George Henry Lewes was an English philosopher and critic who wrote about literature and theatre. He also studied the human body as an amateur physiologist. American feminist Margaret Fuller described Lewes as a "witty, French, flippant sort of man." He was part of a time in the mid-1800s when people in England discussed new ideas, such as Darwinism, positivism, and religious skepticism. However, he is most well-known today for living openly with Mary Ann Evans, who wrote books under the name George Eliot. Their relationship, though they never married, deeply influenced both their lives and their writing.

Personal life

Lewes was born in London. He was the son of John Lee Lewes, a minor poet, and Elizabeth Ashweek. He was also the grandson of Charles Lee Lewes, a comic actor. When Lewes was six years old, his mother married a retired sea captain. Because his family moved often, he was educated in London, Jersey, Brittany, and finally at Dr. Charles Burney’s school in Greenwich. He tried careers in business and medicine but later considered becoming an actor. He performed on stage several times between 1841 and 1850. Eventually, he focused on writing, science, and philosophy.

In 1836, Lewes joined a group that studied philosophy. He created a plan to explore the ideas of the Scottish school of philosophy through the body’s functions. Two years later, he traveled to Germany, likely to study philosophy further.

Lewes studied nutrition and the body’s systems. He researched whether sugar harmed teeth. He tested the reflexes and nervous systems of living animals, like frogs, using ether and chloroform to reduce their pain.

He became friends with Leigh Hunt, which introduced him to London’s literary circle. Through Hunt, he met John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, and Charles Dickens.

On February 18, 1841, Lewes married 19-year-old Agnes Jervis, the daughter of Swynfen Stevens Jervis. Her father gave written permission for the marriage and witnessed the ceremony. There are several theories about how they met, such as Lewes working as a secretary or tutor for Swynfen Jervis’s sons or through friends of Thornton Hunt. Agnes was described as young, beautiful, and intelligent. She worked as a translator to help support the family.

The couple lived in Kensington in homes owned by Lewes’s mother and others. Lewes and Agnes agreed to have an open marriage. Between 1842 and 1848, they had four sons: Charles Lee, Thornton Arnott, Herbert Arthur, and St Vincent Arthy. Agnes also had four children with Lewes’s best friend, Thornton Hunt, the son of Leigh Hunt. Lewes was listed as the father of one child on the birth certificate, even though he knew this was false. Because of this, he was seen as involved in an affair and could not legally divorce Agnes. In 1854, Lewes left Agnes to live with Mary Ann Evans.

Only one of Lewes’s sons, Charles (born 1843, died 1891), lived past him. Charles became the first London County Councillor for St Pancras North in 1888. He was also interested in expanding Hampstead Heath. Charles married Gertrude Hill, the granddaughter of Thomas Southwood Smith and the sister of social reformers Miranda Hill and Octavia Hill, who co-founded the National Trust.

Lewes met Mary Ann Evans, who later became famous as George Eliot, in 1851. By 1854, they decided to live together. Their relationship caused controversy, and Evans’s family rejected them. They lived together as a couple for 25 years, though they never married. Lewes died in 1878. About two years later, Evans married John Cross. She died suddenly in December 1880, seven months after her marriage. She was buried next to Lewes at Highgate Cemetery.

Literature

From 1840 to 1850, Lewes earned money by writing articles for magazines and reviews. These articles covered many subjects and showed strong critical thinking influenced by philosophical study. His most important works were about drama, later published as Actors and Acting (1875) and The Spanish Drama (1846).

Between 1845 and 1846, Lewes wrote The Biographical History of Philosophy, which described the lives of philosophers as repeated efforts to achieve impossible goals. From 1847 to 1848, he wrote two novels, Ranthorpe and Rose, Blanche and Violet. These novels showed skill in storytelling and character development but did not become widely known. A book he wrote to defend Robespierre (1849) also did not gain lasting recognition. In 1850, he helped start a magazine called The Leader and served as its literary editor. In 1853, he republished a series of papers about Auguste Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences in a book.

Lewes’s most famous work in prose was The Life of Goethe (1855), which is still widely read today. His ability to combine scientific and literary interests made him well-suited to understand Goethe’s wide-ranging work. The book was well received in Germany, even though some of its ideas, like its views on Goethe’s Faust, were controversial.

Starting around 1853, Lewes focused more on scientific and biological topics. Though he had no formal training in science, his writings often included critiques of traditional ideas and results from his own research. He proposed several scientific ideas, one of which was the doctrine of the functional indifference of the nerves. This idea suggested that nerves do not have fixed functions but instead act differently based on their connections to the body’s sense organs. This idea was later also proposed by Wundt.

In 1865, Lewes became the editor of The Fortnightly Review, but he left the position after less than two years, when John Morley took over.

This change marked a shift from scientific work to philosophy. Lewes had been interested in philosophy since his youth, including an early essay on Hegel’s Aesthetics. Influenced by Auguste Comte’s positivism and John Stuart Mill’s A System of Logic, he rejected the possibility of metaphysics and wrote about this in his History of Philosophy. However, he never fully accepted Comte’s ideas and later moved away from positivism as he studied more. He explained this change in the third edition of his History of Philosophy.

Lewes’s final major work was The Problems of Life and Mind, which was cut short by his sudden death. The first two volumes, The Foundations of a Creed, outlined his belief that metaphysics and science could be connected. He argued that questions about the true nature of things were unanswerable, but scientific methods could solve other philosophical problems. He believed that the relationship between mind and body could be studied through science.

However, his explanation of this relationship confused the scientific fact that mind and body coexist with the philosophical idea that knowledge of objects requires a knowing subject. He mixed up how mental processes develop with what they are, leading to a belief that mind and matter are two sides of the same reality. This view was criticized by both scientists and philosophers.

In The Physical Basis of Mind, Lewes expanded on his ideas about the nervous system. He argued that organic processes (like those in living things) are different from inorganic processes (like those in non-living things) and cannot be fully explained by mechanical principles. He believed that all parts of the nervous system share a basic property called sensibility, which is present in both the brain and the spinal cord. Lower parts of the nervous system contribute to subconscious mental activity, while higher parts are responsible for conscious thought.

He rejected the idea that mental activity happens in isolated parts of the brain, arguing instead that the nervous system works as a whole. By linking nerve activity and sentience, he challenged the belief that consciousness is a side effect of nerve activity with no essential role in physical events.

Lewes’s ideas about psychology, first introduced in earlier volumes of The Problems of Life and Mind, were fully developed in the last two volumes. He argued that psychology should use both subjective methods (like introspection) and objective methods (like studying nervous conditions and social history). He believed biology could explain mental functions like feeling and thinking but could not explain differences in mental abilities across races or stages of human development. He suggested these differences were likely caused by social environments.

Lewes also emphasized that mental states are made up of three parts: physical sensations, logical organization, and physical movement. His work in psychology focused more on methods than on specific discoveries. His background in biology helped him see the mind as a complex system.

Death

Lewes died on November 30, 1878, and is buried on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery, near the grave of his wife, Mary Ann Evans, who is best known by her pen name, George Eliot. Mary Ann Evans died on December 22, 1880, and was buried under her remarried name, Mary Ann Cross.

Publications

• The Biographical History of Philosophy (1846). Published by Adamant Media in 2002: ISBN 0-543-96985-1
• The Spanish Drama (1846)
• Ranthorpe (1847)
• Rose, Blanche and Violet (1848)
• Robespierre (1849)
• Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences (1853). Published by Adamant Media in 2000: ISBN 1-4021-9950-3
• Life of Goethe (1855). Published by Adamant Media in 2000: ISBN 0-543-93077-7
• Seaside Studies (1858)
• Physiology of Common Life (1859)
• Studies in Animal Life (1862)
• Aristotle, A Chapter from the History of Science (1864). Published by Adamant Media in 2001: ISBN 0-543-81753-9
• Actors and Acting (1875)
• The Problems of Life and Mind (five volumes): First Series, Volume 1 (1874); First Series, Volume 2 (1874); Second Series (1877); Third Series, Volume 1 (completed by George Eliot and published after her death in 1879); Third Series, Volume 2 (completed by George Eliot and published after her death in 1879)
• New Quarterly (London, October 1879)
• J. W. Cross, George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals (three volumes, New York, 1885)