Constance Naden

Constance Caroline Woodhill Naden (24 January 1858 – 23 December 1889) was an English writer, poet and philosopher. She studied, wrote and lectured on philosophy and science, alongside publishing two volumes of poetry. Several collected works were published following her death at the young age of 31. In her honour, Robert Lewins established the Constance Naden Medal and had a bust of her installed at Mason Science College (now the University of Birmingham). William Ewart Gladstone considered her one of the 19th century's foremost female poets.

Born 24 January 1858 at 15 Francis Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, England to Caroline Ann Woodhill Naden who died within two weeks of giving birth, and Thomas Naden, an architect, later president of the Birmingham Architectural Association. She was brought up by her mother's parents, Caroline and Josiah Woodhill, from 12 days old until her grandparents' deaths. Naden's well read and devout baptist grandparents lived at Pakenham House, Edgbaston. Her father also lived with the Woodhills for many years. At age 8 Naden was sent to a local Unitarian day school, where she developed a talent for painting. She submitted some paintings to the Birmingham Society of Artists, one of which (titled ‘Bird’s Nest and Wild Roses’) was accepted for display at the Society's Spring Exhibition in 1878.

She became interested in philosophy, languages and the sciences. In 1879, Naden attended the Birmingham and Midland Institute to study botany and French, and from 1881 to 1887 attended Mason Science College to study physics, geology, chemistry, physiology, and zoology,; she also became a member of the Birmingham Natural History Society. Naden also edited the Mason College magazine.

From the late 1870s onwards Naden developed a philosophy called Hylo-Idealism in collaboration with Robert Lewins, MD, who she first met in 1876 and corresponded with for the rest of her life. The key principle of this philosophy is that "Man is the maker of his own Cosmos, and all his perceptions - even those which seem to represent solid, extended and external objects - have a merely subjective existence, bounded by the limits moulded by the character and conditions of his sentient being." She was interested in Herbert Spencer's concept of a unifying philosophy that sought to explain the universe through the principles of evolution. In his work The Social Organism (1860), Spencer compares society to a living organism and argues that, just as biological organisms evolve through natural selection, society evolves and increases in complexity through analogous processes. Naden agreed with this, since the theme of unity is central to Hylo-Idealism, which seeks to reconcile materialism and idealism, poetry and science, the self and other.

...
Wikipedia