte and his followers rejected traditional religion, substituting a rel igion based entirely on historical and sociological principles (Mitchell 620). Comtes central principle was the mood that the laws governing human thought and action are a subclass of the laws of constitution (Mitchell 620). Hardy seems to be able more readily to espouse this mood than traditional religion. For Hardy, traditional religion made no sense because on that point was no proof that God existed, only speculation (Hynes xviii). It seems more logical that if there is a set of laws governing nature, then there should be a set of laws governing how humans think and interact. Hardy is not able to fully lend his writing to an idea of logical order, up to now he seems to believe that often there is no controlling force, and that is why life can seem so cruel. In his novels, we see exclusively random actions, either of people or nature, which lead to the unhappiness or downfall of characters. In Far From the Madding Crowd Bathsheda sends the valentine to Boldwo od merely on a whim (79) this single act, however, contributes to the downfall of the man, which also manifests itself in the random encounter which destroys the ricks. In The Mayor of Casterbridge the wife selling (79) is brought about by Henchards boozy anger it is the random arrival of Farfrae, on his way to the new world, that lastly leads to the impulsive Henchards downfall.