Jane Austen – The Scientist

Posted on 15th April, 2026 in News

The media frenzy about Jane Austen’s life and works that was stimulated by the 250 anniversary of her birth showcased the brilliance of her social commentary, the strength of her moral criticism, and the depth of her insight into human psychology. But as ever, critics have once again missed an important aspect of her personality – her interest in science.

True, most of her books and most of her characters show little interest in intellectual pursuits of any kind; their attention is entirely devoted to social one-upmanship, romantic intrigues, and matrimony. However, in what is probably her least popular novel, Mansfield Park, science plays a significant part, and her heroine, Fanny Price, displays an intelligent interest in scientific matters. Few critics or general readers seem to find Fanny interesting, probably because of her lack of interest in the arts – she does not display the usual accomplishments of drawing, singing or playing the piano – or in the vacuous banter and gossip in which the other characters, especially her love rival Mary Crawford, delight. Their longest conversation is on the subject of what behaviour girls should exhibit when they “come out” into society. Unlike the rest of the young people in the book Fanny is not an extrovert, and her timidity, fear of disorder and straightforwardness seems to place her some way along the autistic spectrum.

Nevertheless, Fanny is alone in Jane Austen’s characters in exhibiting an intellectual side. She is a keen reader, collects curios and grows geraniums in her unheated hideaway, and is fond of astronomy (especially with her beloved Edmund). She also exhibits sharp observational skills in detecting the real motives, hopes and jealousies of her cousins and their friends. And though understandably averse to acting in the play Lovers’ Vows because of her reserved character, she devises a range of mental tricks to help the dim-witted Mr Rushworth learn his 42 lines of dialogue. On the famous trip to Sotherton to visit Mr Rushworth, she shows particular interests in history and natural history. As she travels through the countryside she revels in the changes in soil type she can see from the carriage, and correctly identifies the lime trees in the avenue that leads up to the mansion at Sotherton. She alone is interested in the history of the house and the make-up of the wilderness through which the young people later ramble.

Fanny most clearly demonstrates the mark of a true scientist, however, in the scenes later on in the book, when the cousins have all left Mansfield Park and she is forced into an uneasy companionship with Mary Crawford. On their first time together, when she is forced to shelter at the parsonage because of a storm and is keen to get away, she shows her observational and logical powers once it is over. When Mary Crawford tries to detain her longer because the clouds still look alarming, she replies with the phrase

“But they are passed over – I have been watching them – This weather is all from the South”

But she most clearly demonstrates here scientific bent in a later scene when the two rivals are sitting in the Parsonage’s shrubbery (a fashionable garden design feature in Regency England at the time). Fanny make (for her) a long speech praising the design of the garden and marvelling at the gardening expertise of the parson and his wife, but Mary only responds by sneering at the pretensions of a parson to attempt one. This prompts Fanny to make her longest speech in the whole book,

“I am so glad to see the evergreens thrive!” said Fanny in reply. “My uncle’s gardener always says the soil here is better than his own, and so it appears from the growth of the laurels and evergreens in general. – The evergreen! – How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! – When one thinks of it, how astonishing the variety of nature! – In some countries we know the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it the less amazing that the same soil and the same sun should nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their existence. You will think me rhapsodizing, but when I am out of doors, especially when I am sitting out of doors, I am very apt to get into this sort of wondering strain. One cannot fix one’s eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy.”

In her observations about evergreens, Fanny articulates a question that still remains open in botanical circles today; why are evergreens dominant in some climates while deciduous trees thrive elsewhere. However, in response Mary shows the colours of her shallow egotism.

“To say the truth,” replied Miss Crawford, “I am something like the famous Doge at the court of Lewis XIV; and may declare that I see no wonder in this shrubbery equal to seeing myself in it.…”

The scene cleverly articulates a major theme of the novel, one that must contribute to it being so unpopular with the chatterati. Though it might be amusing to spend a short time with witty people, even if they are shallow, selfish and immoral, it is far better to spend your life with people who are not just interested in themselves but in the world around them.

The thoughtful approach to the natural world the scene demonstrates also clearly plugs in to the questions that were starting to interest scientists such as Erasmus Darwin about the origin of species. In his long poems of the 1790’s The Botanic Garden and Zoonomia he examined the sex lives and physiology of plants, and outlined an early theory of evolution that later influenced his grandson Charles. And with the keen observation of the natural world that Jane Austen exhibits in her other works, one is left with the impression that while the restrictions on female life gave us an incomparable novelist it also stunted the development of an excellent botanist.