Therefore for Wells, “Noble Beast” implies that man is essentially created by the life force of evolution, and was now near to reaching the pinnacle of life on earth, if he could free himself from superstitions and liberate himself and the world, and become “God.” H.G. In essence man himself would replace God. Wells saw God as unnecessary in this process and viewed religion as something that should be abandoned by modern man who had now attained the insight of his glorious destiny of the highest form of life. Thus, man had his beginning in the lowest forms of life that through the manifest propensity of creative evolution over vast periods of time resulted in the human. Wells” is the supposition that man is a “ Noble Beast” because he is the pinnacle of the life force that is inherent in all forms of life. While it is not possible here to examine Pascal’s anthropology in depth, it is worth noting that it is a form of empiricism, namely basing knowledge on the universally observable facts of the nature of man. Therefore for Pascal the term “Noble Beast” implies that man was created by God as the pinnacle of life on Earth, and through free will had fallen to a state of estrangement from God. He was also a devout Christian who had a profound mystical experience, and thus he sought to understand the relationship between religious and scientific knowledge. He is thought by historians of philosophy to have been one of the first modern existentialists. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was thought to be a true genius, and was a scientist, mathematician, and sort of philosopher/anti-philosopher. “Pascal’s Anthropology” is the supposition that man is a “ Noble Beast” because he has fallen from an original high position of “greatness,” to a position of “miserableness,” from a position of “Nobility” to a position of “bestiality.” Pascal called humans “ Deposed Royalty.” But Pascal held that there are remnants of the original position within humans, so that they are now not fully “Noble,” nor fully “beasts” (he used the term “brutes”). These two systems can be given the titles of “Pascal’s Anthropology” and “The Scientism of H.G. Our next step is to consider two main ways that the idea of “Noble Beast” has been used conceptually in the past, in philosophic systems that are quite different to each other. So to summarize so far, I believe that these types of questions explore the theme of the natures of humans and animals and their relationship to each other. So in applying this description of a being as a “Noble Beast” to the above picture we are then faced with another range of possible meanings: Is the animal a noble beast? Is the human a noble beast? Is one of them the noble beast and not the other? Are they both noble beasts? But placing the contrasting words together creates a description of one being that has the qualities of both. Noble in its main meaning implies a privileged hereditary birth.The words taken in contrast to each other can also evoke the range of possible inter-relationships noted in the picture above. “Noble” evokes images of greatness “Beast” evokes images of lowliness. The title “Noble Beast” is similarly provocative of this theme by the combination of two simple words. What is their relationship to each other? Is their relationship to each other that of food/feeder servant/master inferior/superior ancestor/descendent equal/equal? Are these choices mutually exclusive? The photograph obviously shows “a bird” and “Andrew Bird.” They are representative of the animal, and of the human. Therefore we will begin our exploration of the major theme that we have been given in this picture and in the title. Also, the title of an album is usually meant to convey a thematic quality of the songs included therein, and I believe the title for Andrew Bird’s 2009 album “Noble Beast” serves that purpose well. That theme is an exploration of the natures of humans and animals and their relationship to each other. In the above photograph I believe that we have been given an insight into a major theme in many of the compositions of Andrew Bird.
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