The evolutionary sublime and the essay of natural history

The rhetorical foundations of social change may be found, not only in polemical discourse but in popular literary discourse as well. A case in point is that of the concept of the evolutionary sublime, an amalgam of the rhetorical/aesthetic theory of the sublime and scientific evolutionary theory, which had significant implications for personal morality and social policy. This reservoir of concepts was transmitted to its readership, the American middle class of the nineteenth century, through the popular literature of natural history; it subsequently served as a basis for the persuasive arguments of the conservation movement. This study traces the emergence of rhetorical argument from bases in popular literary and intellectual culture.