Mike Hawkins - Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860-1945 - Nature As Model and Nature As Threat (1997)

This compelling and wide-ranging new study focuses upon the heated
controversies that have surrounded the meaning and shifting signifi-

cance of Social Darwinism.
Through a careful survey of the enormous secondary literature on
the subject, Mike Hawkins clarifies the nature of Social Darwinism and
its complex relationship to the theories of Darwin, Lamarck and
Herbert Spencer. In the first comprehensive comparison of the myriad
European and American developments of these theories, the author
explores their use in a number of crucial ideological debates and social
movements, including eugenics and Fascism. Dr Hawkins shows how
so many political positions - from anarchism and cooperation to
socialism, imperialism, liberalism, Fabianism, democracy and anti-
democracy - could draw on the Darwinian tradition. The study finishes
with a topical discussion of late twentieth-century sociobiology in order
to assess the continuing vitality of Social Darwinism.
Historians and social scientists from across many disciplines will
enjoy this cogent and subtle analysis of Social Darwinism and will find
it an invaluable guide through an often complex subject.
Social Darwinism in European and American
thought, 1860-1945
Social Darwinism in European
and American thought,
1860-1945
Nature as model and nature as threat
Mike Hawkins
Kingston University
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
© Mike Hawkins 1997
First published 1997

Reprinted 1998
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data

Hawkins, Mike, 1946-
Social Darwinism in European and American thought, 1860-1945: nature
as model and nature as threat / Mike Hawkins.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0 521 57400 5 (hardback). - ISBN 0 521 57434 X (pbk.)
1. Social Darwinism - History. I. Title
HM106.H38 1997
304 / .09-dc20 96-20946 CIP
ISBN 0 521 57400 5 hardback

ISBN 0 521 57434 X paperback
Transferred to digital printing 2003

To my parents, Alec and Joan Hawkins
Contents
Acknowledgements page x
Part I: Defining Social Darwinism

Introduction: the identity of Social Darwinism 3
1 Defining Social Darwinism 21
2 The distinctiveness of Social Darwinism 39
Part II: Pioneers

3 The emergence of Social Darwinism 61
4 Herbert Spencer and cosmic evolution 82
5 Social Darwinism in the USA 104
6 Social Darwinism in France and Germany 123
Part III: Case studies

7 Reform Darwinism 151
8 Races, nations and the struggle for existence 184
9 The eugenic conscience 216
10 Social Darwinism, nature and sexual difference 249
11 Nazism, Fascism and Social Darwinism 272
Postscript: Social Darwinism old and new: the case of sociobiology 292
Bibliography 314
Index 335
Acknowledgements
This book has been a long time in the making, as a result of which I have
incurred many debts from friends, colleagues and family. Since it is
those closest to me who have borne the brunt of my absences and mood
swings, I would like to record my gratitude to Jacquie, Sarah and
Elizabeth for their support, encouragement and forbearance over many
years, and additionally for Jacquie's editing and proofreading skills. As
to friends and colleagues, special thanks are due to Steve Woodbridge
for his help in tracing sources, discussing ideas and reading drafts; to
Keith Reader, Steve Bastow and Andrea Hawkins for their assistance
with translations; and to Mike Giddy for enabling me to approach
matters from a different - if not always sober - angle. The following also
contributed ideas, criticisms and documents: Chris Alderman, Paul
Auerbach, Phylomena Badsey, Joe Bailey, Peter Beck (who suggested
the project in the first place), Gail Cunningham, Chris French, the late
Ivan Hannaford, John Ibbett, Simon Locke, Bill Pickering, Anne Poole,
Christine Pullen, Phil Spencer, Terry Sullivan, Marie Turner and Keith
Weightman. Thanks also to two anonymous readers for Cambridge
University Press, and to Richard Fisher, the Social Science Publishing
Director at Cambridge, for his encouragement and patience. The
Faculty of Human Sciences at Kingston University provided me with
two small research grants which enabled me to devote time to the book
at crucial stages in its development. None of the above are, of course,
responsible for the interpretations and any errors this book contains, but
without them it would not have been written.
Parti
Defining Social Darwinism
Only that which has no history is definable.

Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, II, 13.
Introduction: the identity of Social
Darwinism
What is Social Darwinism, and what role has it played in the history of
social and political ideas? These questions, the point of departure for the
present study, are simple to formulate but, as the historiography of
Social Darwinism attests, difficult to answer. Anyone consulting the vast
literature on Social Darwinism in the hope of resolving them is likely to
experience confusion rather than enlightenment. What he or she will
encounter are heated controversies over a number of issues. First,
scholars dispute the definition of Social Darwinism and, as a conse-
quence, who is to count as a 'genuine' Social Darwinist. Second, they
disagree over the ideological functions of Social Darwinism with some
insisting on its conservative bias whereas others emphasise its reformist -
even radical - orientation. Third, there is controversy over the
significance of Social Darwinism, with positions ranging from the claim
that it was both widespread and influential, to the contrary view that its
importance has been grossly exaggerated by hostile commentators.
Finally, scholars contest the relationship between Social Darwinism and
Darwin himself, broadly dividing between those who see a connection
and those who insist on a radical difference between the work of the
English naturalist and the ideological uses to which his ideas were put.
This dissension has helped to define the aims and the contents of this
book. Indeed, it is my view that any attempt to understand the
emergence and history of Social Darwinism must first come to grips
with these disputes: appreciating the points at issue and the controversies
they have aroused is a first step towards a different approach to the
subject. For this reason, it is useful to review each of these areas of
disagreement in turn.
The nature of Social Darwinism

There are several ways of categorising Social Darwinism. One wide-
spread and seemingly straightforward tactic is to do so in terms of a
series of catchphrases. This approach was implicit in Hofstadter's
4 Social Darwinism in European and American thought
influential study of Social Darwinism in American thought, in which he
referred to the 'struggle for existence' and 'survival of the fittest' as
popular catchphrases of Darwinism. * Subsequent historians have added
'natural selection', and sometimes 'adaptation' and 'variation', to this
list.2
Not all commentators agree, however, that these catchphrases
adequately convey the sense of Darwinian theory. The American
historian Bannister, though adopting this approach himself, maintains
that after the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859 Darwin
assigned less importance to natural selection, the struggle for existence,
and survival of the fittest in evolution and attributed a greater role to
other mechanisms such as the inheritance of acquired characters. For
Bannister, this makes questionable the extent to which these catch-
phrases can be taken as encapsulating Darwin's theory.3 Other scholars,
in an attempt to dissociate Darwin from Social Darwinism, have even
suggested that natural selection was not the most important idea in the
Origin.4 Since the expression 'survival of the fittest' was coined by
Herbert Spencer rather than by Darwin, and only adopted by the latter
from the fifth edition (1869) of the Origin, such considerations cast
doubt on the legitimacy of singling out certain ideas as specifically
Darwinian, thereby undermining the utility of the catchphrase approach.
There are important issues here concerning the continuity of Darwin's
ideas over time and their relationship to Spencer's theories which will be
taken up in later chapters. For the moment I want to raise a different
objection to the catchphrase approach: any attempt to define Darwinism
by means of a list of concepts - even if there is complete agreement on
what is to be included in this list - encounters difficulties in classifying
theorists who only subscribe to some of its features. For example, it has
been claimed of English Social Darwinism that it persistently presented
'evolution as the growth of rationality'.5 It is unquestionably the case
that many Social Darwinists did perceive the growth of rationality as an
important facet of evolution. But there were others, considered by
1
R. Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860-1915 (Boston: Beacon,
1955), 6.
2
For example, K. E. Bock, 'Darwin and Social Theory', Philosophy of Science, 22(1955),
124; R. M. Young, 'Malthus and the Evolutionists', Past and Present, 43(1969), 112;
R. Bannister, Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Thought (Philadel-
phia: Temple University Press, 1979), 7, 20; J. W. Burrow, 'Social Darwinism', in The
Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), 481.
3
R. Bannister, 'The Survival of the Fittest is our Doctrine: History or Histrionics?',
Journal of the History of Ideas, 31(1970), 377, 378.
4
J. Bronowski, 'Introduction', in M. Banton, ed., Darwinism and the Study of Society
(London: Tavistock, 1961), x.
5
G. Jones, Social Darwinism and English Thought (Brighton: Harvester, 1980), 176.
The identity of Social Darwinism 5
themselves and their contemporaries to be Darwinists, who placed the
emphasis elsewhere. Benjamin Kidd, for instance, asserted that: 'The
evolution which is slowly proceeding in human society is not primarily
intellectual but religious in character.'6 Should, then, Kidd be excluded
from the Social Darwinist camp? Such a decision would be perverse
given that this statement occurs in his Social Evolution, which was an
explicit attempt to apply Darwinism to human social and mental
evolution.7
Similar considerations apply to the claim that a belief in historical
progress is an essential attribute of Social Darwinism.8 This belief
certainly was upheld by a number of Social Darwinists (e.g. Kidd), but
in Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there
was, alongside the belief in progress, a widespread fear of moral and
physical degeneration, and a sense of decadence and the imminent
demise of Western civilisation.9 This was sometimes fuelled by the
spectre of the total destruction of humanity wrought by the cooling of
the sun. The second law of thermodynamics was represented in some
late nineteenth-century literature in the form of a dead earth, rendered
lifeless by the cooling sun. 10 These preoccupations were sometimes
wedded to evolutionary theory, giving rise to modes of Social Darwinism
in which progress was either seen as a rare and contingent phenomenon
or else denied outright. Thus, far from believing in the inevitability of
progress, the French 'anthropo-sociologist' Vacher de Lapouge was
convinced that the rigorous application of Darwinism to social and
political change exposed the chimerical nature of progress.11 As will be
demonstrated in later chapters, Lapouge was by no means alone in this
conviction.
The point of these examples is this: what is required for an under-
standing of Social Darwinism is not simply an enumeration of its various
components but an indication of how these components relate to one
another, and of the importance of each to the overall configuration.
6
B. Kidd, Social Evolution (London: Macmillan, 1894), 245.
7
This is acknowledged by Jones, Social Darwinism, 122.
8
R. Williams, 'Social Darwinism', in J. Benthall, ed., The Limits of Human Nature
(London: Allen Lane, 1973), 117.
9
On the prevalence of notions of degeneration during this period, see J. Chamberlin and
S. Gilman, eds., Degeneration (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985); D. Pick,
Faces of Degeneration (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
10
C. Watts, A Preface to Conrad (London: Longman, 1982), 182-3. Watts discusses the
cultural impact of this nightmare, 86-8. See also G. Myers, 'Nineteenth Century
Popularizations of Thermodynamics and the Rhetoric of Social Prophesy', Victorian
Studies, 29(1985), 35-66.
11
G. Vacher de Lapouge, Les Selections sociales (Paris: Fontemoing, 1896), 446, 449;
Lapouge, UAryen (Paris: Fontemoing, 1899), vii, 512.
Focusing on the interrelationships and relative weighting of the different
ingredients of Social Darwinism produces a richer and more useful
understanding of it. This is not to say that all problems pertaining to the
classification of particular theorists are eliminated. Any definitional
framework is bound to encounter 'hard cases' - instances where it is
difficult to determine whether the relevant criteria have been satisfied.
The framework proposed in the next chapter is no exception in this
respect. But it has the advantage of discriminating between thinkers who
embrace the configuration as a whole, including the 'rules' for inter-
connecting its different components, and those who make use of some
of these components within a different, perhaps even antithetical, dis-
cursive framework. Social Darwinism must be seen as a network of inter-
linked ideas, subject to change over time - particularly with regard to the
relationships among these ideas - but retaining its overall identity
notwithstanding these modifications.
Some commentators have denned Social Darwinism as the explicit
endorsement of Darwin's theory of evolution, leaving open the issue of
the actual content of this theory.12 The problem with this approach is
that it includes theorists who, while seeking to legitimate their ideas by
claiming their provenance in Darwin, in fact propounded doctrines
which were at variance with the fundamental premisses of Darwinism.
This is true of much of what has been labelled 'reform Darwinism'. On
the other hand, this tactic would lead to the exclusion of Spencer who
objected to being referred to as a Darwinist because he had arrived at
this theory independently of Darwin's work.13 Defining Social Darwin-
ism in terms of an express commitment to Darwin's ideas in the context
of social theory is, therefore, unsatisfactory.
In an effort to introduce more specificity into the notion of Social
Darwinism, some historians have recommended equating it with
eugenics, or at least including the latter as part of the definition.14 The
problem with conflating Social Darwinism with eugenics, however, is
that it was possible to support one and not the other. Thus Benjamin
Kidd, though a Social Darwinist, was a severe critic of eugenics, while
12
J. R. Moore, 'Varieties of Social Darwinism', Open University Course A309, Conflict
and Stability in the Development of Modern Europe (Milton Keynes: Open University
Press, 1980), 37. See also A. Kelly, The Descent of Darwin (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1981), 103.
13
See H. Spencer, 'Reponse a M. Emile de Laveleye', in E. Laveleye, Le Socialisme
contemporaine, fourth edn (Paris: Alcan, 1888), 409.
14
For the first tactic, see R. J. Halliday, 'Social Darwinism: A Definition', Victorian
Studies, 14(1971), 401; for the second, see D. P. Crook, 'Darwinism: The Political
Implications', History of European Ideas, 2(1981), 19. Not all historians, however, regard
eugenicists as bona fide Social Darwinists. See Bannister, Social Darwinism, 166;
C. Degler, In Search of Human Nature (Oxford University Press, 1991), 42.
George Bernard Shaw endorsed eugenics with enthusiasm but was
dismissive of Darwinism.15 Hence while there was often a very close
association between eugenics and Social Darwinism, it provides insuffi-
cient warrant for conflating them.
If this last approach is overly restrictive, then equating Social
Darwinism with a belief in the beneficial effects of warfare sins in the
opposite direction. This connection was made at the start of the present
century by the Russian-born businessman and sociologist, Jacques
Novicow (1849-1912), who proclaimed Social Darwinism to be a
doctrine which believed human progress had occurred through 'collec-
tive homicide'.16 He then proceeded to label as Social Darwinist
anybody who proffered a positive assessment of warfare irrespective of
the basis upon which this assessment was made. As a result Novicow
included many writers who were manifestly not Darwinists, in addition
to misrepresenting the views of genuine Social Darwinists who were
explicitly opposed to warfare between civilised nations - Spencer being a
notable but by no means the only example.17 The result of this type of
procedure is to deprive the notion of Social Darwinism of any specific
content and hence of any value in the analysis of ideas.
These disagreements over the intention of the term Social Darwinism
are not trivial matters of academic hair-splitting, for, as we shall see, they
have important ramifications for other areas of controversy.
The ideological functions of Social Darwinism

There tend to be two positions in the secondary literature on the
discursive functions of Social Darwinism. One position links it to
specific ideologies such as laissez-faire liberalism, racism or imperial-
ism.18 A variant of this view regards Social Darwinism as performing
15
For Kidd's attitude to eugenics, see the study by D. P. Crook, Benjamin Kidd: Portrait
of a Social Darwinist (Cambridge University Press, 1984), 78, 255. Shaw's ideas are
discussed below, chap. 7.
16
J. Novicow, La Critique du darwinisme social (Paris: Alcan, 1910). This connection had
already been made by opponents of Social Darwinism, e.g. Laveleye in Le Socialisme,
397-400, 410. For a detailed assessment of the relationship between Darwinism and
warfare, see P. Crook, Darwinism, War and History (Cambridge University Press,
1994).
17
Spencer believed that struggle had evolved from warfare in primitive times to industrial
competition in advanced societies. Novicow repudiated the identification of economic
competition with struggle, although earlier in his career he had made precisely this
identification himself and overtly endorsed Darwinism. See Novicow, Les Luttes entre les
societes humaines et leursphases successives (Paris: Alcan: 1893), 218.
18
Ball and Dagger, in their textbook on political ideologies, define Social Darwinism as
the adaptation of Darwinism to classical liberal theories of laissez-faire and limited
government. T. Ball and R. Dagger, Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal (New
broader but still politically distinctive functions. Thus Kelly, in his
analysis of German Social Darwinism, depicts it as legitimating 'the
competitive, hierarchical, bourgeois society'.19 Degler, in an account of
Darwinism in American social theory, likewise maintains that 'the aim of
Social Darwinism was frankly conservative .. .' 20 In contrast, a second
position regards Social Darwinism as multivalent, capable of adaptation
to a wide range of ideological stances.21 In this perspective, Darwinism
could be, and was, enlisted in the services of opposed political positions
- militarism and pacifism, capitalism and socialism, patriarchy and
feminism, totalitarianism and anarchism. So, to take the German case
again, proponents of the multivalent perspective stress the variety of
ideological contexts in which Social Darwinism was used rather than
confining it to conservative apologetics.22
One aim of the present study is to explore the ideological roles played
by Social Darwinism and its discursive boundaries. But this requires a
satisfactory definition of Social Darwinism, one not inherently predis-
posed to a particular political perspective or ideological function. This
involves a separation between the content and the function of Social
Darwinism, a distinction which, I shall argue in the next section, is not
always adhered to.
The significance of Social Darwinism

One of the most contested areas in the historiography of Social
Darwinism pertains to its significance. Early critics like the Belgian,
Emile Laveleye (1822-92), and Novicow portrayed it as a pervasive set
of ideas in European culture, a viewpoint reinforced by Hofstadter's
study of the USA. Many scholars have upheld these verdicts. Thus some
have ascribed an influential role to Social Darwinism in the social
sciences during the last half to a third of the nineteenth century.23
Raymond Williams has extended this influence to the realm of popular
culture, arguing that the struggle for existence and the survival of the
fittest were daily realities for many ordinary people in the nineteenth
York: HarperCollins, 1991), 257. Yet the authors acknowledge that Social Darwinism
was readily adapted in the service of non-liberal causes: ibid., 193.
19
Kelly, The Descent of Darwin, 100. Kelly is aware of more radical uses of Darwinism
(101), but for some reason refuses to regard such usages as true Social Darwinism.
20
Degler, In Search of Human Nature, 13. Cf. also 112.
21
For example Jones, Social Darwinism, 77; Crook, Darwinism, War and History, 192.
22
R. Weikart, 'The Origins of Social Darwinism in Germany, 1 8 5 9 - 1 8 9 5 ' , Journal of the
History of Ideas, 5 4 ( 1 9 9 3 ) , 4 6 9 - 8 8 .
23
W. Stark, 'Natural and Social Selection', in Banton, Darwinism and the Study of Society,
49; C. Shaw, 'Eliminating the Yahoo: Eugenics, Social Darwinism and Five Fabians',
History of Political Thought, 8 ( 1 9 8 7 ) , 5 2 1 .
century, as is suggested by the impact of Social Darwinism on the
popular fiction of the period.24 Greta Jones likewise refers to the
'ubiquity of Social Darwinism' in English thought, while the historian,
Sternhell, has proposed that after Darwin's death, biology played a
dominant role in the emerging sciences of man and society, with Social
Darwinism virtually assuming the status of a religion.25 The impression
conveyed by these studies is that Social Darwinism was highly
influential during the last few decades of the nineteenth and first four
decades of the twentieth centuries, an influence that extended beyond
the realms of social theory to encompass popular culture, literature and
medicine.
This judgement, however, has come in for severe criticism. Several
influential histories have downplayed the impact of Social Darwinism on
the developing social sciences, claiming that the principal input into
social evolutionism came from Lamarck or expressly social theorists
rather than from Darwin.26 Studies of individual countries have also
concluded that the impact of Social Darwinism has been greatly
exaggerated and that far from penetrating popular culture it in fact
occupied a fairly marginal position in the country in question. 27 More-
over, revisionist historiography goes much further than simply denying
an important role to Social Darwinism.28 It often takes the additional
step of claiming that far from reflecting an existential reality, 'Social
Darwinism' is actually a construct of modern historians. For some
revisionists the entire notion is a straw man, a myth - one which
Hofstadter is often assigned a key role in manufacturing - concocted by
reformers and critics of laissez-faire and individualism in order to
24
Williams, 'Social Darwinism', 121, 126 etseq.
25
Jones, Social Darwinism, viii; Z. Sternhell, La Droite revolutionnaire (Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1978), 1 4 6 - 7 ; Z. Sternhell, M. Sznajder and M. Asheri, Naissance de Videologie
fasciste (Paris: Fayard, 1989), 2 3 .
26
Bock, 'Darwin and Social Theory', 124; R. A. Nisbet, Social Change and History
(Oxford University Press, 1969), 1 6 1 - 2 ; A. Leeds, 'Darwinian and "Darwinian"
Evolutionism in the Study of Society and Culture', in T . F. Glick, ed., The Comparative
Reception of Darwinism, second edn (University of Chicago Press, 1988), 4 4 0 - 3 ;
P. Bowler, Evolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), chap. 10; Bowler,
The Invention of Progress (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989).
27
This is the verdict of Bannister with regard to Britain and the U S A in his Social
Darwinism and 'The Survival of the Fittest'; of Kelly for Germany in The Descent of
Darwin, 8, 1 0 9 - 1 0 ; and of L. Clark for France in her Social Darwinism in France
(University of Alabama Press, 1984), chap. 6.
28
T h e term 'revisionist' initially referred to the critics of Hofstadter who denied any
evidence of a widespread endorsement of Social Darwinism among American
businessmen. See J. A. Rogers, 'Darwinism and Social Darwinism', Journal of the
History of Ideas, 3 3 ( 1 9 7 2 ) , 267. It has since been extended to cover all opponents of the
view that Social Darwinism was influential and widespread. See Jones, Social
Darwinism, ix; Crook, Darwinism, War and History, 2 0 0 - 6 .
discredit their opponents.29 They contend that careful analysis reveals
that figures who have been seen as paradigmatic Social Darwinists - for
example Ernst Haeckel in Germany and William Graham Sumner in the
USA - have in fact been misinterpreted and their alleged Social
Darwinism blown out of proportion.30
There can be no question of the importance of revisionism to the
study of Social Darwinism. Critical appraisal of earlier studies coupled
with detailed investigations of individual thinkers or countries have
shifted the burden of proof to those who believe Social Darwinism was
significant and underlined the need for a more careful consideration of
the subject matter and how it is to be investigated. Nevertheless, one of
the purposes of the present study is to challenge the revisionists. In some
instances their conclusions are an artefact of their conceptualisation of
Social Darwinism. For example, Leeds defines Darwinism in terms of
its modern theoretical content, purged of those original features that have
been subsequently discarded or revised as well as its original philoso-
phical underpinnings.31 Small wonder, then, that he found little
evidence of 'genuine' Darwinism in the social theories he examined.
Bannister, who, as was noted earlier, defines Darwinism as a set of
catchphrases, implies that apologists for US expansionism and imperi-
alism cannot be described as Social Darwinists because they used the
notion of struggle to justify national solidarity rather than remorseless
individualistic competition.32 This constitutes an arbitrary switch from a
conceptualisation of Darwinism in terms of content to one in terms of
function - in this case the defence of laissez-faire individualism. Here
again is evidence of the need for an adequate definition of Social
Darwinism before any realistic assessment of its influence and signifi-
cance is possible. But quite apart from any methodological shortcomings
in the work of the revisionists, recent research on key figures in the
development of the social sciences in Europe and the USA renders the
alleged marginality of Social Darwinism deeply implausible. It is
impossible to give more than a cursory overview of this research here,
and there is still a good deal of work to be done, but the results to date
contradict the assertions of the revisionists.
29
Kelly, Descent, 101; Bannister, Social Darwinism, 9, and 'Survival of the Fittest', 398.
Crook, while critical of the revisionists, nevertheless agrees that 'There were no schools
of Social Darwinists': Darwinism, War and History, 204.
30
For Haeckel, see Kelly, Descent, 113; on Sumner, see R. Bannister, 'William Graham
Sumner's Social Darwinism: A Reconsideration', History of Political Economy, 4(1973),
89-109.
31
Leeds, 'Darwinian and "Darwinian" Evolutionism', 4 3 7 - 8 .
32
Bannister, Social Darwinism, 231.
Darwinism certainly played a formative role in the development of
psychology.33 Darwin's own attempts to derive human mental traits
from an animal origin were an important influence on the work of the
British psychologist George Romanes. 34 This influence is also evident in
the social psychology of the American William James (1842-1910), who
sought evolutionary explanations for such human instincts as acquisi-
tiveness, fear, play and pugnacity, and repeatedly cited Darwin's
authority.35 The impact of Darwinism is equally discernible in the
emerging disciplines of sexology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis. In the
latter instance, one historian has described the work of Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939) as a 'psychobiology of mind' in which Darwinism supplied
a framework for the investigation not only of mental pathologies but also
of the origins of morality and civilisation.36
It is more difficult to assess the legacy of Social Darwinism in
anthropology, sociology and political science, due to the absence of
detailed studies of certain key contributors. Some theorists were overtly
hostile to Darwinism, like Gaetano Mosca (1858-1931), who, in his
efforts to establish a science of politics, denied any role to natural
selection and the struggle for existence. 37 Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923)
was likewise critical of Social Darwinism which, he believed, required
'considerable modification' if it was to be of service to the social
sciences. 38 Nevertheless, Pareto accepted the existence of adaptation
and the struggle for survival in social life, suggesting a more complex
(and perhaps ambivalent) stance vis-d-vis Darwinism on his part which
would repay closer investigation.39
The position of the German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) is
also a complex one. Weber's inaugural address of 1895 at the University
of Freiburg contained strong echoes of Social Darwinism. Referring to
relations between Germans and Poles in East Prussia, Weber remarked
that 'the free play of the forces of selection does not always operate in
33
E. Boring, A History of Experimental Psychology, second edn ( N e w York: Appleton-
Century-Crofts, 1950), 7 4 3 .
34
See the comments by Romanes in the preface to his Animal Intelligence, sixth edn
(London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner, 1895), vi, xi.
35
William James, The Principles of Psychology, 2 vols. [1890] (London: Constable and C o . ,
1950), especially II, chaps. 2 4 - 8 .
36
F. J. Sulloway, Freud, Biologist of the Mind (London: Fontana, 1980), 275 and chap. 10.
See also C. Badcock, Psycho-Darwinism (London: HarperCollins, 1994).
37
G. Mosca, The Ruling Class, tr. H. Kahn ( N e w York: McGraw-Hill, 1939), 2 8 - 3 1 ,
121-3.
38
S. E. Finer, ed., Vilfredo Pareto: Sociological Writings, tr. D . Mirfin (Oxford: Blackwell,
1966), 213.
39
Ibid., 102, 1 1 3 - 1 4 . There is a discussion of the role of Social Darwinism in Pareto's
work in T . Parsons, The Structure of Social Action, 2 vols. (London: Collier-Macmillan,
1968), I, 2 1 9 - 2 8 .
favour of the nationality which is economically the more highly
developed or better endowed'. He went on to attack optimists who
imagined 'anything other than the hard struggle of man with man can
create any elbow room in this earthly life', and urged acceptance of cthe
eternal struggle to preserve and raise the quality of our national species'.40
Yet Weber was subsequently to express considerable scepticism over the
utility of Social Darwinism. He undoubtedly saw conflict as a constant
and multi-dimensional facet of social reality, and occasionally made use
of terms like 'the material struggle for existence'.41 But he explicitly
eschewed Darwinian accounts of the collapse of ancient civilisations and
was critical of the transfer of the concept of adaptation from biology to
sociology.42 Weber perhaps furnishes an example of an attempt to
emancipate sociology from the influence of pervasive biological models
of social relationships.
This would certainly be a valid assessment of the work of the French
sociologist, Emile Durkheim (1858-1917). In his first major publication
in 1893 Durkheim explicitly made use of the struggle for existence
among conspecifics to explain the high levels of occupational specialisa-
tion found in civilised societies.43 This is no mere passing reference
since Durkheim's argumentation made extensive use of Darwinism and
relied upon parallels between the growth of the social division of labour
and zoological processes.44 But thereafter, while retaining an interest in
evolutionary themes in his work on pedagogy and penal law, Durkheim
did not make use of Darwinism. On the contrary, his remarks on
Darwinism were dismissive and his attitude to Social Darwinists was
invariably hostile.45 This is not difficult to understand in the light of
Durkheim's mission to establish sociology as an autonomous science,
not to mention the sensitivity of a Jew and a Dreyfusard to the racialist
possibilities of biological reductionism in the highly charged ideological
40
M . Weber, ' T h e Nation State and Economic Policy', in Weber, Political Writings, ed.
P. Lassman and R. Speirs (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 1 1 , 14, 17, original
emphasis. See Weikart, ' T h e Origins of Social Darwinism in Germany', 482; H . Gerth
and C. Wright Mills, eds., 'Introduction' to From Max Weber (London: Routledge and
K e g a n P a u l , 1948), 1 1 .
41
F o r example, in M . Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, tr. E. Shils and H . A.
Finch (New York: T h e Free Press, 1949), 2 6 - 7 .
42
M. Weber, The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilisations, tr. R. Frank (London: NLB,
1976), 390, 408; Weber, Methodology, 2 5 - 6 .
43
E. Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society, tr. W. Halls (London: Macmillan,
1984), Book II, chaps. 2 - 4 .
44
Ibid., 277. There is a detailed analysis of Durkheim's use of Social Darwinism in this
text in M . Hawkins, 'Durkheim, the Division of Labour and Social Darwinism', History
of European Ideas, 22(1996) 19-31.
45
Hawkins, *ta*.
atmosphere of the Third Republic.46 But the fact that even a theorist like
Durkheim was tempted to make use of Social Darwinism is surely
indicative of a pervasive and prestigious theoretical presence. That this
presence also existed in the United States is evidenced by the work of
the sociologist Lester Frank Ward (1841-1913). Ward was critical of the
use made of Darwinism by apologists for laissez-faire and unrestrained
economic competition, whom he accused of ignoring the role of
invention in social evolution, the effect of which was 'the reduction of
competition in the struggle for existence and the protection of the
weaker members'.47 Nevertheless, Ward's own theoretical writings
made considerable use of Darwinism. Ward depicted the struggle for
existence as acting primarily upon social structures rather than upon
individuals, races or societies, although he believed racial struggle
through warfare had played a vital role in progress.48 Furthermore,
Ward was one of the few social theorists to endorse sexual selection,
which he used to account for the differentiation of the sexes and the
subordination of women.49
I am not claiming that Pareto, Weber, Ward or Durkheim were Social
Darwinists. But the fact that all of them utilised Darwinism at certain
points in their careers surely suggests that Social Darwinism cannot be
dismissed as marginal or as the construct of later historians and social
critics. On the contrary, these examples indicate that Social Darwinism
was an omnipresent reality for the practitioners of the social sciences
during this period. Even when not adopting it as such, theorists
sometimes found it difficult to avoid (or resist) the language of selection
and survival of the fittest.50 To designate Social Darwinism as a 'straw
46
Although he repudiated biological reductionism, Durkheim remained ambivalent over
the social significance of biology. This is apparent in his treatment of suicide and
gender, and in his eventual endorsement of a homo-duplex model of human nature in
which the psyche is divided between a pre-social and a social component. O n the first
point see H. Kushner, 'Suicide, Gender and the Fear of Modernity in Nineteenth
Century Medical and Social Thought', Journal of Social History, 2 6 ( 1 9 9 3 ) , 472; on the
second, M . J. Hawkins, 'A Re-examination of Durkheim's Theory of H u m a n Nature',
Sociological Review, 2 5 ( 1 9 7 7 ) , 2 2 9 - 5 2 .
47
L. F. Ward, 'Mind as a Social Factor', in D . A. Hollinger and C. Capper, eds., The
American Intellectual Tradition, 2 vols., second edn ( N e w York: Oxford University Press,
1993), II, 47.
48
L. F. Ward, Pure Sociology ( N e w York: Macmillan, 1903), 184, 2 3 8 - 4 0 .
49
Ibid., 3 2 3 et seq. Ward's ambivalence towards Darwinism has been noted by Lewis
Coser, 'American Trends', in T . Bottomore and R. A. Nisbet, eds., A History of
Sociological Analysis (London: Heinemann, 1979), 2 9 8 - 3 0 0 .
50
This is the case with Edward Tylor, whose non-Darwinian stage-theory of social
evolution occasionally referred to selection, struggle and survival of the fittest. See his
Anthropology (London: Macmillan, 1892), 6, 55, 4 1 2 - 1 3 , 4 2 7 . T h e contexts suggest
that Tylor largely confined struggle to primitive phases of evolution, to be replaced by
'peaceful and profitable intercourse' among civilised nations (286).
man' is, therefore, to misinterpret the intellectual context in which the
social and psychological sciences were forged and developed.51
Social Darwinism and Darwin

Finally, to what extent, if at all, can Darwin himself be regarded as a
Social Darwinist? Responses to this question constitute one of the most
fiercely contested areas within Darwin scholarship. One response has
been to present Darwin as a natural scientist concerned with discovering
the principles of organic evolution by means of argument, experiment
and observation. From this standpoint, Darwin's work must be sharply
distinguished from the ideological perversions and vulgarisations which
have been perpetrated under the rubric of Social Darwinism and for
which the English naturalist was not responsible.52 A variant of this
position acknowledges the role of ideological currents in the formation
of Darwin's theorising while still insisting on a distinction between this
theorising and the products of Social Darwinism.53 Adherents to both
versions often seek to drive a wedge between Darwin and the work of
Herbert Spencer, insisting that the latter's theories were devoid of a
genuinely Darwinian content and would be more appropriately desig-
nated 'Social Lamarckism', or that Social Darwinism be renamed
'Social Spencerism'.54
This interpretation of Darwinism has been sharply opposed by
readings which seek, albeit in a variety of ways, to contextualise Darwin's
evolutionary writings within the philosophical, religious and ideological
debates of his time. The aim of these studies is to demonstrate that
Darwinism is quintessentially social and that to separate Darwinism as
scientific theory and Darwinism as social theory leads to an impoverish-
ment of our understanding of the historical context of Darwin's work
in particular and of the interaction between science and society in
51
This seems to be the conclusion of the detailed and scholarly overview by the American
historian, Donald C. Bellomy:' "Social Darwinism" Revisited', Perspectives in American
History, new series, 1(1984), 1-129. T h o u g h evincing some sympathy with the
revisionists (28) Bellomy concludes that 'every serious thinker had to c o m e to terms
with Darwinism and evolution' (128).
52
For the assertion of radical differences between Darwin's theories and Social
Darwinism, see Nisbet, Social Change, 1 6 1 - 4 ; K. Bock, 'Theories of Progress,
Development, Evolution', in Bottomore and Nisbet, eds., History of Sociological
Analysis, 7 0 - 2 ; For a recent forceful presentation of Darwinism as a pre-eminently
scientific theory, see E. Mayr, One Long Argument (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993).
53
Rogers, 'Darwinism and Social Darwinism', 2 6 8 , 2 7 1 , 280.
54
Bock, 'Theories of Progress', 70; Leeds, 'Darwinian and "Darwinian" Evolutionism',
4 4 0 - 3 ; D . Freeman, 'The Evolutionary Theories of Charles Darwin and Herbert
Spencer', Current Anthropology, 15(1974), 2 1 1 - 3 7 ; Bowler, Evolution, 2 2 5 - 6 , 267, 272;
Bowler, Invention of Progress, 157-8.
general.55 They tend to emphasise the links between Darwin and
Herbert Spencer, links consisting of a network of shared assumptions
and viewpoints about God, nature, society and history which rendered
Spencer a 'Darwinian before Darwin'. 56 On this reading, Darwin
shared, in essential respects, the philosophical and ideological assump-
tions of one of the most salient Social Darwinists of the nineteenth
century and must himself be included as a Social Darwinist.
The controversy over the extra-scientific connotations of Darwin's
work extends to the issue of the Malthusian legacy in Darwinism.
Darwin acknowledged the impact of Malthus on his own notion of the
struggle for existence. Given the explicitly ideological motivations
behind Malthus's original Essay of 1798 - to criticise the radical social
theories of Godwin and Condorcet - this suggests a close connection
between Darwinian biology and socio-political theory. Yet the nature of
this connection has remained the subject of much debate. For Young,
Malthus was 'the source of the view of nature which led to Social
Darwinism - the social struggle for existence, the struggle for survival'. 57
Hirst, in contrast, insists on the qualitatively different theoretical
contexts within which Malthus and Darwin deploy the notion of
struggle.58 Other writers argue that Malthus was primarily interested in
the struggle between humans and their environment, and not with
intrasocial manifestations of this struggle.59 Yet Vorzimmer argues
precisely the opposite thesis, namely that prior to reading Malthus,
Darwin was already familiar with the idea of struggle between different
species and between species and their environment: what Malthus
55
Examples of this perspective can be found in J. C. Greene, Science, Ideology and World
View (Berkeley, CA: University of Berkeley Press, 1981); R. M. Young, Darwin's
Metaphor (Cambridge University Press, 1985); Young, 'Darwinism is Social', in
D . Kohn, ed., The Darwinian Heritage (Princeton University Press, 1985), 609-38;
G. Jones, 'The Social History of Darwin's Descent of Man\ Economy and Society,
7(1978), 1-23. The most sustained effort to locate Darwin's work within his intellectual
and social milieu is A. Desmond and J. Moore, Darwin (London: Faber and Faber,
1991).
56
Greene, Science, Ideology and World View, 134, 140. See also Greene, Darwin and the
Modern World View (Baton Rouge, LA: Mentor, 1963), 8 4 - 9 .
57
R. M. Young, 'Malthus and the Evolutionists: The Common Context of Biological and
Social Theory', Past and Present, 43(1969), 111-12. See also B. Gale, 'Darwin and the
Concept of Struggle for Existence: A Study in the Extrascientific Origins of Scientific
Ideas', Isis, 63(1972 ), 321-44.
58
P. Q. Hirst, Social Evolution and Sociological Categories (London: Allen and Unwin,
1976), 19-22.
59
Bannister, Social Darwinism, 25; Crook, Darwinism, War and History, 17. Bowler
maintains that while Malthus did focus on intrasocial struggle, he confined this to
primitive rather than modern European societies. See P. Bowler, 'Malthus, Darwin,
and the Concept ofStruggle', Journal ofthe History of Ideas, 37(1976), 636.
allowed Darwin to see was 'the third and most important aspect of
struggle - that between closely related members of the same species'. 60
This last controversy is connected to the debates over the definition of
Social Darwinism in that often disagreements derive from different
understandings of the discursive entities under consideration - Darwin-
ism, Malthusianism and Social Darwinism. Once again, it underscores
the need for a conceptualisation of Darwinism which relates a notion
like 'struggle for existence' to other components in the overall configur-
ation. As I stated above, this procedure will not eliminate disagreement
and different readings; but it will facilitate a fuller understanding of the
configuration in question and the extent to which, if at all, its various
elements are comparable to those contained in other discursive entities.
The present study

Given the disagreements and confusion surrounding the term 'Social
Darwinism', the question inevitably arises: why bother retaining it? Why
not, as Bowler has recommended, confine Darwinism to the realm of
biological theory and avoid the expression Social Darwinism alto-
gether?61 The answer, quite simply, is: because the term refuses to go
away. It occurs not only in scholarly texts on the histories of Europe and
the USA during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but is
frequently used by journalists.62 In the last twenty years it has figured
prominently in the numerous controversies surrounding the discipline of
sociobiology. In these circumstances it is tempting to adopt Darwinian
terminology and to refer to the 'survival value' of Social Darwinism and
its 'adaptation' to a variety of ideological and social contexts. It may be
what Richard Dawkins has designated as a meme^ the cultural analogue
of the gene. This is a cultural unit such as an idea (or set of ideas), a
fashion in clothes or a tune, which is capable of being replicated in
diverse circumstances and enduring over lengthy time-periods. 63 For
well over a century there has existed a body of ideas and images - albeit
a shifting and contested one - subsumed, for better or worse, under the
60
P. Vorzimmer, 'Darwin, Malthus and the Theory of Natural Selection', Journal of the
History of Ideas, 3 0 ( 1 9 6 9 ) , 540. See also S. Herbert, 'Darwin, Malthus and Selection',
Journal of the History of Biology, 4 ( 1 9 7 1 ) , 2 0 9 - 1 7 .
61
P. Bowler, 'Social Darwinism', Sunday Correspondent, 13 May 1990.
62
T h e following examples, appearing in the British national press around the time Bowler
published his comments, made extensive use of Darwinian terminology in the context
of international economic competition and the policies of the Thatcher governments
respectively: Guy de Jonquieres, 'The Survival of the Fittest', Financial Times, 10 May
1990; T o n y Cole, 'Surplice to Requirements', New Statesman and Society, 4 May 1990.
63
R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, second edn (Oxford University Press, 1989), chap. 11.
term 'Social Darwinism'. This alone would furnish sufficient justifica-
tion for seeking a better grasp of the ideas and images in question. But I
have an additional reason: to show that the term is capable of being
constructed and used in a way that is invaluable for an understanding of
certain features of both historical and contemporary socio-political
discourse.
The first step towards realising this goal is to conceptualise Social
Darwinism. This is the task of the next chapter, which reconstructs the
set of assumptions that underpinned Darwin's theory of evolution. My
thesis is that this network represents a world view - an abstract
configuration of interlinked ideas about time, nature, human nature and
social reality. It is this world view, rather than a discrete ideology, which
constitutes Social Darwinism, and Darwin himself was a major (though
by no means the only) contributor to its elaboration and dissemination.
The specific attributes of this world view are then illustrated through a
comparison between it and Lamarckism, followed by an assessment of
the historical uniqueness of Social Darwinism.
Of crucial importance to the development of my argument is the
contention that, as a world view, Darwinism is a powerful rhetorical
instrument. Its persuasive and flexible rhetorical resources derive from
the existence of indeterminacies within the world view itself, i.e. open-
endedness and even ambiguity over the precise meaning either of certain
key terms or over how they are to be related to other terms. However,
two series of events have consequences for these indeterminacies. The
first comprises developments within the theory of organic evolution
which 'close up' some of the original indeterminacies while at the same
time opening up others. The second derives from the very processes of
argumentation and ideological conflict through which the rhetorical and
ideological limits of Social Darwinism are realised. Both processes
interact to engender modifications of the original world view, in some
instances leading to the emergence of different world views - something
that happened, I shall argue, with certain versions of 'reform Darwin-
ism'.
The work of the social psychologist Michael Billig and his collabora-
tors on the rhetorical features of ideologies, and the inevitability of what
they refer to as dilemmas, is very suggestive for exploring the rhetorical
implications of Social Darwinism. Billig maintains that ideologies are
never closed systems of thought but languages within which any
proposition can be countered by contrary assertions, requiring delibera-
tion and the assessment of competing values.64 I have already proposed
64
See M. Billig, Arguing and Thinking (Cambridge University Press, 1987). See also Billig
etaly Ideological Dilemmas (London: Sage, 1988), 23, 163.
that Social Darwinism contains a series of indeterminacies which
provide a rich source for different rhetorical uses and interpretations.
But these always take place within a specific ideological context: Social
Darwinism, as a world view, was deployed as the background to different
ideological positions. Now it is precisely at the intersections between the
world view and the content of the ideology that some of the most
interesting and important dilemmas were encountered. In particular,
various ideologists discovered a persistent property of the world view,
namely that nature was janiform. It could appear both as a model to be
emulated by social practices and institutions and as a threat whose
processes and laws were to be feared and counteracted by the
appropriate actions. Of particular significance is the manner in which
this dual aspect of nature was manifested not simply in the competing
claims of rival ideologies or in different interpretations within the same
ideology, but often within the ideas of the same thinker, and sometimes
within the same text.
This janiform quality of Social Darwinist discourse will be explored in
part II of this study through an examination of some of the pioneers in
the construction, application and popularisation of the world view.
Certain of these thinkers are well known and their ideas have been
subjected to considerable scrutiny in the scholarly literature. My reason
for including them is that the definition of Social Darwinism used here,
and the focus upon the duality of nature as model and threat, allows
these writers to be examined in a new light, uncovering implications and
tensions that have received little or no attention in the historiography to
date but which are, I shall argue, fundamental to an understanding of
Social Darwinism. I shall also be including less well-known figures who
either exerted considerable influence in their time or else exemplified
features which typify in some manner a particular discursive tactic or
structure.
Part III comprises a series of case studies intended to illustrate the
role of Social Darwinism in different ideological contexts. The choice, in
addition to being constrained by considerations of time and space,
reflects a personal estimation about which of the many areas of social
and political controversy during the last century or so are significant or
interesting. Inevitably, not everybody will be satisfied with my selection,
and some may feel that certain topics, such as Fascism, have already
received a great deal of attention in the specialist literature. My purpose,
however, in examining any particular topic, is to understand the role of
Social Darwinism within it, and this is something which, though often
assumed in the specialist literature, is rarely subjected to any detailed
analysis.
The subject matter has been restricted in two ways. First, I have
concentrated on social and political thought and have not explored the
role of Social Darwinism in other contexts such as literature, the media
or the popular culture of different social strata. This undertaking is
beyond my resources and competence and, moreover, is dependent
upon the exercise attempted in this study, namely the clarification of the
nature and roles of Social Darwinism within its locus of origin - socio-
political thought. Second, I have taken the bulk of my material from the
period 1860-1945. These are the years during which Social Darwinism
appeared and developed and probably enjoyed its most widespread
appeal. Thereafter the topic would require a study in its own right,
especially in the light of the transformations that occurred within the
Darwinian theory of organic evolution, first with the 'Modern Synthesis'
of the 1930s and 1940s and then with the discovery of the structure of
DNA in 1953. There is, however, a concluding chapter on Social
Darwinism and sociobiology. This is included partly in order to test the
robustness of the conceptualisation of Social Darwinism in a very
different historical context. But it also derives from the specific features
of the controversies surrounding sociobiology which resonate some
interesting continuities, as well as exhibiting some differences, with the
earlier period. Again the hope is that this discussion of modern Social
Darwinism will stimulate further inquiry.
It will be apparent from these comments that this is not a history of
Social Darwinism in the conventional sense, i.e. it is not a narrative
which traces in detail the trajectory of the world view step by step
through time. In my view, this approach would be inappropriate at the
present time. This study is both more limited and yet more comprehen-
sive in scope. It is limited by its focus on a number of themes and
thinkers because I consider it essential to grasp the character of Social
Darwinism as a configuration of interlinked propositions and ideas and
to examine how this configuration was used in ideological debate. This
requires a detailed textual examination of the thinkers under discussion,
and such detail precludes extending the analysis to cover all the relevant
contributions. Some readers may well find the textual exegeses exces-
sive. But the understanding of Social Darwinism has been obscured by
the manner in which it has been treated in the majority of commentaries
- a cursory definition accompanied by the occasional citation from a
particular thinker. If the concern is with how ideas are interlinked and
with how they function in discursive practice then a more detailed
presentation of the texts under consideration is absolutely essential.
If this exercise necessitates a restriction of the number of texts under
examination, then the comparative features of the study add a degree of
breadth and generality to the conclusions which would be lacking had it
been confined to a specific country. Drawing upon material from
Europe and the USA opens up new possibilities for understanding and
interpretation, and allows for a fuller appreciation of what Social
Darwinism is and was, its different manifestations, and its importance in
Western culture.
1 Defining Social Darwinism
The structure of social theory

Before proposing a conceptualisation of Social Darwinism, I need to
make a detour by way of some brief observations on the structure of
social and political theory. As will become evident during the course of
this chapter, this digression is central to my argument about the nature
of Social Darwinism.
Social and political theory in the West, from the Greeks until the
present time, consists of two structural components, which I am going
to label a world view and an ideology. The first component consists of a
set of assumptions about the order of nature and of the place of
humanity within it, and how this order relates to and is affected by the
passage of time. It also usually contains a view of social reality and
where this fits into the overall configuration of nature, human nature
and time.
The second component comprises a theory of human interactions and
how these are mediated by institutions. It will therefore contain a
descriptive element that purports to explain some features of social and
psychological existence; a critique of certain aspects of this existence, and
probably of other theories as well; and a prescription for how the socio-
political system ought to be organised. The ideological aspect of a
theory thus contains both descriptive and evaluative features which often
makes difficult the separation of the empirical and normative claims that
are being made. Theories may vary according to the prevalence of one
or other of these sorts of claims, but both are integral to their
articulation.
In the light of the contested nature and overall dissensus about the
meaning of the term 'ideology' among historians, social scientists and
philosophers, I must emphasise that I am only using it for want of a
better one. In this study, it simply refers to this second feature of socio-
political theory and carries no pejorative connotations, i.e. as necessarily
implying distortion or prejudice.
21
A world view, then, consists of a relatively abstract set of background
assumptions which supply overall coherence to the ideology. Often these
assumptions are implicit, becoming manifest only when needed to
substantiate specific propositions. For example, a thinker arguing for the
inevitability of conflict and competition in social life might legitimate
this by reference to the ubiquity of competition throughout the natural
world and argue that human relationships, as part of nature, are
inescapably subject to the same mechanisms. The world view under-
pinning a particular ideology is not usually itself subjected to explicit
discussion (although this sometimes occurs), but is nonetheless funda-
mental to the overall theoretical enterprise.
Among the various elements within a world view, the concept of
human nature usually occupies a pivotal role. This concept purports to
describe the fundamental motives which govern human conduct. The
portrait of human nature is then located within a view of nature as a
whole, and how both are affected, if at all, by temporal processes. It is
also connected to the ideological aspects of the theory, since the way in
which human drives and capabilities are conceptualised influences the
manner in which the possibilities for social and political organisation are
conceived. Thus a theory which posited the primacy of instincts and
passions in human behaviour and which saw only a limited role for
reason and self-discipline could infer the necessity for authoritative
political, religious and moral direction as a universal feature of social
life. In contrast, a theory in which people were depicted as inherently
altruistic, rational and cooperative, but liable to corruption through the
influence of vicious institutions and practices that warped their sponta-
neous proclivities, might recommend anarchism as the system most in
harmony with human nature. In both instances, human nature acts as
the reference point for specification of ideal but plausible modes of
social and political organisation.
From the ancient world to the advent of modernity, human nature
provided a conceptual bedrock for socio-political discourse. Though
differing in their estimation of the attributes of this nature, theorists took
for granted the existence of a permanent human essence that remained
intact through both time and space. It was this essence which enabled
thinkers to generalise about human conduct and to recommend the
optimal social and ethical arrangements for the realisation of human
welfare, however this was conceived. 1 It is the denial of this essence
which constitutes one of the most striking claims of contemporary post-
1
See J. W. Burrow, Evolution and Society (Cambridge University Press, 1966), 98. There
is an illuminating analysis of the role of models of human nature in Western thought in
A. Maclntyre, A Short History of Ethics (London: Routledge, 1967).
Defining Social Darwinism 23
modernism in its efforts to redefine the nature and purpose of socio-
political theory.2
However, long before the advent of post-modernist thought the
postulate of a universal human nature was under threat. By the mid-
nineteenth century a series of developments had combined to render
this postulate problematic. These developments cannot be discussed
here,3 but two are worthy of mention. The first was a growing awareness
of the diversity of human values and behaviour. This was brought about
through the expansion of trade and colonialism and the ensuing
exposure of Westerners to non-European cultures, although a heigh-
tened consciousness of the cultural diversity within modern societies
may also have been important. The second development derived from
the challenge to the notion of nature as a divine creation which received
impetus from different conceptions of the natural order that emerged
during the nineteenth century.4 The consequences of these changes
were two-fold: first, they raised questions about the order of nature and
the place of humanity within it; and second, they undermined
confidence in the presumption of a set of motives or attributes common
to mankind as a whole. Both consequences had ramifications for the
construction of social and political theories in that they rendered
problematic the conceptual foundations upon which the ideological
components of these theories reposed. In particular, they called into
question the validity of assuming a universal human nature, an
assumption which, as we have seen, played a pivotal role in connecting
world views to ideologies. If some of the key elements which comprised
world views were problematic, then the descriptive, critical and
prescriptive features of a theory were deprived of their legitimating and
integrative grounding. The result was a crisis, and Burrow's character-
isation of this crisis in Victorian Britain has a much wider relevance,
when he writes of a need 'for ethical and political certainty, for ethical
premisses which should not be arbitrary and recommendations which
should be more than tentative and piecemeal'.5
The distinction between world view and ideology is important to my
argument in two ways. First, as I shall argue below, it enables the
discursive nature and functions of Social Darwinism to be grasped.
Second, it provides the basis for an understanding of the intellectual
2
See R. Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
3
They are ably treated in Burrow, Evolution and Society.
4
Developments in what we would now regard as the biological sciences, and their
implications for prevailing views of nature, are discussed in F. Jacob, The Logic of Living
Systems, tr. B. E. Spillman (London: Allen Lane, 1974); D. R. Oldroyd, Darwinian
Impacts, second edn (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1983).
5
Burrow, Evolution and Society, 93.
context in which Social Darwinism appeared. This was a situation in
which generalisations and prescriptions about behaviour and institutions
were made difficult by alterations to the ways in which people had
traditionally perceived human nature in particular, and nature in
general. Social Darwinism, I shall argue, represented both a contribution
and a response to these difficulties.
Darwinism and Social Darwinism

Darwinism is a biological theory about how new species are formed and
existing ones can become extinct. A species is 'a population of actually
or potentially interbreeding organisms sharing a common gene pool'. 6
Darwinism holds that while heredity generally acts as a force for species
continuity, minute variations are created within individual organisms
through genetic mutations and the recombination of genetic material
during sexual reproduction. If any of the variations engendered by
mutation and recombination confer an advantage on certain organisms
within a particular environment, then this will enhance their survival
and/or their reproductive success. Their progeny inherit the advantage-
ous trait, and their enhanced ability to reproduce ensures that the
change will become widespread throughout the breeding population.
This is the process of natural selection which, over time, results in the
appearance of new species and the elimination of others. The role of
natural selection in bringing about evolutionary change is aptly
described by Dobzhansky as ca deputy of the environment5, ensuring
that genetic changes produced by mutation and sexual reproduction are
useful to the organism.7
This summary, however, is a description of modern Darwinism.
Certain features of the original formulation have been excised in the
light of subsequent advances in the biological sciences, while new
elements have been incorporated, most notably from genetics. The
modern version of Darwinism dates from the 'New Synthesis' which
took place approximately between 1936 and 1947. During this period
important advances in Mendelian genetics, population genetics and
palaeontology during the 1920s and 1930s were synthesised with natural
selection to produce an integrated evolutionary theory.8 Until then,
while evolution was widely accepted, Darwin's particular explanation of
6
S. J. Gould, Ever Since Darwin (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980), 232.
7
T. Dobzhansky, 'Species After Darwin', in S. A. Barnett, ed., A Century of Darwin
(London: Mercury, 1960), 24.
8
J. Huxley, Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, third edn (London: Allen and Unwin,
1974); E. Mayr, 'Preface' to E. Mayr and W. B. Provine, eds., The Evolutionary
Synthesis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), ix.
it had waned in popularity since the beginning of the twentieth century,
leading to what some historians have described as an 'eclipse of
Darwinism'.9 There are, therefore, important differences between the
original and the modern versions of Darwinism.10 My intention is to
reconstruct the original theory, including those elements that have since
been dropped, and to include the framework of assumptions concerning
time, nature and human nature which was essential to Darwin's
reasoning. My method of inquiry, therefore, consists in identifying
Darwinism through an investigation of Darwin's own writings. It is here
that Darwinism was forged and from which it derived its name and its
discursive identity.
Darwin's theory of evolution

In On the Origin of Species of 1859,11 Charles Darwin (1809-82)
endeavoured to account for 'the changing history of the organic world'
(151). He did so by proposing 'one general law, leading to the
advancement of all organic beings, namely multiply, vary, let the
strongest live and the weakest die' (263). According to this law, minute
variations in the organisation of an organism, induced largely through
reproduction but to some extent also by the effects of use and disuse of
organs and the action of the environment, were selected by nature if they
gave the organism an advantage over others as measured by its survival
and reproductive success. Darwin contended that useful variations
would be inherited by descendants, and the cumulative effects of this
process would enable the organisms involved to mutate into new
varieties, species or even genera (170).
Selection took place through a struggle for existence. 'I should
premise', Darwin wrote, 'that I use the term Struggle for Existence in a
large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on
another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the
individual, but success in leaving progeny' (116). Darwin observed that
although many organisms were capable of very high reproductive rates
the numbers of any given species remained more or less stable over time.
He concluded from this that organisms competed for available
resources, success going to those possessing some advantage, however
9
P. Bowler, The Eclipse of Darwinism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983).
The expression was initially coined by Julian Huxley.
10
There is an examination of the relationship between Darwin's theory and modern
Darwinism in E. Sober, The Nature of Selection (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985),
chap. 6.
11
C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, ed. J. W. Burrow
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968). Page references occur in the text.
slight, in this competition. This struggle for life occurred at three levels,
'either one individual with another of the same species, or with individ-
uals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life' (117).
Of these three levels Darwin argued that 'the struggle almost
invariably will be most severe between individuals of the same species,
for they frequent the same districts, require the same food, and are
exposed to the same dangers' (126). Although the struggle for life did
not create the initial variations, it acted upon the probabilities affecting
survival and reproduction and hence, in conjunction with heredity,
supplied the dynamic of evolutionary change. In Darwin's own words:
'The theory of natural selection is grounded on the belief that each new
variety, and ultimately each new species, is produced and maintained by
having some advantage over those with which it comes into competition;
and the consequent extinction of less favoured forms almost inevitably
follows' (323).
It is important to be aware, however, of the role that Darwin assigned
to mechanisms other than natural selection in the production of organic
change. These were the use and disuse of organs, the inheritance of
acquired characters and sexual selection. In the first edition of the Origin
Darwin was highly sceptical about the direct action of the environment
on plants and animals in bringing about change. He did, though,
acknowledge a small role for the prolonged use or disuse of organs,
although he thought that their effects had 'often been largely combined
with, and sometimes overmastered by, the natural selection of innate
differences' (182). From the fifth edition he ceded greater importance to
the effects of use and disuse of organs and faculties, and even allowed a
limited role for the inheritance of acquired characters. By the time of the
publication of The Descent of Man in 1871, Darwin had moved even
further in this direction.12 Here he confessed that though he was
unshaken in his conviction that natural selection played a primary role in
evolution, he had perhaps attributed too much to the 'survival of the
fittest' in his efforts to overthrow 'the dogma of separate creations'. 13 In
subsequent correspondence he admitted 'the greatest error which I have
committed, has been not allowing sufficient weight to the direct action
of the environment, i.e. food, climate etc., independently of natural
selection'. He justified this stance as follows: 'When I wrote the Origin,
and for some years afterwards, I could find little evidence of the direct
12
Greene, Science, Ideology and World View, 129; R. Korey, ed., The Essential Darwin
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1984), 243-4; D. Rochowiak, 'Darwin's Psychological
Theorising: Triangulating on Habit', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science,
19(1988), 238-9.
13
C. Darwin, Tlie Descent of Man, second edn (London: Murray, 1896), 91-2.
action of the environment; now there is a large body of evidence.' 14 This
raises the issue of the relationship between the theories of Darwin and
Lamarck, which I shall discuss in the next chapter. For the moment I
simply want to make the point that any differentiation between the two
theories must be based upon more than the presence or absence of the
inheritance of acquired characters, since this mechanism occurs in both.
For this reason it is quite inappropriate to classify a theory as non-
Darwinian just because it accepts the inheritance of acquired characters.
Not only did Darwin grant a role to this mechanism, but it was endorsed
by many of his most fervent admirers, such as Ernst Haeckel in
Germany. As Greene has argued, the 'Lamarckian' principle of the
inheritance of acquired characters was not seen as a rival to natural
selection, but rather as a complementary process in evolution. 15
The theory of sexual selection was developed in the Descent. Here
Darwin agreed that many physical and behavioural traits of humans and
animals (such as the differences between races among the former) could
not be adequately explained by natural selection. On the contrary, some
features, like the ostentatious plumage of the peacock, would seem to
reduce the survival probabilities of the organism in question. Equally,
such traits were inexplicable by the direct action of the environment or
the inherited effects of use and disuse. In order to account for such
characteristics Darwin invoked another mechanism, sexual selection, or
the competition for sexual partners and the opportunity for procre-
ation. 16 This took place either through conflict between males for access
to large numbers of females (e.g. among stags in deer herds), or else
competition between males to attract females by means of display,
courtship patterns, etc. (as in the case of the peacock). The most
combative or attractive males, therefore, were able to reproduce at the
expense of their less successful conspecifics.
Despite concessions to use and disuse and to the inheritance of
acquired characters and his innovative model of sexual selection,
Darwin continued to make natural selection the touchstone of his theory
of evolution. This is evident in his treatment of human evolution.
Darwin avoided this topic in the Origin, which concluded with the vague
14
Darwin to M. Wagner, 13 October 1876, in F. Darwin, ed., Charles Darwin, second
edn (London: Murray, 1902), 278.
15
Greene, Science, Ideology and World View, 121. The accuracy of Greene's assessment is
borne out by the example of scientists who saw no difficulty in synthesising natural
selection and the inheritance of acquired characters. For a British example see Raphael
Meldola, Evolution: Darwinian and Spencerian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910), 31.
For the USA, see L. H. Bailey, 'Neo-Lamarckism and Neo-Darwinism', The American
Naturalist, 28(1894), 677-8.
16
Darwin, Descent, 305-8. For a discussion of Darwin's notion of sexual selection see
J. M. Smith, 'Sexual Selection' in Barnett, Century of Darwin, 231-44.
statement: 'Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the
necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation.
Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history' (458). But it is
clear from Darwin's notebooks that from the earliest period of his
theoretical development between 1836 and 1839 he had desired an
understanding of human evolution. He excluded it from the Origin in
order to avoid jeopardising the acceptance of his theory by dealing with
such a controversial notion.17 In a letter to the co-discoverer of natural
selection, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), written just before the
publication of the Origin, Darwin stated: 'You ask whether I shall
discuss "man". I think I shall avoid the whole subject, as so surrounded
with prejudices; though I fully admit it is the highest and most
interesting problem for the naturalist.'18
This omission was rectified in the Descent, although by then a number
of other theorists had already extended the principle of natural selection
to human evolution. Still, from the very outset of this text, Darwin made
explicit his conviction 'that man must be included with other organic
beings in any general conclusion respecting his manner of appearance
on this earth' (1). He contended that only arrogance and prejudice can
sustain the belief in the separate creation of mankind, arguing that
humans have descended from a non-human ancestry which they share
with the apes. He insisted on the continuities between humans and
animals, claiming that differences are quantitative rather than qualita-
tive, and this not just with respect to physical traits but also with regard
to language, reason, imagination and morality.19
The issue of the origin of the moral faculty was a very important one
for Darwin, as indeed it has proved to be throughout the entire history of
Darwinian theory. For many of his contemporaries morality was some-
thing unique to humans. Darwin argued that this was not so. The moral
faculty derived from the 'social instincts', the most primitive manifesta-
tion of which was the parental instinct, which humans shared with other
social creatures. Since man is a social animal, Darwin asserted, 'it is
almost certain that he would inherit a tendency to be faithful to his
comrades, and obedient to the leader of the tribe; for these qualities are
common to most social animals' (167). Qualities such as altruism and
courage, however, were problematic, for while individuals who pos-
17
For Darwin's early interest in human evolution, see H. E. Gruber, Darwin on Man
(New York: Dutton, 1974); Greene, Science, Ideology and World View, 97-101;
Desmond and Moore, Darwin, chaps. 14-17.
18
Darwin to Wallace, 1 May 1857, in F. Darwin, Charles Darwin, 183.
19
The study of animal behaviour played an important part in Darwin's theory of human
evolution. See R. W. Burkhardt, 'Darwin on Animal Behaviour and Evolution', in
D. Kohn, The Darwinian Heritage, 327-65.
sessed these attributes would unquestionably benefit their tribe, they
would expose themselves to increased risk of death. Hence they would
be unlikely to reproduce themselves in sufficient numbers for their type
to thrive (200). The difficulty here was one of explaining how a process -
natural selection - that acted upon individuals produced an outcome
with collective benefits in the form of moral sensibilities which were
potentially lethal for the individuals who possessed them. Theoretically,
survival and reproductive success should fall to cowards and egoists.
Darwin provided two answers. The first - one now favoured by the
majority of biologists - was to stress the self-regarding consequences of
altruistic actions: helping others would increase the likelihood of aid to
oneself in times of need. Darwin additionally stressed the importance to
the individual of the praise and blame of neighbours in stimulating
virtuous behaviour (201). But occasionally Darwin's language suggested
a very different explanation, namely that selfless individual behaviour
aided group survival. For example, he argued: 'A tribe including many
members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism,
fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one
another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be
victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection'
(203).20 I shall argue below that this ambiguity over group versus
individual selection is an important component of Darwinism.
The above quotation does, though, indicate Darwin's conviction that
natural selection operated in human evolution. Humans exhibited
variations in body and mind and for him these 'variations are induced,
either directly or indirectly, by the same general causes, and obey the
same general laws, as with the lower animals'. As our early ancestors
must at times have increased beyond their means of subsistence, 'they
must, therefore, occasionally have been exposed to a struggle for
existence, and consequently to the rigid law of natural selection' (70-1).
Darwin believed that this struggle was mitigated within advanced
civilised societies although there is some ambivalence in his evaluation
of this. The growth of the instinct of sympathy had resulted in the
proliferation of welfare and charity schemes which not only supported
the mentally and physically incapable but enabled them to proliferate.
The struggle for existence was thus attenuated in 'highly civilised
nations', with the result that the biological value of their populations was
in danger of being reduced (205-6). Yet we could not check this
sympathy for the unfortunate 'without deterioration in the noblest part
of our nature' (206), and Darwin assured his readers that there was
20
For a discussion of the role of individual versus group selection in Darwin's thought,
see M. Ruse, The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), 34-54.
reason to believe that far from diminishing, the social instincts and the
virtues derived from them would be enhanced in the future (192).
Nevertheless, the struggle for existence seemed only to be mitigated
within civilised nations. The latter would, so Darwin argued, in the
future exterminate 'the savage races throughout the world' as well as the
'anthropomorphous apes' (241-2). He was emphatic that without
natural selection the heights of achievement exhibited by civilised
nations would never have been attained. Indeed, Darwin even suggested
that when one considered the vast tracts of fertile land populated only by
wandering savages, one could not help but wonder whether the struggle
for existence had been sufficiently severe (219).
The portrait of nature which emerges from Darwin's writings is thus
one in which change is paramount. Though very gradual and requiring
vast time scales for their realisation, selective pressures rendered
unviable the notion that species were permanent. In the Origin Darwin
wrote: CI am fully convinced that species are not immutable' (69). He
went on to suggest that the conceptual categories employed by
taxonomists to identify species were matters of convention, the products
of a consensus within the scientific community (104). Darwinism,
therefore, represents another source of difficulty for the belief in 'species
essentialism'21 and hence, by implication, for the notion of a universal
human nature. It contributed to the intellectual and moral crisis in mid-
century Western culture already referred to; it also, as I will argue, could
be employed as a means of resolving that crisis.
The Social Darwinist world view

On the basis of this sketch of Darwin's theory I want to propose the
following: Darwin's theory of natural selection - the theory that forms
the nub of the modern theory of evolution - was embedded within and
formed part of a wider world view.22 This world view was a configura-
tion of assumptions concerning nature, time and human nature which
gave natural selection its relevance and meaning. It consisted of the
21
For a discussion of Darwin's rejection of species essentialism, see D . Hull, Darwin and
His Critics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 6 6 - 7 ; M . T . Ghiselin,
The Triumph of the Darwinian Method, second edn (London: University of Chicago
Press, 1984), 4 9 - 5 7 , 6 0 - 1 , 7 2 - 3 ; Sober, Nature of Selection, 1 5 9 - 6 5 .
22
In arguing this I have been influenced by Greene's thesis in Science, Ideology and World
View, although I differ from Greene in m y conception of the content and the durability
of this world view. I want to emphasise that in referring to Darwinism as a world view I
am in n o way suggesting that evolution through natural selection fails to qualify as a
genuine scientific theory, a thesis propounded at one time by Karl Popper. See his
'Darwinism as a Metaphysical Research Programme' in P. Schlipp, ed., The Philosophy
of Karl Popper (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1974).
following elements: (i) biological laws governed the whole of organic
nature, including humans; (ii) the pressure of population growth on
resources generated a struggle for existence among organisms; (iii)
physical and mental traits conferring an advantage on their possessors in
this struggle (or in sexual competition), could, through inheritance,
spread through the population; (iv) the cumulative effects of selection
and inheritance over time accounted for the emergence of new species
and the elimination of others.
Now the first assumption is one of scientific determinism, and was a
powerful organising assumption for Darwin (and many others) in his
opposition to supernatural and teleological accounts of species forma-
tion. Social Darwinism, however, involves a crucial fifth assumption,
namely that this determinism extends to not just the physical properties
of humans but also to their social existence and to those psychological
attributes that play a fundamental role in social life, e.g. reason, religion
and morality. It is possible to endorse elements (i)-(iv) without adhering
to the fifth, either on the grounds that such features are unique to
mankind, which stands apart from the rest of nature as a divine creation;
or, as was increasingly argued by social scientists, because humans are
cultural creatures and culture cannot be reduced to biological principles.
Social Darwinists, however, are of the view that many (if not all) aspects
of culture - religion, ethics, political institutions, the rise and fall of
empires and civilisations, in addition to many psychological and behav-
ioural features - can be explained by the application of the first four
elements to these domains. Social Darwinists, then, endorse two
fundamental facts about human nature: that it is continuous with animal
psychology, and that it has evolved through natural selection.
The five elements are interwoven in a particular way. There is, as it
were, a syntax governing their relationships, although this term implies a
more rigorous logical interconnection than is in fact the case. 23 Yet there
is a hierarchy among the elements, with each one following sequentially,
from laws of nature to evolution as an instance of such laws, then from
the causes of evolution to its relevance to human psychological and
social phenomena. Loose though it is, this sequence is important for the
meaning and weighting of the individual components. Thus species
formation and extinction are not presented as facts of nature in their
own right, but are derived from the effects of selection and heredity.
23
The theory of natural selection can, however, be reformulated as a deductive structure.
See A. Flew, Darwinian Evolution (London: Paladin, 1984), 36-40. There is an
illuminating presentation of Darwin's theory which underlines the looseness of its
deductive inferences in M. Ruse, Darwinism Defended (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley,
1982), 47, fig. 2.10.
Similarly, the struggle for existence is in turn predicated on the
discrepant ratio of population growth to available resources. It is this
total configuration and the relationship among its elements which is
specific to Social Darwinism. The individual elements have a history of
their own, independent of Social Darwinism. What constitutes the latter
is the manner in which these elements are articulated and connected to
form a striking conception of the causes and dynamics of social change.
By referring to Social Darwinism as a world view I am making a claim
about its discursive role. This is that Social Darwinism is not, in itself, a
social or political theory. Rather, it consists of a series of connected
assumptions and propositions about nature, time and how humanity is
situated within both. What it does not possess is any concrete specifi-
cation of human social and mental development, nor any particular
vision of the optimal conditions for human social and spiritual existence.
In other words, the ideological component of a theory is absent from
Social Darwinism. This is not to argue that Darwin himself was
personally free of ideological interests or that these were unimportant to
his formulation of the world view. What I am claiming is that the world
view is separable from whatever religious, political or ethical perspectives
Darwin may have professed. Indeed, the success of Social Darwinism
lies in this very flexibility, in the possibilities it contained for transference
to a whole spectrum of ideological positions.
Why this flexibility? The answer is to be found in a feature of the
world view that has already been touched upon, namely the existence of
a series of indeterminacies surrounding some of its elements -
indeterminacies evidenced by Darwin's own hesitancies and ambigu-
ities. Even in his own writings, 'Darwinism' was not a fixed entity, but
more a set of models of evolutionary transformation which received
different emphases at different points in his scientific career.24 These
indeterminacies are therefore crucial to an understanding of the different
ideological contexts in which Social Darwinism could be deployed.
The first of these concerns the mechanisms of evolutionary change.
Natural selection, use and disuse of organs, acquired characters, sexual
selection - all of these formed part of the Darwinian lexicon, and
different theorists could, and did, emphasise different ones. Sexual
selection tended to fall into abeyance after Darwin, although it has been
very much revised in modern versions, as I will show in the final chapter
of this study. The inheritance of acquired characters was stressed by
many eminent popularisers of Social Darwinism. This gave rise to
another indeterminacy, namely the cause of organic and behavioural
24
E. Mayr, 'Darwin's Five Theories of Evolution', in Kohn, Darwinian Heritage, 755-72;
D. Hull, Darwinism as a Historical Entity', in Kohn, Darwinian Heritage, 810.
variations. Advocates of the inheritance of acquired characters could
posit environmental changes as a source of such variations (rather than
innate mutations), a position which could legitimate agendas of political
and social reform. The compatibility of the inheritance of acquired
characters with natural selection was, nonetheless, put into question by
the work of the German biologist August Weismann (1834-1914).
Weismann theorised the existence of a 'germ-plasm' which determined
somatic traits. Whereas the latter could be influenced by environmental
conditions, the germ-plasm could not be so influenced. The upshot of
this was that any somatic modifications induced in an organism during
its lifetime could not be transmitted to its offspring. This encouraged a
neo-Darwinism which espoused a 'hard hereditarianism', insisting that
natural selection of innate organic variations was the only mechanism of
evolution. Yet although this version became increasingly widespread
during the first half of the twentieth century, the inheritance of acquired
characters continued to stimulate a great deal of research in biology
between the 1870s and the 1920s.25 It gradually lost favour during the
period of the evolutionary synthesis, more as a result of becoming an
unnecessary hypothesis through the general acceptance of natural
selection than through falsification.26 The struggle for existence was also
a concept open to a number of interpretations by social theorists. It
could be equated with violent struggle and warfare, or - in keeping with
Darwin's suggestions about the attenuation of struggle in civilised
nations - warfare could be confined to primitive stages of social
evolution, to be replaced by industrial competition or perhaps the battle
of ideas as civilisation progressed. Hence the possibility of being both a
Social Darwinist and a pacifist. Another very important area of
indeterminacy related to the unit of evolution upon which natural
selection acted. We have noted how Darwin tended to see this as the
individual organism but sometimes presented the group as the evolu-
tionary unit. This opened up the possibility of variable interpretations of
the unit of selection - individual, species, tribe, nation, race were some
of the candidates that were put forward between 1860 and 1945
(compared to the 'selfish gene' of modern Darwinism). Hence the world
25
E. Mayr, 'Prologue' in Mayr and Provine, Evolutionary Synthesis, 15. It is interesting to
note that Weismann himself came to admit the possibility that the germ-plasm could be
directly affected by the environment. Cf. E. Mayr, One Long Argument, 1 2 5 - 6 .
26
R. W. Burkhardt, 'Lamarckism in Britain and the United States', in Mayr and Provine,
Evolutionary Synthesis, 347. T h e inheritance of acquired characters has never been
completely abandoned by biologists. S o m e modern geneticists believe it possible for an
organism to alter its genes through environmental modification of the D N A molecule,
and to then transmit this alteration to its offspring. See N . Schoon, 'Genes "Heresy"
May Revolutionise Evolutionary Theory', The Independent, 14 December 1989.
view possessed great flexibility over what units were engaged in the
struggle for existence, in addition to flexibility with regard to how the
struggle was conducted.
Two other indeterminacies relate to the rate and the direction of
evolutionary change. First, Darwin saw the rate of change as inevitably
gradual, building upon minute variations. It was, however, possible to
be a Darwinist and believe change to be more uneven, with long periods
of stability juxtaposed with periods of relatively dramatic change, a view
held by one of Darwin's most formidable champions, T. H. Huxley
(1825-95). 27 Second, the Darwinian world view did not entail a
commitment to a particular direction for evolutionary change, and
theories of degeneration were as prolific as theories of progress.
Certainly many Social Darwinists did believe that evolution entailed
progress, a view endorsed by Darwin himself, as I shall argue below. But
belief in progress forms part of the ideological aspect of a theory, and the
Darwinian world view was equally compatible with a quite antithetical
perspective.
One final area of indeterminacy - and an extremely important one -
derives not from the meaning of particular terms but from the
articulation between the fifth element and the remainder of the world
view. It was especially pronounced for those whose interest was in social
evolution. Two broad strategies were available to theorists. They could
be completely reductionist and argue that social evolution was depen-
dent on the biological properties of humans, or they could argue that
social evolution, while not reducible to biology, nonetheless took place
through analogous processes of adaptation, selection and inheritance. In
practice the two approaches were not always kept distinct, with some
theorists adopting both. But whatever strategy was opted for, there was a
need to show that the social order in some way mirrored the natural
order. This created a potential for the production of a whole range of
equivalences, analogies, images and metaphors: that societies are
equivalent to biological organisms or that races represent biological
species; individuals are akin to cells; that war is a manifestation of the
struggle for existence; that women and children occupy the same
position as 'savages' in the scale of evolution, and so on. Metaphors and
images were thus central to any Social Darwinist enterprise, whatever its
27
For Huxley's saltationism, see M. Di Gregorio, T. H Huxley's Place in Natural Science
(New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1984), 66; A. Desmond, Huxley (London:
Michael Joseph, 1994), 256, 262. A modern version is the theory of 'punctuated
equilibrium' propounded by Stephen Jay Gould and his co-workers. This theory has,
however, met with a great deal of criticism. For a critical overview of the literature see
E. O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994), 80-1, 344; J. M.
Smith, Did Darwin Get it Right? (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993), chaps. 16-17.
scientific pretensions, necessitated by the need to link the first four
elements of the world view with the fifth and to show how human
culture was governed by inexorable laws of nature.
These indeterminacies do not mean that the world view was so
abstract as to be indistinguishable from others, or so bland that it could
go with anything. It embraces scientific materialism, the rejection of
supernatural forces in natural explanation, and a view of humans as
having evolved from non-human life-forms and as susceptible to change
over time. As for its indeterminacies, these undoubtedly make for
adaptability, but not ideological licence. Despite its flexibility and the
depth of its rhetorical resources, there were boundaries to both. My
point is that these boundaries cannot be arbitrarily specified but must be
discovered by an examination of its actual discursive uses. From the fact
of somebody being a Social Darwinist it is not possible - or rather, it
would be extremely unwise - to deduce his or her position on warfare,
capitalism, race, imperialism or the social status of women. The
indeterminacies within the world view allow for the taking up of quite
antithetical positions on all these, and other, issues.
There is, however, one feature of the world view - one that was to be
discovered in the course of its deployment in ideological debates - which
was to mark most of Social Darwinist theorising, irrespective of its
ideological bent. This is the Janus-like picture of nature that it presents.
Hints of this are discernible in Darwin's own writings, for example when
he highlights the deleterious consequences of the diminution of the
struggle for survival within civilised societies but then asserts the
impossibility of counteracting these without violating some of our most
exalted values. Here we see the laws of nature as both beneficent and
malign, as something to be emulated and as a force to be feared, as both
a model and a threat. If the indeterminacies within Social Darwinism
provided a veritable quarry of rhetorical materials, then the janiform
visage of nature it also contained constituted a source of dilemmas
which at times threatened the coherence of the theories in question. But
again, neither the rhetorical potential nor the dilemmatics of Social
Darwinism can be identified prior to the investigation of the texts in
which they appeared.
Darwin and Social Darwinism

Finally, where did Darwin stand in relation to Social Darwinism? On my
reading he clearly was a Social Darwinist and, moreover, one of the
major architects of the world view. In particular the crucial fifth
assumption was one that he had made early on in his theoretical labours
and very likely formed one of the motives behind his entire research
effort. The Origin formulated the framework of evolutionary theory
which books like the Descent and The Expression of the Emotions in Man
and Animals (1872) then applied to psychological and behavioural
propensities such as language, emotional expression, cognition, sexual
attraction and morals. In the light of Darwin's quite explicit desire to
apply evolutionary theory to these areas, as well as the continuing
importance they have had in social thought, from sexology to
contemporary sociobiology, it is both perverse and inaccurate to deny
his status as a Social Darwinist. Darwinism was inherently social in that
Darwin himself sought to apply evolutionary theory to mental and social
phenomena.
What Darwin did not do was construct a complete social theory
himself, i.e. he did not erect an ideology on the foundations of the world
view he propounded. True, he adopted positions on the issues of his day
which reveal his own preferences and prejudices. For example, despite
his awareness of the problems of equating evolutionary change with
progress, he nonetheless often made the connection. I have already
drawn attention to his assertion in the Descent that moral development
would continue to the point where 'the struggle between our higher and
lower impulses will be less severe, and virtue will be triumphant' (192).
But the Origin also concluded with the assurance that 'as natural
selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal
and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection' (459).
Darwin also expressed conventional views on the superiority of the
civilised 'Anglo-Saxon' nations over other countries and regarded
'savages' as examples of mankind arrested at its most primitive stage of
development, while being convinced of the intellectual superiority of
men over women. 28 At the same time he was a passionate opponent of
slavery and highly critical of the conduct of the Portuguese and Spanish
colonists towards negroes and the indigenous Indian populations in
South America. 29 But Darwin never attempted to formulate his social
28
These themes have been frequently remarked upon in studies already cited by Greene,
Young and Desmond and Moore. Darwin's relationship to prevailing social values are
also discussed in S. Strawbridge, 'Darwin and Victorian Social Values', in E. M.
Sigsworth, ed., In Search of Victorian Social Values (Manchester University Press, 1988),
102-15. For Darwin's attitude towards women, see E. Richards, 'Darwin and the
Descent of Woman', in D . R. Oldroyd and I. Langham, eds., The Wider Domain of
Evolutionary Thought (Boston, MA: Reidel, 1983), 57-111.
29
On slavery, see Darwin's letter to Lyell, 25 August 1845, in F. Darwin, Charles Darwin,
137. On the Spanish and Portuguese treatment of subject races, see C. Darwin, A
Naturalist's Voyage Round the World (London: Murray, 1902), 19, 24 and chap. 4. In
1882 Darwin signed a petition protesting against the persecution of Jews in Russia; see
W. J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875-1914 (London: Duckworth, 1995), 69.
and political views in a systematic fashion. And even if he had, this
would have been irrelevant to the question of whether or not he was a
Social Darwinist.
Darwin's role in the formulation of the Social Darwinist world view
was indisputable, therefore. But he was not the only contributor. The
Origin is a highly original work which rationalised the first four compo-
nents of the world view, but Alfred Russel Wallace had also grasped the
workings of natural selection during the 1850s. Moreover, historians
have uncovered close parallels between the assumptions about nature,
time and human nature which underpinned the work of Wallace and
Darwin and those found in the writings of Spencer, Lyell and Robert
Chambers. There is also a close connection between Darwin's ideas and
contemporary debates and developments within political economy,
theology and the philosophy of science.30
Darwin's relationship to prevailing currents of thought is even more
pronounced in the Descent. The Origin was, after all, largely based upon
Darwin's own fieldwork, experiments and observations.31 But as a
number of commentators have remarked, and Darwin himself acknowl-
edged, the Descent is a much more derivative item, heavily dependent on
the observations and speculative endeavours of his contemporaries.32
So, for example, his ideas on the habits and institutions of tribal peoples
were influenced by the likes of Spencer and Bagehot (neither of whom
had any practical fieldwork experience of such cultures). In fact, by the
time he came to write the Descent, natural selection had been applied to
human evolution by Royer in France, Bagehot, Spencer, Wallace and
Galton in Britain, Haeckel in Germany, and Charles Loring Brace in the
USA - all of whom, with the exception of Royer and Brace, Darwin
drew upon.33 The Social Darwinist world view was, therefore, elabo-
30
See, inter alia, Greene, Science, Ideology and World View; Desmond and Moore, Darwin;
R. M. Young, Darwin's Metaphor and 'Darwinism is Social', 609-38; D. Ospovat, 'God
and Natural Selection', Journal of the History of Biology, 13(1980), 169-94; Ospovat,
The Development of Darwin's Theory (Cambridge University Press, 1981); S. Schweber,
'Darwin and the Political Economists', Journal of the History of Biology, 13(1980), 195-
289; Ruse, Darwinian Paradigm, 9-33.
31
There is a discussion of the importance of fieldwork in the theoretical development of
Darwin, Wallace and other creative naturalists of this period in G. Canguilhem, Etudes
d'histoire etphilosophie des sciences, second edn (Paris: Vrin, 1970), 9 9 - 1 1 0 .
32
Greene, Science, Ideology and World View; G. Jones, 'The Social History of Darwin's The
Descent of Man'; Darwin, Descent: 'This work contains hardly any original facts in regard
to man' (3).
33
Bagehot, Royer, Spencer, Brace and Haeckel are dealt with at length later in this study.
Francis Galton was Darwin's cousin who later coined the term 'eugenics'. H e published
a number of influential items during the 1860s, including 'Hereditary Talent and
Character', Macmillan's Magazine, 12(1865), 1 5 7 - 6 6 , 3 1 8 - 2 7 , and Hereditary Genius
(London: Macmillan, 1869). Wallace published his important 'The Origin of H u m a n
Races' in 1864, reproduced in M . Biddiss, ed., Images of Race (Leicester University
rated by a number of theorists interested in linking organic and human
evolution, among whom Darwin was a seminal, but not the only, figure.
Press, 1979), 39-54. It is noteworthy, however, that by the end of the 1860s Wallace
had renounced his earlier belief that natural selection was capable of accounting for 'the
higher intellectual and spiritual nature of man', thereby distancing himself from the
fifth element in the Social Darwinist world view: Wallace, cited in H. Clements, Alfred
Russel Wallace (London: Hutchinson, 1983), xv. This shift of position is discussed in
Desmond and Moore, Darwin, 569-70.
The distinctiveness of Social Darwinism
The Lamarckian world view

At this juncture I propose to explore the distinctiveness of Social
Darwinism by comparing it, first, to the ideas of the French naturalist
Lamarck, and second, to some earlier examples of evolutionary thought.
Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) elaborated a systematic and
influential account of evolution based upon a complex philosophy of
life.1 Although Darwin publicly acknowledged Lamarck's contribution
to the theory of evolution, he privately dismissed the Frenchman's work,
claiming he had derived nothing from it.2 There may have been
pragmatic reasons for repudiating Lamarck which will be considered
below. Other contemporaries of Darwin certainly had a high opinion of
Lamarck and I have already drawn attention to Darwin's own endorse-
ment of 'Lamarckian' evolutionary mechanisms like the use and disuse
of organs and the inheritance of acquired characters. Thus the relation-
ship between the two theories is a matter of importance since some
historians have suggested that what has been passed off as Social
Darwinism would actually be far more accurately designated Social
Lamarckism.
Lamarck's biological theory - he actually coined the word 'biology' in
the early nineteenth century - was heavily influenced by the ideologues:
1
For critical accounts of Lamarck's ideas, see E. Boesiger, 'Evolutionary Theories After
Lamarck and Darwin', in F. J. Alaya and T. Dobzhansky, eds., Studies in the Philosophy
of Biology (London: Macmillan, 1974), 22-7; R. Burkhardt, 'Lamarckism in Britain
and the United States'; L. Jordanova, Lamarck (Oxford University Press, 1984).
2
Darwin, letter to Lyell 12 March 1863, in F. Darwin, Charles Darwin, 257. Here
Darwin mentions 'a wretched book' by Lamarck, presumably the latter's Zoological
Philosophy. Darwin imputed to Lamarck the view that animals adapted to changing
environments through acts of will, a common misinterpretation deriving from the
misconstrual of besoin as 'want' whereas Lamarck intended 'need'. See Jordanova,
Lamarck, 102; J. Burrow, 'Introduction' to On the Origin of Species, 32. Lyell defended
Lamarck against this misinterpretation in a letter to Darwin, 3 October 1859
(F. Darwin, Charles Darwin, 207). The same error was committed by later theorists,
e.g. J. Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1874), II, 6-7;
W. James, The Principles of Psychology, II, 678.
39
late eighteenth-century French philosophers dedicated to the creation of
a science of mankind.3 Lamarck extended their project by insisting that
humans were part of nature and subject to its laws. Far from constituting
a special creation, people differed only quantitatively from other
creatures in that they possessed more complex faculties than animals but
nothing uniquely human, including the ability to reason.
In his Zoological Philosophy of 1809,4 Lamarck asserted the existence
of an evolutionary progression from the simplest to the most complex
forms of biological organisation. He observed that 'in ascending the
animal scale, starting from the most imperfect animals, organisation
gradually increases in complexity in an extremely remarkable manner'
(1). This progression was a consequence of organic transformations
impelled by environmental changes. Lamarck proposed as a general law
that 'variations in the environment induce changes in the needs, habits
and mode of life of living beings; and that these changes give rise to
modifications or developments in their organs and the shape of their
parts' (45). The impact of environmental change on the animal was not
direct: rather, in striving to adapt to new conditions, an animal's needs
were altered. If these became permanent then organic transformations
were made possible either through the development of new organs or by
the modification of existing structures (107). The features of the milieu
considered critical in causing these modifications were climate, tempera-
ture, habits and 'the means of self-preservation, the mode of life and the
methods of defence and multiplication' (114).
On the basis of these considerations Lamarck postulated two laws of
development. The first asserted that in any animal that had 'not passed
the limits of its development', increased frequency in the use of an organ
or faculty would augment or enlarge it, while prolonged disuse would
cause it to atrophy. The second claimed that any losses or acquisitions
brought about by use or disuse or through adaptation to changing
conditions would be 'preserved by reproduction to the new individuals
which arise, provided that the acquired modifications are common to
both sexes, or at least to the individuals which produce the young' (113).
Lamarck concluded from these laws that new species evolved very slowly
from existing species through the accretion of these modifications.
Hence there were no fixed and immutable entities in nature, while
species 'shade gradually into some other neighbouring species', making
it difficult to establish clear-cut species boundaries (36-7).
These laws applied to humanity whose ancestors, having acquired the
facility of standing and walking in an upright position, developed new
3
Jordanova, Lamarck, 77-80.
4
Tr. H. Elliot (London: Macmillan, 1914).
The distinctiveness of Social Darwinism 41
needs to which they adapted and thus not only left the other animals
behind in terms of development, but gained mastery over them as well.
With the extension of needs and ideas, the necessity for communication
intensified, leading to the formation of the organs of speech and
language (170-3).
This brief survey reveals some points in common between the theories
of Lamarck and Darwin. In both there is an assertion of the universality
of evolution which occurs gradually through the accumulation of small
changes. Both consider species to be mutable, which makes possible the
emergence of new species, although Lamarck's reference to 'limits of
development' implies the existence of some constraints on this process.
Both endorse the thesis that humans evolved from animal life-forms.
Where Lamarck and Darwin differed was, first, in their characterisation
of evolution, with Lamarck describing a linear process from the simple
to the complex in contrast to Darwin's branching notion; and second, in
their respective explanations of these transformations. Lamarck was
certainly attuned to the existence of competition and predation
throughout nature (including mankind), which has prompted some
commentators to credit him with advocating the struggle for existence as
a selective device.5 Careful attention to the contexts in which his
remarks on this topic are made show this not to be so.
Lamarck argued that the fecundity and rapid multiplication of
organisms, particularly those low in the scale of complexity, posed a
threat to the preservation and perfectibility of the higher species by
crowding them out of existence. Predation corrected this imbalance and
preserved the natural equilibrium:
The multiplication of the small species of animals is so great, and the succession
of generations is so rapid, that these small species would render the globe
uninhabitable to any others if nature had not set a limit to their prodigious
multiplication. But since they serve as a prey to a multitude of other animals,
and since the duration of their life is very short and they are killed by any fall of
temperature, their numbers are always maintained in the proper proportions for
the preservation of their own and other races.
As to the larger and stronger animals, they might well become dominant and
have bad effects upon the preservation of many other races if they could multiply
in too large proportions; but their races devour one another, and they only
multiply slowly and a few at a time, and this maintains in their case also the kind
of equilibrium that should exist (54).
Human beings might, at first glance, seem to be exceptions to this rule
because their intelligence and other abilities protected them from the
5
For example, G. Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (New York:
Norton, 1962), 177-8.
predation of other animals. But nature had endowed humans with many
passions and these, through the warfare they engendered, checked
population growth. Thus mankind regulated itself through the unin-
tended consequences of its powers and passions.
By these wise precautions, everything is thus preserved in the established order;
the continual changes and renewals which are observed in that order are kept
within limits that they cannot pass; all the races of living bodies continue to exist
in spite of their variations; none of the progress made towards perfection of
organisation is lost; what appears to be disorder, confusion, anomaly, incessantly
passes again into the general order, and even contributes to it; everywhere and
always, the will of the Sublime Author of nature and of everything that exists is
invariably carried out (55).
From these arguments and the language in which they are couched it
is evident that Lamarck had a different view of nature to that exhibited
in Darwin's writings. While they shared a number of assumptions,
Darwin's advocacy of a creative role for struggle in bringing about
organic change was very different from Lamarck's remarks about the
effects of predation and warfare. For the French naturalist both were
conservative principles, serving to maintain an equilibrium in the natural
order. In this respect at least, Lamarck's philosophy of nature had its
roots in eighteenth-century conceptions of nature as a system of
harmony and perfectibility.6
Other differences over the nature of struggle are also discernible. In
contrast to Darwin, who considered the battle for life to be most acute
among conspecifics, Lamarck declared: 'individuals rarely eat others of
the same race as themselves; they make war on different races' (54). For
him predation was not a question of culling the weakest specimens
within a species: on the contrary, 'ill-fed, suffering or sickly individuals'
were capable of adaptation and modification and their descendants
would therefore move up a rung on the evolutionary ladder (108).
Jordanova has summarised the difference between the two naturalists
thus: where Darwin saw animals and plants compering for survival,
Lamarck saw a more harmonious process of mutual adaptation. 7
Lamarckism, then, cannot be reduced to a belief in the inheritance of
acquired characters as a mechanism of evolution. Rather it must be seen
as a world view in its own right in which change takes place from below
as inferior organisms strive to adapt, improve and progress. This
conception of a self-improving natural order, mediated through the
writings of the French anatomist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, was
6
There is a useful discussion of eighteenth-century conceptions of nature in B. Willey,
The Eighteenth Century Background (London: Chatto and Windus, 1965).
7
Jordanova, Lamarck, 106.
deployed in both France and Britain as the philosophical foundation of
early radical, republican and socialist political agendas. As Desmond has
demonstrated, Lamarckism provided these movements with a powerful
scientific rationale for doctrines of progress through 'development from
below5. For the radicals: 'Nature and society were congruent. Both were
improving and progressive: the moral evils of society were benevolent
dispensations favouring working-class improvement, while in the animal
kingdom the inferior organisms triumphantly progressed to escape their
lowly station.'8 These arguments appealed not only to radical and
socialist agitators, but also to the non-establishment medical schools of
Edinburgh and London that were challenging the hegemony of Oxbridge
and the medical corporations. 'Clearly', writes Desmond, 'Lamarckism
had some disreputable associations. It was being exploited by extremists
promoting the dissolution of Church and aristocracy, and calling for a
new economic system. These atheists and socialists supported a brand of
evolution quite unlike Darwin's.'9 He concludes that this ideological
context helps explain Darwin's tardiness in publishing his own theory.
Darwin had attended Edinburgh University for a time and had there met
some of the foremost radical Lamarckians. He was terrified of becoming
associated with the political uses to which they were putting their
transformist ideas. For, like them, Darwin also perceived nature to be
self-developing and courted the risk of having his own ideas pirated by
the radicals, notwithstanding his Malthusian, anti-Lamarckian view of
the causes of this development.10 Fortunately for Darwin the routing of
the radical Lamarckians during the late 1840s coupled with the relative
political quiescence of the following decade enabled him to avoid the
taint of radicalism, although his ideas did become part of the arsenal of
anti-establishment figures like Huxley and Spencer.
Darwinism and Lamarckism, therefore, though sharing some assump-
tions, diverged widely on others. In particular, they proposed different
explanations of organic change which in turn resonated discrepant
conceptions of the natural order. For Darwin, evolution was brought
about primarily through the selective consequences of struggle, an
explanation that was alien to Lamarckism. Yet the differences are more
than just a disagreement over the role of competition. This notion was
integral to Darwinism, intimately linked to the configuration of assump-
tions comprising the world view as a whole. Its absence (as a creative
8
A. Desmond, The Politics of Evolution (London: University of Chicago Press, 1989),
208.
9
Ibid., A.
10
Ibid., 412. Desmond describes how working-class audiences during the 1860s
interpreted Darwin for their own purposes in his Huxley, 292-3.
mechanism) in Lamarck likewise reflected the Frenchman's belief in
adaptation from below as the driving force in evolution and of nature as
a moving equilibrium. Darwinism additionally implied a much greater
stress on heredity than did Lamarckism. In the latter perspective,
heredity acts to ensure the transmission of successful adaptations,
whereas in the former it is itself a source of variations (although Darwin
was unsure how these occurred). Darwinism also contained the potential
for depicting heredity as a much more autonomous force, relatively
immune from environmental pressures, as in its Weismannian guise.
Hence the Darwinian conception of heredity is one that potentially lends
itself to a form of hereditarian determinism which is at odds with the
environmentalist focus of Lamarckism.
This last consideration points to a need for care in analysing the
writings of evolutionary thinkers who enlisted the inheritance of acquired
characters within Social Darwinist frameworks. This is especially true of
those who believed in progress. The inheritance of acquired characters
could be used to explain cumulative mental or social improvement. But
what clearly separates such theories from the Lamarckian view is that in
the former this is invariably accompanied by a commitment to the
struggle for survival made necessary for the elimination of the 'unfit'
who are incapable of improvement because of their hereditary disposi-
tion. Here we encounter another example of the way in which specific
terms need to be understood in the overall discursive context of which
they are a part. Struggle and heredity play different roles and have
different significations within the Darwinian and Lamarckian world
views. And it was precisely because the former possessed a stress on
heredity and on struggle that it could depict nature as at once both a
model and a threat.
Pre-Darwinian theories of social change

Social Darwinism is a world view which explains social evolution. But
how distinctive is it? After all, the notion that social change exhibited
developmental patterns can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, who
were also aware of heredity and the selective effects of breeding. 1 * My
answer is that Social Darwinism cannot be seen as simply a variation on
these old themes except in the general sense of sharing a concern with
social change. This is because the conception of nature expressed in the
world view differs markedly from those of its predecessors. Certainly
11
For accounts of theories of social change in Western thought, see A. D. Smith, The
Concept of Social Change (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973); K. E. Bock,
'Theories of Progress, Development, Evolution'; Nisbet, Social Change and History.
'nature' represents a key reference point in previous theories because it
comprises a central element in any world view. But there is an enormous
difference between perceiving nature as a realm of eternal and un-
changing essences or as a cycle of birth, maturation and death (two
recurrent models in earlier thought) and the Darwinian picture of nature
as an arena of continuous change extending backwards (and forwards)
into barely imaginable time scales. Social theorists who embraced
Darwinism were engaged in something more than the reiteration of an
age-old preoccupation with nature and its rhythms. This was because
the world view itself rendered problematic many of the certainties upon
which social and political theories had been premissed - the fixity of
human nature, or the harmony of nature, or nature as evidence of divine
creation. Social Darwinism was a challenge to the viability of social
theory itself as traditionally conceived and practised.
The separate elements of the world view are certainly discernible in
earlier theories - the unity of humanity and nature; the importance of
population growth in bringing about social change; adaptation; speciali-
sation; the paramountcy of competition. But, as was stressed in the
previous chapter, Social Darwinism was a fusion of these elements into a
distinctive vision of the laws of natural and social change. What has to be
considered in any estimation of the historical specificity of the world
view, therefore, is not the existence of its elements but the appearance of
the total configuration and the logic by which these elements are
interconnected.
The importance of focusing upon the whole rather than its parts can
be appreciated from a comparison between Social Darwinism and the
world view underpinning the political theory of the seventeenth-century
English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). The portrayal of
nature in Social Darwinism has frequently been depicted as a transfig-
uration of Hobbes's 'state of nature'. 12 Yet while there are some
important similarities, there are equally essential differences. Hobbes, in
his Leviathan of 1651,13 asserted that mankind was regulated by the
same laws which governed nature at large, man being a machine and
hence in constant motion (81). This applied equally to his mind which
was driven by appetites and aversions. But though men were engines of
a similar design, the objects of their appetites and aversions differed in
12
For example, H. Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society (St Albans: Paladin, 1974),
38-9; M. Sahlins, The Use and Abuse of Biology (London: Tavistock, 1976), 101;
S. Rose, R. Lewontin and L. Kamin, Not in Our Genes (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1990), 241. This connection was often made in the nineteenth century as well, e.g. by
Engels (see Sahlins, TTie Use and Abuse of Biology, 102-3), and by the anarchist Peter
Kropotkin in his Mutual Aid, ed. P. Avritch (London: Allen Lane, 1972), 36, 84.
13
Ed. C. B. McPherson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968).
accordance with 'the constitution individual^ and particular education '
(83). Hobbes contended that humans were intrinsically egocentric and,
given the scarcity of resources, inevitably rivalrous, engaged in competi-
tion for riches, honour and power. As the ability to secure good and
avoid evil in the future depended, to a large degree, on the ability to
control other people, Hobbes saw mankind engaged in a continuous
struggle for power. This arose, not through the inherent insatiability of
human wants, but through insecurity, because each person 'cannot
assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without
the acquisition of more' (161).
Hobbes's notorious state of nature is a hypothetical condition
deduced from human nature. He invited his readers to contemplate a
situation in which there was no government to enforce laws. Given the
egoistic and competitive nature of man and the finitude of resources this
would very quickly degenerate into violent anarchy in which each person
lived in perpetual fear of his neighbour, while art, science and commerce
would be rendered impossible. In other words 'they are in that condition
which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every
man' (185). Self-interest, activitated by the fear of death (the one evil to
which everybody had an aversion because death stopped motion), would
lead men to the realisation that the only way out of this predicament was
by conferring all their rights and powers upon a Sovereign with absolute
authority.
Hobbes's theory rests upon some assumptions equally visible in Social
Darwinism, notably the unity of mankind and nature, the importance of
competition, and social organisation as a reflection of innate human
proclivities. On the other hand, the laws Hobbes believed regulated
mankind and nature were those of mechanics rather than biology. Thus
his model of human nature was a static one: though appetites and
aversions supplied the dynamics of social interaction, the human
machine remained the same through time and across space. It was not
transformed in any substantive sense by membership in a political
community - Leviathan constrained, but did not alter, human nature. In
the Hobbesian scenario it was precisely because human nature was fixed
that Leviathan held out the promise of peace. As for competition, there
was no suggestion in Hobbes that this had any selective consequences in
the form of the survival of the fittest. On the contrary, it is one of his
most telling points that in a state of nature even the strongest may be
killed by the weakest 'either by secret machination, or by confederacy
with others . . . ' (183). This is a far cry from the Darwinian perspective of
adaptation, selection and transmutation in which time is a dimension of
impermanence.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries several theories
appeared which did stress the importance of social change, giving the
impression of an anticipation of Social Darwinism. The remainder of
this chapter examines some of these theories in order to draw attention
to the varieties of evolutionary theory and underline the distinctive
properties of Social Darwinism.
The Enlightenment and the stages of social change

During the second half of the eighteenth century, principally in France
and Scotland, there emerged a genre of theory which sought to describe
the successive stages of the development of civilisation. These con-
jectural histories were remarkable not only for their focus upon the role
of population pressures on resources and space in inducing develop-
ment, but also for their representation of the unity of mankind and
nature - sometimes even speculating on the links between monkeys and
humans.14 They usually classified societies according to socio-economic
criteria, establishing stages of social development according to the
manner in which subsistence was produced. Some of the most important
examples of this genre were more a narrative of the trials and eventual
triumph of enlightened reason against the forces of obfuscation and
oppression than a systematic account of social development.15 But
others succeeded in presenting a coherent theory of change, for example
the French philosopher Claude-Arien Helvetius (1715-71).
His De Vhomme of 177316 began from the postulate that man was an
animal striving to preserve himself by shunning pain and seeking
happiness - motives which encouraged cooperation with his fellows for
the purposes of hunting and defence. 'Interest and need', according to
Helvetius, 'are the principles of all sociability' (I, 112). But the primacy
of hunting and warfare among early men had left their stamp on human
nature. Nature offered a spectacle in which multitudes of beings
devoured one another; man, who possessed the dentition and the
14
On this last point, see R. Wokler, 'From Vhomme physique to Vhomme moral and Back',
History of the Human Sciences, 6(1993), 121-38. For a discussion of the importance of
population in eighteenth-century thought, see F. G. Whelan, 'Population and Ideology
in the Enlightenment', History of Political Thought, 12(1991), 35-72.
15
Such is the case with the Esquisse d'un tableau des progres de Vesprit humaine (1795) by the
mathematician and social theorist, the Marquis de Condorcet (1743-94). Whereas the
first three of Condorcet's ten stages of development are based upon socio-economic
criteria, the remainder consist of historical and cultural constructs, for example 'the
Ancient Greeks' and the 'Crusades': see, for example, Esquisse (Paris: Editions Sociales,
1966), 99. The outcome is a highly heterogeneous series of stages. See R. L. Meek,
Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge University Press, 1976), 207.
16
De Vhomme, 2 vols. (London: Societe Typographique, 1773).
mentality of a carnivore, was part of this carnage. Helvetius claimed that
children were spontaneously cruel to animals and exhibited all the vices
of mankind, proving that 'goodness and humanity cannot be the work of
nature, but solely that of education' (II, 17). When population growth
resulted in the diminution of game, early humans turned to pastoralism
for their subsistence. Once again, population pressures displaced
nomadism in favour of fixed agriculture, paving the way for the
emergence of property rights, law and the achievements of civilisation
(II, 350-2). But throughout this development man retained his
destructive traits: 'Habituated to murder, he must be deaf to the cry of
pity' (II, 17-18). Good people existed, but as the products of education,
not of nature. 'Born among the Iroquois, these same men would have
adopted their barbaric and cruel customs' (II, 20).
These arguments, however, do not derive from an embryonic Social
Darwinism. If the unity of mankind and nature is a premiss of Helvetius'
theory, there is no suggestion that the developmental history of the
former is an instance of general laws relevant to all organisms. While
population growth exerts pressure on resources, this encourages adapta-
tion rather than selection through survival of the fittest. In any case,
Helvetius was equivocal over the ramifications of population pressure,
which he sometimes presented as causing a decline in the value of labour
and the polarisation of society into rich and poor with a concomitant
increase in oppression, vice and corruption (II, 81-7). Nor were
aggression and predation converted into principles of development or
certain nations described as winners and losers in this process. History
showed 'to the contrary, that from Delhi to Petersburg all peoples have
been successively foolish and enlightened; that in the same proportions,
all nations . . . have the same laws, the same spirit...' (I, 130, note a).
This last statement betrays a supposition prevalent throughout De
Vhomme (and indeed, throughout Enlightenment social theory) that
grounds the very possibility of a science of man, namely the presence of
a universal human nature. This nature grew in complexity according to
a developmental logic deriving partly from the workings of the mind
itself as its operations expanded from their initial sensory foundations,
and partly from the exigencies of social existence. The differences
between nations, then, were explained by the opportunities afforded
their inhabitants for the exercise of their faculties.
Despite some apparent similarities with Social Darwinism, Helvetius
wrote with a very different set of background assumptions concerning
nature, time and human nature. This is equally true of the Scots stage-
theorists, whose conjectural histories charted the course of progress
from the most savage to the most civilised societies. The work of Adam
Ferguson (1732-1816) is a case in point. His Essay on the History of
Civil Society (1767)17 narrated the transition from crude' to 'polished'
societies. The latter were characterised by the refinement of the arts and
lifestyles of their members; the former were divided into two sub-types.
In 'savage' societies there was no private property and the inhabitants
lived by hunting, fishing and gathering. In 'barbarian' societies there
existed ownership of herds and lands and thence the distinction between
rich and poor, servant and master. In both types war was endemic and
was still important, in a modified form, in polished societies. This is
because warfare is natural to both humans and animals. All animals
derive pleasure from the exercise of their 'natural talents and forces'.
They rehearse, in play, 'the conflicts they are doomed to sustain. Man
too is disposed to opposition and to employ the forces of his nature
against an equal antagonist' (24). Humans are innately social, but the
obverse of this sociality is animosity to those outside their group.
Ferguson believed this to be fortunate because it stimulated some of the
finest features of human nature such as generosity and self-denial. He
even invoked warfare as a cause of progress: 'The strength of nations
consists in the wealth, the numbers and the character of their people.
The history of their progress from a state of rudeness is, for the most
part, a detail of the struggles they have maintained, and of the arts they
have practised, to strengthen or to secure themselves' (232).
A closer examination of Ferguson's arguments, however, dispels any
suggestion that he espoused Social Darwinism before the name. His
main thesis was that development was an unintended consequence of
the division of labour, which promoted civilisation and perfection in the
'arts of life' (180-2). But contrary to the implication of the above citation
on war and progress, he was actually vague over the precise causes of
specialisation, and he certainly made no mention of population growth
as a factor. Indeed, alongside Ferguson's history of social change can be
found the Enlightenment commitment to a universal human nature. He
was adamant that the savage shared civilised men's follies and vices as
well as sometimes excelling the latter in 'talents and virtues' (76). All
men were motivated by 'similar dispositions', so that while societies
changed, human nature remained fundamentally the same. Far from
embodying an anticipation of Social Darwinism, Ferguson's work is
more profitably considered within the context of the Enlightenment and
perhaps even the much older mode of discourse, 'civic humanism', with
its celebration of the republican virtues of individual autonomy coupled
Essay on the History of Civil Society ed. D. Forbes (Edinburgh University Press, 1966).
with public-spiritedness.18 Thus, notwithstanding his occasional praise
for warfare, Ferguson's ultimate commitment was to the morality of
community, anticipating a time when: cThe same maxim will apply
throughout every part of nature. To love is to enjoy pleasure: To hate is to be
in pain' (54, original emphasis).
Before leaving the eighteenth century it is useful to consider one of the
most uncompromising critics of the Enlightenment, Thomas Malthus
(1766-1834). His An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), 19 which
was to exert such an influence on both Wallace and Darwin, was
directed against Enlightenment doctrines of progress and perfectibility.
Malthus argued that population always increased at a much faster rate
than food production and was held in check by natural disasters, plague
and warfare, and (as he subsequently conceded) sexual temperance. His
goal was to show that population growth, far from stimulating progress,
actually made such progress impossible. He allowed that 'the goad of
necessity' was certainly responsible for the improved conditions of
modern civilisation (47), and he also acknowledged the possibility of
improving animals and plants through selective breeding (53-4). But
such could occur only within the limits imposed by the essential nature
of the species concerned and these limits were particularly marked in the
case of mankind. 'In human life', Malthus asserted, 'though there are
great variations from different causes, it may be doubted whether, since
the world began, any organic improvement whatever of the human
frame can be clearly ascertained.' Small changes were no doubt possible
in theory but, since they would necessitate the celibacy of 'all the bad
specimens', extremely difficult to realise in practice (54). Although
familiar with the stage-theory of development, Malthus regarded this as
confirmation of the universality of his law of population and hence of the
impossibility of any radical alteration in the quality of life for the majority
of the population.20
Darwin and Wallace took over Malthus's thesis on the pressure
exerted by fecundity on resources and deployed it within a very different
outlook on nature and time - in fact as a cause of precisely those organic
transmutations which Malthus had deemed to be ruled out by this
thesis. Nevertheless, as will be evident in following chapters, the new
18
Ferguson deplored the pursuit of private gain at the expense of the public weal in
modern societies (19, 3 2 - 3 , 8 6 - 7 , 199). O n civic humanism, see J. G. A. Pocock, The
Machiavellian Moment (Princeton University Press, 1975); Pocock, Politics, Language
and Time (London: Methuen, 1972), chaps. 3 and 4.
19
Ed. D . Winch (Cambridge University Press, 1992). For a discussion of the political
context of Malthus's theory, see D . Wells, 'Resurrecting the Dismal Parson: Malthus,
Ecology and Political Thought', Political Studies, 3 0 ( 1 9 8 2 ) , 1-15.
20
O n this point, see Meek, Social Science, 2 2 3 .
world view of Social Darwinism could be enrolled in the same
ideological cause as the original Malthusian doctrine, i.e. to support free
markets and oppose doctrines of equality.
The nineteenth century

The nineteenth century was marked by a profound historical awareness
among intellectuals which stimulated an interest in change in its various
manifestations. The previous chapter has drawn attention to the
implications of these developments for social theory, and how the
consciousness of change and human diversity challenged the assumption
of a timeless human essence. There was, in addition, a focus on conflict
- not just as a feature of social life (as in Hobbes), but also as a cause of
change. In these circumstances it is important that the theory in question
be considered as a whole and that certain ideas and phrases are not
singled out as indicative of Social Darwinism. The latter is but one
among many possible approaches to the issues surrounding the place of
humanity in history and nature and the role of conflict in social life, and
it is vital to recognise this diversity, whatever the degree of overlap
among some of the concepts involved.
The philosophy of the German G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) furnishes
an example of how conflict and change could be depicted as creative
processes within a discursive context very different to that of Social
Darwinism. Hegel interpreted history as the growth of reason and
reflexive consciousness achieved through the dialectical interplay and
confrontation of opposing ideas and cultural forms. Within this frame-
work he provided a philosophical rationale for war as an event that
forced citizens of a state to rise above the limited horizons of self-interest
and recognise the reciprocal obligations derived from membership in a
political community. In fact, war sometimes acted as a pre-condition for
the mutual self-recognition of the antagonistic states themselves.21 But
Hegel was hostile to the evolutionism of his time for trying to explain the
higher in terms of the lower, whereas his methodology recommended
the opposite procedure - explaining lower developmental forms in terms
of the higher.22
21
Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. A. W o o d , tr. H. Nisbet (Cambridge
University Press, 1991) contains a discussion of war ( 3 6 0 - 5 ) , in which Hegel claims
that war prevents stagnation, raises citizens above mundane concerns and promotes
internal strength and unity. For an overview of Hegel's position on this topic, see
S. Walt, 'Hegel on War: Another Look', History of Political Thought, 10(1989), 1 1 3 - 2 4 .
22
This did not prevent the emergence of evolutionary theories inspired by Hegel's
philosophy, for example among the British idealists during the end of the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. See D . Boucher, 'Evolution and Politics: T h e
From the perspective of the present study, the writings of the French
philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) deserve consideration for
providing a comprehensive and influential theory of evolution that
represented an alternative to Social Darwinism.23 Comte's ambition,
realised in his massive Cours de philosophie positive and Systeme de politique
positive,2* was to forge a science of society - he coined the neologism
'sociology' - which was both linked to and a completion of the natural
sciences. Biology was an important foundation for this project, partly for
methodological reasons (e.g. the use of the comparative method) and
partly because he believed humans and animals shared many biological
attributes (Cours, III, 832-5). This was true even for human psycho-
logical propensities. Comte maintained 'that animals, at least in the
higher part of the zoological scale, in reality manifest most of our affective
and even intellectual faculties, with simple differences of degree' (Cours,
III, 774). On no account, though, was sociology reducible to biology,
because social existence involved the emergence of properties which
were not to be found in the natural world. Societies existed in a temporal
dimension which ensured that each generation was influenced by the
culture of its predecessors. As society evolved, this cultural heritage
expanded and played a correspondingly larger role in the shaping of the
human mind and action.
Contrary to a misconception, widely held during his own lifetime as
well as now, Comte did not ignore the subjective dimension of
experience.25 As he announced in the Cours, the history of society was
'above all else dominated by the history of the human mind' (IV, 649).
Later, in the Systeme, he remarked: 'From the first rudiments of
civilisation up to the present state of the most advanced peoples, the
entire human spectacle shows the continuous development of order
determined by the fundamental laws of human nature' (III, 620). The
Law of the Three States represents different points in the evolution of
human nature and different modes of equilibria between the affective
Naturalistic, Ethical and Spiritual Bases of Evolutionary Arguments', Australian Journal
of Political Science, 2 7 ( 1 9 9 2 ) , 9 5 - 1 0 2 .
23
Comte's influence extended not only to theories of social evolution, but also
contributed to the development of structuralist models. See A. Kremer-Marietti, Le
Projet anthropologique d'Auguste Comte (Paris: Societe d'Edition d'Enseignement Super-
ieur, 1980); T . Bottomore and R. Nisbet, 'Structuralism', in Bottomore and Nisbet, A
History of Sociological Analysis, 5 5 9 - 6 2 ; M . J. Hawkins, 'Comte, Durkheim, and the
Sociology of Primitive Religion', Sociological Review, 2 7 ( 1 9 7 9 ) , 4 2 9 - 4 6 .
24
Comte, Cours de philosophie positive, 6 vols. (Paris: Bachelier, 1 8 3 0 - 4 2 ) ; Comte, Systeme
de politique positive, 4 vols. (Paris: Mathias, Carilian-Goury et D e l m o n t , 1 8 5 1 - 4 ) .
25
For an investigation of Comte's theory of the mind and its evolution, see M . J.
Hawkins, 'Comte's Theory of Mental Development', Revue europeenne des sciences
sociales, 2 2 ( 1 9 8 4 ) , 7 1 - 9 0 ; Hawkins, 'Reason and Sense Perception in Comte's Theory
of Mind', History of European Ideas, 5 ( 1 9 8 4 ) , 1 4 9 - 6 3 .
and the cognitive, the altruistic and the egoistic components of the
psyche. To these correspond different relationships between the subject
and the external world, as well as distinctive forms of social organisation.
Equilibrium had to be attained between all these levels, making it both
difficult to achieve and precarious to maintain. Comte summarised his
theory of evolution as 'always consisting of the increasing ascendancy of
our humanity over our animality, according to the double supremacy of
our intelligence over our affective inclinations, and the sympathetic
instinct over the personal instinct' (Cours, VI, 837).
Although ostensibly preoccupied with change, Comte held to the
fixity of species (Cours, III, 560-9) and was critical of Lamarck's
transformism for attributing too much variability to the organism and for
exaggerating the importance of the environment 'as if the organism was
at the same time purely passive and indefinitely modifiable ...' (Cours,
VI, 287). New needs could never create new faculties, but only stimulate
existing ones (Cours, III, 563-4). Even man, the most adaptable
(because most complex) of all organisms, retained his essential char-
acteristics throughout the evolutionary process despite the enormous
environmental diversity encountered by the various races. Comte
posited 'the essential tendency of living species to perpetuate themselves
indefinitely with the same principal characters, despite the variations in
their external conditions of existence' (Cours, III, 569). From his earliest
writings Comte had insisted that what made social evolution a uniform
process was its derivation from 'the fundamental laws of human
organisation, which are common to all'.26 Though eschewing a simple,
linear sequence of development, on several occasions he repeated the
point that all races possessed a shared mental constitution, and the
differences among them had, therefore, to be explained by variable levels
and rates of change rather than by innate differences in capabilities
(Cours, V, 100; VI, 730; Systeme, I, 390).
To these quite striking differences between Comte's theory and Social
Darwinism must be added Comte's vagueness over heredity. He
suggested that actions, if constantly repeated, could become fixed in the
organism and in the race at large, and thereafter reproduce themselves
spontaneously without external stimulation (Cours, III, 786-7). But he
did not explain how this happened and throughout his work the primary
focus was not upon biological but upon cultural transmission through
communication and socialisation. Even more significant is the absence
of anything remotely analogous to the mechanism of natural selection
and survival of the fittest in Comte's theory. He repudiated Malthus
26
A. Comte, Plan des travaux scientifiques necessaires pour reorganiser la societe [1822] (Paris:
Aubier-Montaigne, 1970), 90.
because technological advances enabled modern societies to cope with
population increases, hence removing the latter as a cause of social
conflict (Cours, IV, 645-6; Systeme, I, 143). As for warfare and other
forms of conflict, these were anathema to Comte. War had played a
positive role at early stages in human evolution, but the natural
proclivities which had occasioned it were disciplined by the development
of altruism, reason and social responsibility (Cours, VI, 65-7, 837).
Modern warfare, colonial conquests, class conflict and untrammelled
egoism were pathological, and Comte's philosophical labours were moti-
vated by a search for a new moral consensus capable of eliminating
them.
Comte's theory of evolution has its foundations in the Enlightenment,
with its notions of population growth as a stimulus to specialisation and
adaptation; a universal human nature capable of development through
the interplay of its own internal operations with appropriate social
conditions; and the augmentation of altruism and harmony at the
expense of egoism and conflict. It thus stood in sharp contrast to Social
Darwinism and constituted an influential alternative approach to social
and psychological evolution. 27
However, some theorists were willing to apply biological concepts to
social phenomena, as is illustrated by an English insurance company
actuary, Thomas Rowe Edmonds (1803-89), who published his
Practical, Moral and Political Economy in 1828. 28 Edmonds described
humans as animals upon whom Providence had bestowed superior
faculties and powers augmented by an extensive social life. They
possessed several 'innate passions or pains' in addition to innate faculties
such as a sense of justice (172, 186). These inherent properties (bodily
and mental) were originally habits which became fixed in the constitu-
tion of predecessors through constant usage and then transmitted
though inheritance. 'The minds and bodies of animals', argued
Edmonds, 'are capable of adapting themselves to circumstances. Every
species of animal is continually acquiring those mental and bodily
powers which are most conducive to its welfare' (185). Reproduction
ensured the maintenance of the numbers of each species within
boundaries determined by the availability of food: 'If the number of the
population exceed this limit prescribed by nature, the excess is carried
off by the increased mortality caused by semi-starvation.' This is a
condition of 'natural pauperism', and for people such a state 'would be
27
Schweber, however, has argued that Comte influenced Darwin's own thinking on
evolution. See S. S. Schweber, 'The Origin of the Origin Revisited', Journal of the
History of Biology, 10(1977), 2 1 9 - 3 1 6 .
28
London: Effingham Wilson, 1828.
similar to that suffered by all the lower animals, which are constantly
pressing against the bounds of subsistence' (107).
For Edmonds: 'Nature has laid down laws for the perpetual improve-
ment of the human race' (65), which it is 'not in the power of man to
prevent' (283). One of these is 'the law of the strongest, or war' which,
according to Edmonds, 'is one of the most benevolent institutions of
Nature . . . Beneficent providence has so ordained it that the powerful
are continually bringing the weak under their subjection' (199). This
subordination of the weak to the strong was advantageous because
knowledge equated to power and conquest disseminated knowledge
through compulsion, the only method which enabled rapid advances to
take place. Yet although subjected to inexorable laws of nature,
Edmonds thought it possible to improve mankind through something
very akin to eugenics. Signalling the way in which domestic breeds of
animals and vegetables could be improved by 'selective culture', he
suggested that such techniques could be applied to humans.
The bodies of a coming generation may be rendered superior in health, strength
and activity to the bodies of a present generation, by selecting for the purposes of
propagation the individuals of both sexes possessing the most healthy, vigorous
and active bodies, and not suffering weak and diseased people to transmit their
diseases and miseries to posterity. In similar manner, the minds of a people may
be improved by selecting for propagation those people who excel in the most
useful qualities of mind, as justice, judgement, imagination, benevolence, &c,
and not permitting ideots [sic] or madmen, or people approaching to such, to
propagate (269).
Striking though these passages are, Edmonds cannot be regarded as a
proto-Social Darwinist for a number of reasons. First, he maintained
that species were created and designed by God (34), who had likewise
created the separate races of mankind. He denied that the mental
differences between Europeans and negroes derived from accidental
variations and considered them immutable (187). Such argumentation
was inconsistent with any notion of the evolution of humans from ape-
like ancestors. Second, although Edmonds believed that population
growth was constrained by the availability of food supplies, he did not
argue that such growth was a cause of adaptation and specialisation. He
exempted mankind from this constraint anyway since all European
nations were populated to a level far below that which they were capable
of supporting (107-8). Although Edmonds sometimes adopted a
Malthusian stance, as when he claimed that 'pauperism is caused by
improvident propagation' (237), elsewhere he asserted pauperism to be
the effect of private property and the division of society into rich and
poor (107-8). Thus his 'law of the strongest' was not deduced from the
ratio of population increase to food production as a general law of nature
but derived from the lack of international justice due to the absence of
regular concourse among nations (235). His support for conquest was
couched in terms of the benefits to be gained from the diffusion of
knowledge rather than as a means of winnowing the unfit. Third,
Edmonds did not regard market competition as a selective device but
rather as an obstacle to the advance of the division of labour in that it
was not only injurious to the public interest but also to the firms involved
(75). In no sense, therefore, does his focus on adaptation, selective
breeding and the inheritance of acquired characters in a social context -
interesting though they are - represent a formulation of the Social
Darwinist world view.
The only likely case for a genuine formulation of Social Darwinism
prior to Darwin that I have encountered is the writing of a Scots fruit
farmer and aboriculturalist, Patrick Matthew (1790-1874), although the
evidence is equivocal. In 1860 Matthew claimed to have discovered the
principle of natural selection almost thirty years previously in his book
Naval Timber and Aboriculture.29 In an appendix to this text Matthew
wrote of a 'law universal in nature':
This law sustains the lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the fox in
his wiles. As Nature, in all her modifications of life, has a power of increase far
beyond what is needed to supply the place of what falls by Time's decay, those
individuals who possess not the requisite strength, swiftness, hardihood, or
cunning, fall prematurely without reproducing - either a prey to their natural
devourers, or sinking under disease, generally induced by want of nourishment,
their place being occupied by the more perfect of their kind, who are pressing on
the means of subsistence (98).
This is a succinct statement of the selective impact of competition
arising from the pressure of population on subsistence. Matthew stressed
the 'extreme fecundity of nature 5 and argued that: 'As the field of
existence is limited and preoccupied, it is only the hardier, more robust,
better suited to circumstance individuals, who are able to struggle
forward to maturity, these inhabiting only the situations to which they
have superior adaptation and greater power of occupancy than any other
kind; the weaker, less circumstance-suited, being prematurely destroyed'
(107-8). He suggested that an examination of the fossil record on the
29
Edinburgh: Adam Black, 1831. The most pertinent comments were contained in an
appendix which has been reproduced with other publications by Matthew in W. J.
Dempster, Patrick Matthew and Natural Selection (Edinburgh: Paul Harris, 1983), from
which the following exposition has been drawn. Darwin acknowledged Matthew's
priority in subsequent editions of the Origin. See Matthew's letter to The Gardeners*
Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, 17 April 1860, and Darwin's letter to the same
chronicle, 21 April 1860, in Dempster, Patrick Matthew, 112-17.
extinction and emergence of species left the naturalist with a clear choice
between belief in 'a repeated miraculous creation' or in 'a power of
change' in nature which had the effect of blurring the distinction
between varieties and species (106).
Matthew applied these arguments to social arrangements, insisting
that hereditary nobility and primogeniture were 'an outrage on this law
of nature' and a debasement of the racial stock, since all aristocracies
required renovation by 'regular married alliance with wilder stocks' (98).
He was critical of the English Poor Laws for discouraging self-reliance
and effort among the unemployed and compared this situation with the
one in Scotland, where the absence of parish relief fostered indepen-
dence and a willingness to move to more promising circumstances
(103). Matthew was an ardent supporter of emigration and colonial
enterprise - his work on naval timber was motivated by the desire to
strengthen Britain's overseas power. He claimed that emigration
ensured that the mentally and physically ablest persons 'will be thrown
into their natural position as leaders' whereas the 'feebler or more
improvident varieties will generally sink under the incidental hardships'
(102). Faint hearts were a hindrance to successful overseas ventures:
Our milder moods, benevolence, gentleness, contemplation - our refinement in
sentiment ... have a negative weight on the balance of national strength. The
rougher excitement of hatred, ambition, pride, patriotism, and the more selfish
passions, is necessary to the full and strong development of our active powers.
That Britain is leaving the impress of her energy and morality on a considerable
portion of the world, is owing to her havingfirstbornefireand sword over these
countries ... (103).
However, these sentiments were not consistently adhered to, for
elsewhere in the same text Matthew looked forward to the obliteration of
national distinctions which would reduce the reasons for warfare and
'bring the European family closer into amity' (110). He suggested that
war and conquest should be confined to the annexation of land
inhabited by non-Europeans. These ambivalences pose problems for the
interpretation of Matthew's ideas. Some historians have seen his work as
a complete anticipation of Darwinism and Social Darwinism, while
others have rejected this and located his ideas in an older, Providential
and catastrophist outlook.30 Matthew himself seemed to have hesitated
over the universal application of natural selection, which is a funda-
mental assumption of the world view. Darwin's brother, Erasmus,
30
For the first interpretation, see Dempster, Patrick Matthew, the second is argued in
K. D. Wells, 'The Historical Context of Natural Selection: The Case of Patrick
Matthew', Journal of the History of Biology, 6(1973), 225-58.
chided Matthew for this, suggesting that Charles 'is more faithful to your
own original child than you are yourself'.31
In conclusion, then, it is evident that Social Darwinism did not
emerge until after 1859. All of its separate components had certainly
been articulated in one form or another as aspects of the natural and/or
social realms. But the overall configuration, with its particular inter-
connection of these various elements, was the work of Darwin and the
other pioneers who forged the world view. It is to some of these pioneers
that we now turn.
31
Erasmus Darwin to Matthew, 21 November 1863, in Dempster, Patrick Matthew•, 120.
Part II
Pioneers
The emergence of Social Darwinism
Introduction
Before Darwin published his Descent in 1871, Europeans and Americans
had already started to explore the social and psychological implications
of Darwinism. As a German enthusiast wrote: 'from the first appearance
of the Darwinian doctrine, every moderately logical thinker must have
regarded man as similarly modifiable, and as the result of the mutability
of species'.1 Though exaggerating the acceptance of Darwinism this
statement accurately conveys the realisation by many intellectuals that
this was a theory rich in implications for the study of human society.
Within a quarter of a century of the appearance of the Origin there had
emerged a literature devoted to exploring these implications in a wide
range of contexts: social and psychological development, class, race and
gender, religion and morality, war and peace, crime and destitution.
Well before the label itself, Social Darwinism was established as a rich
and versatile theoretical resource.
These pioneering examples of Social Darwinism are the focus of this
and the next three chapters. The intention is not to provide a
comprehensive account of the emergence of Social Darwinism, but
rather to investigate the manner in which the world view was deployed in
a variety of discursive contexts. This chapter deals with several very early
examples which appeared in the 1860s and 1870s in Europe and the
USA.
Brace and the evolution of racial harmony

A popular and persistent interpretation of Social Darwinism associates it
with doctrines of racial hierarchy and conflict. It certainly was adapted
for these purposes at an early stage. In Germany, for instance, a
geologist, Friedrich Rolle, in a text published in 1866, emphasised the
1
O. Schmidt, The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism (no. tr.) (London: King and Co.,
1875), 283.
61
role of struggle and selection in human history and drew attention to the
'struggle for space5 between races. 2 In this struggle Rolle saw progress
attained through the elimination of the lower races. But other applica-
tions were possible, as demonstrated by the work of the American,
Charles Loring Brace (1826-90).
Brace published his theory of races in 1863, at the height of the
American Civil War. A passionate opponent of slavery, which he
described as an 'organised system of heathenism', 3 Brace sought to
undermine existing ethnological arguments in support of negro infer-
iority. This study took over a decade, during which time Brace was
heavily influenced by the Origin, which he read repeatedly. 4 He was
convinced that if Darwin's theory was true, then 'the law of natural
selection applies to all the moral history of mankind, as well as to the
physical'. 5 TJie Races of the Old World6 was an elaboration of this
principle.
Using linguistic evidence, Brace posited a common origin for all races
and argued that present racial differences were a consequence of the
interaction between environmental conditions, natural selection, inheri-
tance and variations. Although admitting to ignorance concerning the
cause of variations, Brace argued that those conferring advantages in the
form of 'the best chance of living and propagating' (351) would be
selected and spread through a population. In this way, Brace saw no
difficulty in 'accounting for the origin of the negro from the white man,
or from the brown, or from some other race' (390).
Brace was careful to emphasise that races were varieties, not species.
He insisted that there was no physiological evidence to support the latter
thesis, and differences among individuals of the same race were as great
as those between races on such measures (365). Furthermore, all races
could inter-breed, and Brace emphatically rejected the claim that racial
hybrids were infertile (376-7). In fact, Brace evinced a great deal of
sympathy for mulattos, blacks and Red Indians in the United States,
who he believed were dying out as the result of the destruction of their
health and habitats by the rapaciousness of the white races rather than
through any inherent inferiority (383-4). Negroes would benefit greatly
from freedom and integration with whites, partly at least because all
humans were capable of conscious, rational adaptation to new condi-
2
F. Rolle, Der Menschs Seine Abstammung und Gesittung im Lichte der DarwinHschen Lehre
(Frankfurt am Main: Germann'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1866), 109.
3
Brace, letter to Washington Independent, 12 September 1861, in Emma Brace, ed., The
Life of Charles Loring Brace Chiefly Told in His Own Letters (London: Sampson, Low,
Marston and Co., 1894), 243.
4 5
Emma Brace, Life, 300. Brace, cited in Emma Brace, Life, 302.
6
London: John Murray, 1863.
The emergence of Social Darwinism 63
tions (372-4). This process was plainly in evidence among the European
settlers in North America, who were changing physically from their
ancestors. Initially this would result in the elimination of those who were
weaker or unable to adapt to the new conditions, but the stronger would
survive and pass their advantageous traits to their descendants 'until a
new type is formed, adapted to the country and climate' (375). The
lesson Brace drew from this was that the varieties of humanity were no
more immutable than those found in nature at large. He concluded that
'we do not regard the Races of men now existing as permanent. Their
lives converge into one another in the past, and they may meet again in
the future or they may cease altogether' (399-400).
This text is of interest for several reasons. The first is Brace's use of
Darwinism to attack belief in the fixity of racial differences. An example
of this mode of thought is furnished by a book published with the explicit
intent of demonstrating 'that the so-called slavery of the South was the
Negro's normal or natural condition'.7 The author, van Evrie, regarded
the boundaries between species as 'absolutely impassable',8 and the
white and black races as separate species of vastly different capabilities.
The blacks were hopelessly inferior to the whites, and nothing could
alter this condition:
The organism of the race - the species - whether human or animal, never
changes or variesfromthat eternal type fixedfromthe beginning by the hand of
God; and men, therefore, are now, in their natural capacities, what they always
have been and always will be, whatever the external9 circumstances that may
control or modify the development of these capacities.
The significance of this statement lies not in its creationism - for, as we
will see, Brace saw no contradiction between Darwinism and a belief in
God as creator - but in its static perception of species as immutable
essences. From it van Evrie concluded, in sharp contrast to the position
of Brace, that racial crossings were violations of nature and hence
abominations, while slavery was the natural condition of negroes. To
grant them independence was akin to forcing ten-year-old children to
fend for themselves: the result would be the extermination of the
negroes in America.10
The second notable feature of Brace's use of Darwinism consists in
his refusal to erect a hierarchy of races. Races were not species, there
were no insuperable boundaries between them, and their relationships
could not be conceived in terms of inferiority and superiority. Indeed,
he envisaged a time in the future when racial inter-mixture could result
7
J. H. van Evrie, White Supremacy and Negro Subordination, second edn (New York: Van
Evrie, Horton and Co., 1868), dedication to reader.
8 9 10
Ibid., 37. Ibid., 126. Ibid., 161, 309-10.
in a new and more perfect race (400). This contrasts not only with the
perspective of van Evrie - who was not a Social Darwinist - but with
other avowedly Darwinist accounts of race. Thus the German zoologist
Oskar Schmidt (1826-86) argued that human progress, though a fact of
history, was confined to a few nations only. Some inferior races, which
were distinct species, were capable of advancement, but for many
'destruction in the struggle for existence as a consequence of their
retardation . . . is the natural course of things'.11 While Brace believed
that in certain circumstances races could degenerate (cf. Races, 368-72),
he did not adhere to the doctrine of the inevitability of racial conflict and
extermination. He depicted the struggle for existence as occurring
between individuals and their environments rather than between
different races.
Third, Brace - who was a church minister - denied any incommensur-
ability between Darwinism and his religious beliefs. He wrote in 1866
that Darwinism 'furnishes what historians and philosophers have so long
sought for, a law of progress', which would result in the triumph of good
because good was a life-preserving force.12 He insisted that there was no
general tendency in nature to degeneration or imperfection, but only
one 'towards higher forms of life. Natural selection is a means of arriving
at the best.'13 The social significance of this was clarified in a subsequent
study, The Dangerous Classes of New York.1* These classes consisted of
destitute urban elements living in crime and vice. Brace admitted that
while such traits could become hereditary there was little chance of this
happening in New York. This was because geographical mobility and
the American values of self-improvement and equality prevented the
emergence of families with long criminal pedigrees, which in turn
reduced the hereditability of crime (47). Additionally, the laws of nature
worked in parallel fashion:
The action of the great law of 'Natural Selection', in regard to the human race, is
always towards temperance and virtue. That is, vice and extreme indulgence
weaken the physical powers and undermine the constitution; they impair the
faculties by which man struggles with adverse conditions and gets beyond the
reach of poverty and want. The vicious and sensual and drunken die earlier, or
they have fewer children, or their children are carried off by diseases more
frequently, or they themselves are unable to resist or prevent poverty and
suffering. As a consequence, in the lowest class, the more self-controlled and
virtuous tend constantly to survive, and to prevail in the 'struggle for existence',
11
Schmidt, Doctrine of Descent, 298.
12
Brace, letter to Lady Lyell, 23 December 1866, in Emma Brace, Life, 285.
13
Brace, Life, 302.
14
The Dangerous Classes of New York and Twenty Years Work Among Them (New York:
Wynkoop and Hallenback, 1872).
over the vicious and ungoverned, and to transmit their progeny. The natural
drift among the poor is towards virtue (44-5).
Even in the worst families, the superior hereditary qualities of earlier
ancestors were latent within individuals, and could be nurtured by better
food and conditions, regular work and, above all, religion, all of which
would 'awaken these hidden tendencies to good' (45). The application
of Christian principles of charity was thus in harmony 'with natural and
economic laws' (441).
Finally, Brace's use of Darwinism contains tensions which are
instructive for a more general understanding of Social Darwinism. As
was noted above, the struggle for existence appears in his work as
something which operates between individuals and their natural and
social environments, but not between individuals themselves. As a
consequence, Brace did not explore the full implications of Darwinism,
namely that the struggle for life is at its most intense between members
of the same species. His hesitation in this respect undoubtedly derived
from his religious convictions and his commitment to racial integration
and social reform. Moreover, his correspondence reveals his belief in
Theism and in a Creator who could 'arrange forces on a general plan',
coupled with an admission that it was nonetheless difficult to recognise
the hand of God in the play of chance and natural selection.15 Brace's
writings, therefore, present nature as a model and evolution as an
ultimately benign force working towards progress and human perfection.
But they do so by playing down those features of Darwinism which
could pose problems for this view of nature, i.e. intra-specific competi-
tion and scientific determinism. In this respect, the pioneering Social
Darwinism of Brace is, as we shall see, paradigmatic.
Buchner and social equality

In Germany, the materialist and atheist philosopher Ludwig Buchner
published a popular Darwinist tract in 1869 entitled Man in the Past,
Present and Future}6 Humans had evolved from an ape-like ancestor and
this evolution, like all organic transmutations, had been brought about
by the struggle for existence in conjunction with variability and
inheritance (151). But this struggle had itself undergone a transforma-
tion from a material and violent to a peaceful social and mental process:
Whilst the struggle between peoples was formerly a contest of weapons, strength
of body, courage and ferocity, it now consists in an emulation in good and useful
15
See letters in Emma Brace, Life, 301, 303.
16
Tr. W. S. Dallas (London: Asher and Co., 1872).
arts, in discoveries, contrivances and sciences. The time is past in which one
people subjugated another or exterminated it to take its place; it is not by
destruction but by peaceful competition that one can attain a superiority over the
other (156).
The violent struggle for existence still occurred between 'backward'
races, but Buchner was confident that those who survived this struggle
would only be able to stand up to civilised races by adopting the culture
of the latter (157). Here natural selection acted upon the brain, but this
by no means entailed any relaxation of the struggle for existence, which
rages in 'the domain of morals, to which it has been transferred, as
violently and inexorably, as it formerly did on the physical field' (158).
For this struggle to be effective, however, required the equalisation of
the conditions of existence for the majority of the members of modern
societies. There was competition in name only when some people
possessed many advantages while others had none: where the result of
the contest was known in advance, then the very desire to compete was
paralysed (176-7). Buchner advocated a number of radical measures
aimed at altering this situation: the state ownership of land, communal
education of children and care for the aged and indigent, and a more
equal distribution of capital (177-9). He also proposed equal rights for
women in order to bring them into the competition and out of their
present situation of'mitigated slavery' (201-2). This emancipation did
not, however, extend to the granting of female suffrage for the moment
(207).
Buchner perceived the state as an organ concerned with the welfare of
all and he saw modern society as a vast organism in which individuals
enjoyed a high degree of autonomy but, through the specialised division
of labour, cooperated for the collective welfare. At the international level
he foresaw the cessation of armed conflicts, the reduction of national
hatreds, and a corresponding weakening of militarism (166-8). In the
future, the struggle would be for 'the highest general well-being'. 'In
other words', wrote Buchner, 'the struggle for the means of existence
will be replaced by the struggle for existence, man by humanity at large,
mutual conflict by universal harmony, personal misfortune by general
happiness and general hatred by universal love' (162).
Biichner's insistence on a transformation of the struggle for existence
from violent to peaceful modes of competition, the selective impact of
which would be principally on the brain, was typical of radical and
reformist uses of Social Darwinism. Equally typical were the difficulties
implicit in the attempt to reconcile the language of struggle, selection
and incessant change with the ideals of universal harmony and mutual
cooperation. Buchner mobilised the rhetorical resources of Darwinism
in the service of radical social and political change to considerable effect,
as did Brace in the cause of racial integration and social reform. But
these rhetorical resources were equivocal, and the portrait of nature they
conveyed was not obviously compatible with their ideological goals. In
the case of Buchner, this is evident in statements which contradicted his
assertion that the struggle for existence is not mitigated but only
transposed in the course of evolutionary progress. Thus he proposed
that the task of humanity was to oppose nature, so that progress 'consists
in the struggle against the struggle for existence, or in the replacement of
the power of nature by the power of reason . . . ' (175-6, original emphases).
The suggestion here - one that will be encountered often in this study -
is that far from constituting an inspiration for social policy, nature and
her laws are a constraint to be surmounted in order for progress to be
attained to the full.
Bagehot on monarchs and masses

The French Revolution inaugurated a new phenomenon in politics - the
entry of the 'masses' into the political arena, not as spectators, nor as
spectral but marginal actors in a drama written primarily for others, but
as a presence no longer ignorable in practice or in theory.17 Throughout
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as first the middle and then
the working classes formulated social and political demands, there
occurred a whole series of debates about the masses. These took a
variety of forms and were conducted in a number of different modes - in
literature, journalism, religion, the social sciences, medicine and health,
and in political polemics.18 They had in common an interest in the
nature of the masses, i.e. who they were, their physical, mental and
moral characteristics and how they compared in these respects to other
social groups. These themes were fundamental to the controversies
surrounding socialism as an alternative socio-economic system to
capitalism, and to arguments about individual versus collective respon-
sibility for personal welfare. They were also central to questions about
the viability (and desirability) of democracy; the political role of the
masses in civil society; and the form and scope of the modern state.
An influential discussion of some of these questions is contained in
the writings of the English banker and journalist, Walter Bagehot (1826-
77). His Physics and Politics,firstpublished as a series of articles during
17
See H. Arendt, On Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973).
18
For an analysis of attitudes to the masses that were prevalent among the literary
intelligentsia of this period, see J. Carey, The Intellectuals and the Masses (London: Faber
and Faber, 1992).
1867-8, was a seminal work in the application of Darwinism to politics,
cited by Darwin himself and a number of other important thinkers,
including the Americans Fiske and James. 19 The ostensible aim of this
text was to explain progress, but additional intentions become apparent
when it is viewed in the context of Bagehot's other writings.
Bagehot defined progress as 'an increase of adaptation of man to his
environment, that is, of his internal powers and wishes to his external lot
and life' (209). He was of the opinion that his contemporaries were
inclined to take progress too much for granted when in fact it was
confined to a very small number of societies which represented rare
exceptions to the norm of stagnation (211). Bagehot sought an
explanation for this situation.
Bagehot assumed that human history exhibited laws analogous to
those found in natural history. In both instances, such laws derived from
the action of heredity which (for reasons which were as yet not
understood) produced both similarity and difference between successive
generations. However, Bagehot did not believe that variations were
random but were due to moral causes. It was through the exertion of will
and effort that successful adaptations were achieved and, through the
inheritance of acquired characters, transmitted to successive genera-
tions. In this way, inheritance acted as a 'continuous force which binds
age to age, which enables each to begin with some improvement on the
last, if the last did itself improve . . . ' (8).
According to Bagehot, people in pre-historic times lacked any moral
and intellectual discipline, as could be verified by observing the
behaviour of modern savages. The main difference between savages and
primitives was that the minds of the latter, lacking the impress of
centuries of custom and superstition, were more flexible and receptive to
learning than those of the former, but otherwise they both exhibited the
same proclivities, which they also shared with children in civilised
societies. This meant that, 'like savages they [i.e. pre-historic people]
had strong passions and weak reason; that like savages they preferred
short spasms of greedy pleasure to mild and equable enjoyment; that like
savages, they could not postpone the present to the future; that like
savages, their ingrained sense of morality was, to say the best of it,
rudimentary and defective' (113). Driven by their instincts and passions,
19
Physics and Politics originally appeared during 1867-8 in the Fortnightly Review before
publication as a book in 1872. The edition used here was published in London by
Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner in 1903. Darwin read the article version which he cited
several times in Descent, e.g. 179, 180, 200, 204, 284. See also Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic
Philosophy, II, 269, 264, 270-1; W. James, 'Great Men and their Environment', [1880],
in James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: Dover,
1956), 232.
primitives and savages indulged in repellent practices such as lying and
thieving, placed little value on human life, killed their aged kin and
wallowed in sexual licence and 'communal marriage' (115-16, 122). In
these circumstances, the pre-condition for any progress was law - 'rigid,
concise, definite law' - and the incentive to acquire this was furnished by
warfare. 'Whatever may be said against the principle of "natural
selection" in other departments', wrote Bagehot, 'there is no doubt of its
predominance in early human history. The strongest killed out the
weakest as they could' (24). Considerable advantage was therefore
conferred upon groups organised in permanent bands rather than in
scattered families. This required binding rules that forced people to act
in conceit. Thus was initiated 'the cake of custom' which enforced the
'hereditary drill' essential for survival (27). This was achieved through
unswerving obedience to an elite, blind acceptance of collective norms,
and total submission to an oppressive and all-encompassing religion.
'Later are the ages of freedom: first are the ages of servitude' (30). These
highly regimented communities prevailed against their less well-orga-
nised competitors, leading Bagehot to conclude that 'the most obedient,
the tamest tribes are, at the first stage in the real struggle of life, the
strongest and the conquerors' (51).
In this way there appeared the 'preliminary' stage of civilisation, or the
'fighting age' as Bagehot sometimes called it. It was facilitated by a
universal trait of human nature particularly pronounced among primi-
tives - imitation. This propensity encouraged primitives to follow their
leaders, as was evident among savages: 'A savage tribe resembles a herd
of gregarious beasts; where the leader goes they go too; they copy blindly
his habits, and thus soon become that which he already is' (100-1). In
this way, unconscious imitation selected approved habits and actions
and discouraged those that were disliked, thereby moulding the
character of the society's members (97).
The creation of government and custom to form the preliminary stage
was a great step in the advance of civilisation, but the next was even
more momentous. The very factors enabling tribes to survive during the
fighting age had the ultimate effect of stultifying progress beyond a
certain point. Imitation, custom and religious dogma all reinforced
conformity and prevented the emergence of novel variations that
provided the material for new developments. The result was the
'stationary state', arrested at a certain stage of progress and incapable of
additional movement. The only societies capable of continued improve-
ment were those 'happy cases where the force of legality has gone far
enough to bind the nation together, but not far enough to kill out all
varieties and destroy nature's perpetual tendency to change' (64).
Bagehot confessed he was unable to provide a full explanation for the
existence of such cases, but one factor that played a major part in the
maintenance of backwardness was insulation from the struggle for
existence. This had been the fate of tribes inhabiting the interiors of
Africa and Australia, whereas progress had been extensive and contin-
uous in Europe where the struggle had been exceptionally prolonged
and severe (82-3).
For whatever reason, at certain points in their evolution a few
favoured nations succeeded in breaking the cake of custom. There
emerged a social type within which government was conducted on the
basis of rational discussion rather than upon imitation, coercion and
conformity. This was best attained by means of an element of 'popular
government'. Discussion demystified the workings of power, promoted
the growth of intelligence and encouraged toleration, and in these ways
reawakened 'the dormant inventiveness of men' (161-3, 221). Such
societies were vastly superior to less advanced nations, even if one
excluded from consideration the 'higher but undisputed region' of
morals and religion. Not only were the English colonists cerebrally and
technologically more advanced than the aboriginal populations they
came into contact with, but their bodies were 'better machines' for
evolutionary adaptation and progress, as evidenced by the fact that
savages died from diseases which were not fatal to the colonists (48).
Bagehot acknowledged that the 'savages' themselves might disagree with
these criteria of superiority and progress, but he confidently assured his
readers that 'we need not take account of the mistaken ideas of unfit
men and beaten races' (209).
Bagehot's blase assertions about the mentality and social life of
'savages' derived from a set of cultural attitudes and prejudices rather
than from direct field experience. The political resonance of these
sentiments can be illuminated by exploring the assumptions behind his
celebrated work The English Constitution, published a little before Physics
and Politics.20 In the latter text, Bagehot had made plain his conviction
that the mentality of primitives and savages was reproduced within the
ranks of a civilised country like England, i.e. among the 'English poor'
and 'servants': 'The lower classes in civilised countries, like all classes in
uncivilised, are clearly wanting in the nicer part of those feelings which,
taken together, we call the sense of morality' (117-18, original emphasis).
20
The English Constitution was published in book form in 1867 but had appeared earlier as
a series of articles. The edition used here is Glasgow: Fontana/Collins, 1963.
Commentaries rarely highlight the connections between this and Physics and Politics.
There is, for example, a perceptive analysis of both texts in K. C. Wheare, Walter
Bagehot (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), but no examination of their
interrelationship.
Evolution was an uneven process differentially affecting the various
members of society so that: 'Civilised nations inherit the human nature
which was victorious in barbarian ages, and that nature is, in many
respects, not at all suited to civilised circumstances' (185). The impli-
cations of this were made explicit in the English Constitution, where
Bagehot proclaimed: 'Great communities are like great mountains -
they have in them the primary, secondary and tertiary strata of human
progress; the characteristics of the lower regions resemble the life of old
times rather than the present life of the higher regions' (63). These
differences in development were reflected in the English class structure:
We have in a great community like England crowds of people scarcely more
civilised than the majority of two thousand years ago; we have others, even more
numerous, such as the best people were a thousand years since. The lower
orders, the middle orders, are still, when tried by what is the standard of the
educated 'ten thousand5, narrow-minded, unintelligent, incurious. It is useless
to pile up abstract words. Those who doubt should go out into their kitchens
(62-3).
Bagehot went on to distinguish between the dignified and the efficient
parts of the machinery of government. The former referred to those of
its features 'which excite and preserve the reverence of the population'
largely through the symbolic and ceremonial representation of authority,
as exemplified by the monarchy and, for the most part, the House of
Lords. The real work of government was carried on elsewhere, in the
efficient parts of the constitution. Here, in the Commons, the Cabinet,
and in some of the lesser-known activities of the Lords, the business of
government was carried out quietly and effectively by unassuming men
upon whom the administration of the nation's affairs depended.
Bagehot's purpose in drawing attention to these facts was not one of
demystifying the workings of parliamentary government, despite his
aspirations for a science of politics. On the contrary, he argued strongly
for the retention of the dignified features of the constitution as
fundamental to the stability of the entire system. Hence this text was not
merely a treatise on the workings of the British political system but also a
contribution to contemporary debates surrounding the extension of the
suffrage. Statements about the various evolutionary strata implied that
governance was in the hands of the 'educated ten thousand' who alone
had reached the level of the 'age of discussion', but whose activities
would appear dull and uninspiring to the remainder of the populace.
These latter could, however, empathise with the dignified aspects of
government: 'The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is
that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it,
and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other' (82). Thus
in England the masses mistook the symbolism of authority for the reality
of power. 'The poorer and more ignorant classes . . . really believe that
the Queen governs' (241). Like savages and primitives, their rudimen-
tary intellectual and moral faculties were incapable of attaining a more
sophisticated understanding of politics. Hence: 'They defer to what we
may call the theatrical show of society' (248, original emphasis).
The continuation of this deference required a mass which 'abdicates
in favour of its elite, and consents to obey whoever that elite may confide
in' (247). The theatrical aspects of the constitution secured the alle-
giance of the masses in a way that the efficient parts could not. But this
allegiance, and the stability it ensured, was fragile, and Bagehot warned
his audience that 'in communities where the masses are ignorant but
respectful, if you once permit the ignorant class to begin to rule you may
bid farewell to deference forever' (251). In the context of continuing
pressure to extend the suffrage he took the opportunity of a second
edition of the English Constitution in 1872 to underline this point. He
maintained that 'it must be remembered that a political combination of
the lower classes, as such, and for their own ends, is an evil of the first
magnitude . . . So long as they are not taught to act together, there is a
chance of this being averted . . . ' (277). Constitutional government
might be inscribed in the warp and woof of political evolution, but its
maintenance required a restricted suffrage and the mystification of the
majority of its subjects who, by virtue of their hereditary dispositions,
were incapable of understanding or participating in it.
Bagehot's theory of evolution incorporated all the components of
Social Darwinism to produce an account of the class structure of
British society and its relationship to the functioning of constitutional
government. But whereas natural selection worked well for explaining
the evolution of early social formations or the relations between
colonists and their subjects, it was less serviceable for dealing with the
future of change within advanced societies. This is evident in Bagehot's
treatment of the struggle for existence. During the preliminary age this
took the form of war, and on occasions Bagehot explicitly made this a
universal feature of social life: 'In every particular state of the world,
those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in
certain marked peculiarities, the strongest tend to be the best.' 21 This
was certainly consistent with his perception of the relationship between
21
Bagehot, Physics and Politics, 43; also 215. In the light of Bagehot's stress on the
selective role of warfare, particularly among 'savages', there seems no justification for
Himmelfarb's claim that Physics and Politics was 'a travesty of Darwinism' which sought
to repudiate the role of the struggle for existence during the early stage of human
evolution. See Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, 426-30.
colonialists and 'barbarians', with the latter reduced, through this
conflict, to a point where they were 'no longer so much as vanquished
competitors; they have ceased to compete at all'. 22 On other occasions,
though, he described warfare as largely confined to the preliminary age
and asserted that war had 'ceased to be a moving force in the
world...' 23 This could reflect an evolutionary perspective on the
struggle for existence, as for Biichner, but Bagehot did not elaborate
upon this point or discuss alternative methods of selection.
This vagueness on the status of struggle and warfare among advanced
nations was compounded by an implicit reinterpretation of struggle. For
Bagehot did not derive this from the relationship between fecundity and
resources. He was unquestionably aware of the overcrowding, poverty
and vice typical of the large cities, which he attributed to population
growth, and he explained this by the strength of the sexual instinct which
was a residue of early human nature, moulded at a time when rapid
multiplication was integral to military success. But he did not regard this
as a permanent trait, since he believed that this instinct was weakened in
proportion as the cerebral faculties grew. There was only so much
energy available to each individual, and the expansion of certain
activities had to be compensated by a contraction of others. 24 Bagehot
did not suggest that population pressures engendered the struggle for
existence among advanced nations, nor was it invoked as the cause of
warfare at early stages of evolution. War and struggle, therefore, appear
as facts of life in themselves, rather than as the effects of other processes.
Furthermore, Bagehot only used struggle as an explanation for the
formation of societies during the preliminary stage, attributing the
break-up of the stationary state in ancient, mediaeval and modern times
to the emergence of debate and a popular element in government.25 It
would be plausible to interpret discussion and argument as a mode of
struggle transported to the realm of ideas, something argued by other
Social Darwinists, but Bagehot did not do so. As a consequence, while
all the elements of the Darwinist world view can be easily discerned in
his writings, the interconnection between the elements was loosened and
the struggle for existence became detached from the remaining elements
to appear as part of the human condition, albeit a shadowy and
problematic one beyond certain levels of evolution.
22 23
Bagehot, Physics and Politics, 46. Ibid., 78.
24
Ibid., 195, 1 9 9 - 2 0 0 . It is significant that Bagehot wrote at a time when the birth-rate
had not yet declined among the 'higher ranks' in a manner that was later to alarm the
eugenicists.
25
Bagehot, Physics and Politics, 158, 175, 185.
Lombroso and the semiotics of criminality

The British adventurer and novelist Winwood Reade, in his Darwinist-
inspired The Martyrdom of Man of 1872, proposed that human
anatomy held the key to human evolution. Referring to the body as a
'document5 concerning man's origins, he wrote: "There, in unmistak-
able characters, are inscribed the annals of his early life. These
hieroglyphics are not to be fully deciphered without a special prepara-
tion for the task; the alphabet of anatomy must first be mastered, and
the student must be expert in the language of all living and fossil
forms.'26 Here Reade was expressing a widespread belief during the
nineteenth century that a person's mental and moral character could
be inferred from certain facets of his or her appearance, and that
physical and correlated behavioural traits were signs of an inherited
moral disposition.
This belief informed much of the thinking on degeneration, as well as
the aspiring sciences of phrenology and criminal and physical anthro-
pology, even finding their way into the popular fiction of the period. 27
Moreover, physical traits were deemed not only to differentiate the
morally and physically healthy from the unhealthy, but also demarcated
social groups and races. Indeed, the vocabularies of morality, race and
class were often interchangeable. The urban residuum was sometimes
conceived to be a race apart from the rest of society. Thus Henry
Mayhew, in the first volume of his London Labour and the London Poor
(1861-2), referred to the street folk of London as wandering tribes or
races, distinguishable from civilised races both physically and behaviour-
ally.28 The terms used to describe these nomads - prominent jaws and
cheekbones, repugnance to continuous labour, lack of foresight, insensi-
tivity to pain and love of sensual pleasure - were identical to those
usually applied to 'born criminals', 'savages' and 'lower races'. When
these assumptions were grafted on to evolutionary theory, physical and
behavioural traits could be taken as signs not only of an individual's
inner character, but also of his or her location in the evolutionary
spectrum. An early exemplar of this thinking was the Italian criminolo-
gist, Lombroso, who depicted crime as the province of homo criminalis, a
distinctive type belonging to an alien social group recruited primarily
26
W. Reade, The Martyrdom of Man (London: Watts, 1945), 312-3. A similar ambition
was expressed by Bagehot in Physics and Politics, 2 - 3 .
27
Pick, Faces of Degeneration; Jones, Social Darwinism, 103 et seq.\ N. Rose, The
Psychological Complex (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), 57 etseq.
28
See G. Himmelfarb, The Idea of Poverty (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), 3 2 4 - 5 .
from the lower classes, especially, though not exclusively, in the towns
and cities.29
Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) held various chairs in forensic
medicine, psychiatry and criminal anthropology at the universities of
Pavia and then Turin. His book L'Uomo Delinquente ('The Criminal
Man') reached a wide audience, expanding from 252 pages in its first
edition of 1876 to 1,203 pages (in three volumes) by the fifth edition of
1895. Here Lombroso elaborated the concept of the 'born criminal', a
man or woman who broke the law not through habit, or the pressure of
circumstances or temporary passions - all of which played a part in the
motives of other kinds of criminal - but by virtue of a hereditary
predisposition to evil.
Towards the end of his career Lombroso recalled how, in 1870, he
had been struck by the similarities between the skull of a brigand and
those of the 'inferior invertebrates'. He concluded from these observa-
tions that 'the characteristics of primitive man and of inferior animals
must be reproduced in our times'.30 How did Lombroso arrive at these
conclusions? In his Crime: Its Causes and Consequences he announced
himself to be a disciple of Darwin, convinced that social life 'was
governed by silent laws, which never fall into desuetude and rule society
much more surely than the laws inscribed in the codes' (369). One such
law was that 'the very progress of the organic world is entirely based
upon the struggle for existence', which was equally applicable to human
evolution (427). In pre-civilised stages of human development, this
struggle took the form of warfare, which was the source of 'immense
progress' by welding tribes into increasingly larger and more complex
societies. This had the effect of imposing social discipline upon the
naturally idle and capricious savage through the principles of hierarchy
and subordination that were vital to civilised existence (441). War,
however, was an evil when nations were civilised, although Lombroso
did not specify how the struggle for existence manifested itself in these
circumstances, despite his insistence on its omnipresence. Another
natural law was heredity, about which Lombroso was also rather vague.
He confidently asserted, nonetheless, that while heredity fixed the
'organic type', not all of its influences were apparent at any given
moment in the life-history of an organism, but often remained latent
29
For a discussion of homo criminalis see M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, tr.
A. Sheridan (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), 1 0 1 - 2 , 2 7 5 - 6 .
30
C. Lombroso, opening address to the Sixth Congress of Criminal Anthropology, Turin,
April 1906. Cited by M . Parmelee, 'Introduction to the English Edition', of Lombroso,
Crime: Its Causes and Remedies, tr. from the French edition by H . P. Horton (Boston:
Little, Brown, 1911), xiv.
'and manifest themselves gradually throughout the whole period of
development' (174).31
Society was therefore subjected to the laws of heredity and the struggle
for survival, which interacted to cause evolutionary change. But progress
was uneven, and modern societies contained many persons whose
development was fixed at the level of savages or even animals. This was
the case with the born criminal. The physical features of the born
criminal were a low cranial capacity, retreating forehead, highly
developed frontal sinuses, a thick skull, large ears, protruding lower jaw,
tufted and crispy hair, and often included prominent canine teeth,
prehensile feet and left-handedness for good measure. Psychologically,
such a person was insensitive to pain, prone to sensual pleasures,
capable of only blunted affections, lazy, impulsive and incapable of
remorse. Since all of these attributes, physical and mental, were
observable among savages, and even among the anthropoid apes,
Lombroso's conclusion was that 'many of the characters presented by
savage races are very often found among born criminals', and when a
criminal 'lacks absolutely every trace of shame and pity', he 'may go
back far beyond the savages, even to the brutes themselves' (365-8).
The born criminal - responsible, according to Lombroso, for as much as
40 per cent of modern crime - was an atavistic throwback to the savage
and even animal ancestry of modern man, an alien and menacing
presence in the very interstices of a civilisation to which he was innately
inimical. This atavism was evident in many of the practices of born
criminals, for example tattooing (which was typical of savages) and the
use of slang: 'They talk differently from us because they do not feel in
the same way; they talk like savages because they are veritable savages in
the midst of this brilliant European civilisation.' 32
For Lombroso the physical traits of born criminals signifying their
innate criminality could be deciphered by someone with the appropriate
training. He gave several examples of the deployment of his own
expertise for this purpose. When six men were accused of violating a
three-and-a-half-year-old girl by the victim's mother - all of whom
denied the offence - Lombroso was called upon to interrogate the
suspects, and reported: 'I picked out immediately one among them who
had obscene tattooing upon his arm, a sinister physiognomy, irregula-
rities of the field of vision, and also traces of a recent attack of syphilis.
Later this individual confessed his crime' (437).
31
For Lombroso's knowledge of heredity, see Parmelee, 'Introduction', xxx. Parmelee
thinks it probable that Lombroso upheld the inheritance of acquired characters, xxxi.
32
Lombroso, UHomme criminel, 3 vols. (Paris: 1895), I, 497. Cited by Parmelee,
'Introduction', xx.
Lombroso took his analysis beyond a comparison between the savage
and the born criminal. He conceptualised a syndrome of physical and
mental pathologies which brought within a common frame of reference
not only criminals, but 'moral imbeciles' and epileptics. In Criminal
Man he announced: 'The perversion of the affective sphere, the hate,
exaggerated and without motive, the absence or insufficiency of all
restraint, the multiple hereditary tendencies, are the source of irresistible
impulses in the moral imbecile as well as the born criminal and the
epileptic.'33 What linked these afflictions was their hereditary basis and
their primitive origins, that is, their derivation from the earliest phases of
the physical and mental evolution of humanity. In these periods, the
savage had existed in circumstances in which hatred and violence,
unrestrained passion and indifference to suffering, whether in himself in
or in others, were normal daily experiences, which explained the
proclivity of the modern savage for such practices as cannibalism and
infanticide. Civilisation removed these circumstances and repressed the
proclivities, but the latter reappeared in the psyche of the born criminal
and the 'instinctive animalism' of the epileptic.
A glimpse of this primitive heritage was afforded by observing
children. Lombroso was convinced that 'the most horrible crimes have
their origin in those animal instincts of which childhood gives us a pale
reflection'.34 In The Female Offender35 written by Lombroso and his
colleague Ferrero, criminal women were likened to children because in
the former 'their moral sense is deficient... they are revengeful, jealous,
inclined to vengeances of a refined cruelty' (151). The authors
speculated about the enormous potential for crime possessed by
children, only prevented from effective expression by their physical
weakness and undeveloped intelligence (152). In this manner, Lom-
broso combined evolution, recapitulation and heredity to construct a
developmental continuum. Pre-historic humans and modern savages
were closest to our animal forebears; criminals, lunatics and epileptics
were cases of arrested development - individuals stuck on the lowest
rungs of a phyletic ladder which every 'normal' child traversed in the
course of maturation. Or rather, every normal male child, since
Lombroso believed that women were at a considerably lower stage of
evolution than men.
In their study of women offenders Lombroso and Ferrero argued that
female born criminals were, like their male counterparts, typified by a
series of physical abnormalities reflecting their atavistic natures:
33
VHomme criminel, II, 125. Cited by Parmelee, 'Introduction', xxiii.
34
Lombroso, Crime, 3 6 8 .
35
C. Lombroso and W. Ferrero (no tr.), The Female Offender (London: Owen, 1959).
The criminal being only a reversion to the primitive type of his species, the
female criminal necessarily offers the two most salient characteristics of
primordial woman, namely, precocity and a minor degree of differentiation from
the male - this lesser differentiation manifesting itself in the stature, cranium,
brain, and in the muscular strength which she possesses to a degree so far in
advance of the modern female (112-13).
Here the authors ran into difficulties. Female born criminals were
supposed to be more masculine than non-delinquent women. Yet their
data actually revealed that delinquent females displayed significantly less
physical anomalies than their male counterparts, so much so that female
offenders seemed 'almost normal' in comparison to male criminals
(107). But if females were closer to the evolutionary origins of the species
than were males, then women offenders should exhibit more anomalous
features than men. Lombroso and Ferrero appealed to a number of
factors to explain this seeming contradiction. First, they insisted that
women were inherently more conservative than men, the primary cause
of which was 'the immobility of the ovule compared with the zoosperm'.
Second, the demands of childrearing exposed women to less varied
conditions of existence. Among vertebrates and even more so among
savages, the struggle for life devolved principally upon males, and this
caused variations and 'peculiar adaptations in functions and organs'. For
this reason, women were less exposed to 'transformation and deforma-
tion'. These causes were reinforced, finally, by sexual selection: 'Man
not only refused to marry a deformed female, but ate her, while, on the
other hand, preserving for his enjoyment the handsome woman who
gratified his peculiar instincts. In those days he was the stronger, and the
choice rested with him' (109, original emphasis). These arguments
combined popular perceptions (or, rather, misperceptions) of savage
societies, sexual stereotypes, recapitulation theory and Social Darwinism
in an account of the criminal psyche which, well before the endorsement
of germ-plasm theory, was heavily reductionist.
It has been suggested that in the latter part of his career Lombroso
came to place more stress on social determinants of criminal beha-
viour.36 If this was indeed the case he always assigned a preponderant
role to atavism in the cause of crime, even to the extent of attributing
tattooing and the use of slang to inheritance. His biological determinism
was clearly in evidence, for example, in his discussion of alcoholism,
when he wrote: 'The progeny of the alcoholic are blind, paralytic,
impotent. Even if they begin life with wealth, they must necessarily
become poor. If they are poor, they are incapable of working.' The
criminal was likewise driven to act as he did by innate predispositions
36
Parmelee, 'Introduction', xxviii.
over which he had no control. Thus Lombroso saw in the criminal 'a
savage and at the same time a sick man'. 37 Despite this, Lombroso
cautioned against any undue sympathy for homo criminalis. If crime was
an inescapable feature of social life, so was punishment, for it was
pointless to try and reform the born criminal: the death penalty was part
of the incessant struggle for existence and was therefore 'inscribed in the
book of nature5. Lombroso reasoned: 'The fact that there exist such
beings as born criminals, organically fitted for evil, atavistic reproduc-
tions, not simply of savage men but even of the fiercest animals, far from
making us more compassionate towards them ... steels us against all
pity.' But Lombroso opposed the indiscriminate use of the death
penalty, preferring instead the isolation of born criminals to prevent
them reproducing, and he even toyed with the possibility of turning their
instincts to good use: 'If we try to apply the Darwinian law (according to
which only those organisms survive which have utility for the species) to
the fact that crime does not cease to increase ... we are driven to believe
that it must have, if not a function, at least a social utility.' So instead of
repressing criminals, the state should seek to harness their behaviour to
socially useful ends, and he recommended the army for murderers and
the police force or journalism for swindlers.38
Lombroso's methodology, which relied upon anthropometric mea-
surements for its data base, had come under increasing attack by the
beginning of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the concept of the
born criminal was to remain an important one in debates about
criminality, especially in those emanating from eugenics and racial
hygiene. This held true even among persons possessing a sophisticated
knowledge of genetics, as is aptly illustrated by the eugenicist and
professor of racial hygiene, Fritz Lenz (1887-1976), writing in Germany
half a century after the Italian had first propounded his views. Lenz even
embraced a similar semiotic approach, claiming it possible to infer
mental constitution from physical traits. He argued:
there are close relationships between race and crime. I am inclined to think that
there is even a certain amount of truth in the doctrine formulated a good many
years ago by Lombroso, that the 'born criminal' belongs to a special and
primitive racial stock. Criminals very often exhibit characters which remind us of
Neanderthal man or of other primitive races, having prominent and massive
jaws, receding foreheads, etc.39
37
Lombroso, Crime, 89; Lombroso, UHomme criminel, II, 135, cited by Parmelee,
'Introduction', xxiv.
38
Lombroso, Crime, 4 2 6 , 4 2 7 , 4 4 0 , 4 4 7 .
39
F. Lenz, 'The Inheritance of Intellectual Gifts', in E. Bauer, E. Fischer and F. Lenz,
Human Heredity, tr. E. and C. Paul (London: Allen and U n w i n , 1931), 6 8 1 . This is a
translation of the third edition (1927) of the important textbook Grundriss der
Lenz speculated that when these early races had been extirpated some of
their blood had been preserved through inter-mixture with other races,
with the result that vestiges of early man probably 'remain scattered here
and there in the European population of today, and . . . the carriers of
this primitive hereditary equipment are peculiarly apt to come into
conflict with the demands of modern civilised life'. 40 In the case of Lenz
and his co-authors, familiarity with advances in modern genetics was
utilised to reconfirm the theory of criminal atavism advanced by the
'Italian' school of criminal anthropology, with, ultimately, inhuman
consequences, as will be shown in the chapter on Nazism.
Although I have pointed to the continuity between Lombroso's notion
of the born criminal and the ideas of Lenz and his co-authors, it would
be facile to interpret the Italian's work as a form of proto-Nazism. Gould
has emphasised the reformist and even socialist proclivities of many of
the leaders of criminal anthropology, who were committed to a more
rational order.41 As Pick has shown, Lombroso's criminal science was
part of an attempt to understand the foundations of political instability
and social stagnation in the post-unification era in Italy, and he was
'typically perceived at the time as a progressive figure .. .' 42 To see
criminality and other forms of 'anti-social' behaviour as having a
hereditary basis was commonplace at this time. What Lombroso and his
co-workers did was to posit an explanation for crime that was to become
an important model of Social Darwinist reasoning even after its
methodological foundations had been undermined.
Conclusion
The theorists discussed in this chapter were by no means the only
notable pioneers in the application of Darwinism to social and political
subjects. Clemence Royer in France, Ernst Haeckel in Germany, and
Herbert Spencer in England were all creative and influential participants
in this development, and their contributions will be surveyed in later
chapters.43 From these early examples, however, it is possible to arrive at
menschlichen Erblichkeitslehre und Rassenhygiene. The second edition (1923) of this text
was apparently read by Hitler during his imprisonment in Landsberg fortress. See
R. Lerner, Final Solutions (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 70.
40 41
Lenz,'Inheritance', 681. Gould, Ever Since Darwin, 227.
42
Pick, Faces of Degeneration, 122. Chapter 5 of Pick's study provides a detailed
assessment of Lombroso's work and its context.
43
The quality of these pioneering efforts makes it impossible to concur with D . Bellomy's
assertion that the 'earliest applications of Darwinism by social scientists were cavalier
and imprecise': ' "Social Darwinism" Revisited', 39. The writings of Brace, Royer and
Spencer were highly detailed and imaginative applications of Darwinism, as was
Bagehot's contribution, even if his Darwinism was looser than that of the others.
some general inferences concerning the nature and discursive functions
of Social Darwinism.
First, the writings of Bagehot and Lombroso established a set of
identities and differences located along an evolutionary continuum in
which the presumed attributes of pre-historic people designated the
starting point of evolution. Various other categories could then be
equated with primitive people if they were deemed to exhibit these
characteristics. Modern 'savages', children, women, criminals, the
insane, epileptics - sometimes even entire classes in the case of Bagehot
- could be assigned inferior positions and substituted for one another on
the evolutionary ladder. This tactic did not originate with Social
Darwinism, as was pointed out above. But Social Darwinism increased
its plausibility and provide the value judgements implicit in these
categorisations with a scientific mantle. As the example of Lenz
indicates, and subsequent chapters will confirm, it is a constantly
recurring feature of much Social Darwinist theorising.
Second, the theorists discussed above already indicate the flexibility of
Social Darwinism, which underwrote the conservatism of Bagehot, the
atheistic materialism and political radicalism of Biichner, the Christian
humanism of Brace and the criminal anthropology of Lombroso. In all
instances the elements comprising the world view were clearly discern-
ible, though in some cases their interconnections were modified. Finally,
all the writers displayed ambiguities and tensions in their use of Social
Darwinism. These aporias derive from the dilemmas exposed by the
rhetorical appropriation of Social Darwinism: they occur even in
theorists dedicated to the construction of a comprehensive evolutionary
philosophy of nature and society, such as Herbert Spencer, the subject
of the next chapter.
Herbert Spencer and cosmic evolution
Introduction
For many people the name of the English philosopher Herbert Spencer
(1820-1903) would be virtually synonymous with Social Darwinism.
Not only did Spencer coin the expression 'the survival of the fittest' and
apply it to social evolution, he was also instrumental in popularising the
term 'evolution' in its modern sense.1 Although his influence waned in
the twentieth century, during the last three decades of the nineteenth
century he enjoyed a world-wide reputation: his books were translated
into many languages and at times there were over a million copies in
print.2 Spencer appears to be not only a quintessential Social Darwinist,
therefore, but also a highly influential one.
As was noted in the introduction, however, this identification of
Spencer with Social Darwinism has been questioned by modern
historians who have denied the existence of specifically Darwinian
elements in Spencer's thought.3 Some commentators have gone so far as
to suggest that to interpret Spencer as a Social Darwinist is to
misrepresent and even to caricature his work.4 Others focus upon
Spencer's political theory and pay less attention to his evolutionary
arguments.5 Contrary to both these tendencies, I am going to argue,
first, that Spencer was a Social Darwinist; and second, that the relation-
1
P. J. Bowler, 'The Changing Meaning of Evolution', Journal of the History of Ideas,
36(1975), 106-9.
2
R. M. Young, 'Herbert Spencer and Inevitable Progress', History Today, 37(1987), 18.
It is important not to exaggerate Spencer's decline for he continued to exert an
influence throughout the twentieth century. See, for example, C. W. Saleeby, Evolution,
the Master Key (London: Harper, 1906), which hints at 'hero-worship' (v); Meldola,
Evolution; Sir E. Benn, The State the Enemy (London: Benn, 1953).
3
J. D. Y. Peel, Herbert Spencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist (London: Heinemann,
1971), 147; Bannister, Social Darwinism, 55; P. J. Bowler, Evolution, 267-72.
4
J. H. Turner, Herbert Spencer: A Renewed Appreciation (Beverly Hills/London: Sage,
1985), 11.
5
For examples, see W. L. Miller, 'Herbert Spencer's Theory of Welfare and Public
Policy', History of Political Economy, 4(1972), 207-31; and the essays devoted to
Spencer's political ideas in History of Political Thought, 2(1981).
82
Herbert Spencer and cosmic evolution 83
ship between Spencer's evolutionary and political thought is funda-
mental for an understanding of this latter aspect of his work.6
At the age of sixteen, Spencer published a defence of the new Poor
Laws in which he invoked scriptural authority for his assertion that the
idle and improvident should not be allowed to prosper at the expense of
the thrifty and diligent.7 This stance reflected the values of radical
individualism and self-help which Spencer had imbibed from his
family.8 During his subsequent career as a railway engineer, journalist
and writer, his allegiance to these values was unwavering; what was to
change was the basis upon which they were validated. As an adult,
Spencer abandoned religion in favour of an all-embracing Synthetic
Philosophy, the central tenet of which was the idea of'cosmic evolution'.
Cosmic evolution
Spencer's notion of evolution was derived from the principle of the
conservation of energy or, as he preferred, the 'persistence of force'.
Throughout the universe, matter and motion were constantly redistrib-
uted. Evolutionary change consisted in the simultaneous integration of
matter and dissipation of motion, whereas dissolution involved the
disintegration of matter and the absorption of motion. Nature was in a
state of constant evolution because of the 'instability of the homoge-
neous'; the differential impact of persistent force on a homogeneous
body induced changes within it, hence the progressive development of
all phenomena from simple and incoherent states to conditions of
structural complexity through the differentiation and integration of
parts. 'Not only is all progress from the homogeneous to the hetero-
geneous, but, at the same time, it is from the indefinite to the definite.' 9
6
A recent study has argued that, starting from a conception that was neither Darwinian
nor Lamarckian, Spencer sought to synthesise features of both biological theories. See
M. Taylor, Men Versus the State (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), chaps. 2 and 3.
Although providing an excellent contextualisation of Spencer's thought and an
illuminating account of his evolutionary ideas, I believe Taylor underplays the
congruence between Darwin and Spencer. The same charge could be levelled against
Spencer's American disciple and populariser, E. L. Youmans, who insisted that, unlike
Spencer, Darwin was not concerned with elucidating 'the general laws of Evolution'.
See his 'Herbert Spencer and the Doctrine of Evolution' (1874), in J. Fiske, Life and
Letters of Edward Livingstone Youmans (London: Chapman and Hall, 1894), 526-43.
7
Reproduced in J. Offer, ed., Herbert Spencer: Political Writings (Cambridge University
Press, 1994). See D. Wiltshire, The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer
(Oxford University Press, 1978), 21 etseq.
8
See Spencer's description of the character traits of his father and uncles in his
Autobiography, 2 vols. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1904), I, 42; II, 441.
9
Herbert Spencer, 'The Social Organism', in Spencer, The Man Versus the State, with
Four Essays on Politics and Society, ed. D. Macrae (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969),
215. Spencer's general theory of evolution was set out in 1860 in his First Principles,
With regard to organic nature, Spencer claimed that each organism
struggled to maintain an equilibrium between itself and its environment.
Because the latter was constantly changing, adjustments were also
continuous, producing moving equilibria until the organism either failed
to adapt or eventually succumbed to the processes of dissolution and
death. Spencer distinguished two forms of 'equilibration'. The first he
named 'direct equilibration' consisting of 'certain changes of function
and structure that are directly consequent on changes in the incident
forces - inner changes by which the outer changes are balanced and the
equilibrium restored'. 10 This direct adaptation by the organism to its
environment was accompanied by 'indirect equilibration' in the form of
natural selection, or survival of the fittest, a process which 'has always
been going on, is going on now, and must ever continue to go on'. 11
There were, however, two facets of natural selection. The first he
designated as a self-evident truth, namely that 'the average vigour of any
race would be diminished did the diseased and feeble habitually survive
and propagate; and that the destruction of such, through failure to fulfil
some of the conditions to life, leaves behind those who are able to fulfil
the conditions to life, and thus keeps up the average fitness to the
conditions of life . . . > 1 2 This aspect of the survival of the fittest Spencer
regarded as well established, having himself drawn attention to its role in
maintaining the average fitness of a population in 1852.13 What Spencer
did not recognise until the publication of the work of Darwin and
Wallace was the part played by natural selection in producing fitness
through its action on the variations which occurred between organ-
isms.14 He wrote in his Autobiography: 'At that time I ascribed all
modifications to direct adaptation to changing conditions; and was
unconscious that in the absence of that indirect adaptation effected by
the natural selection of favourable variations, the explanation left the
large part of the facts unaccounted for.' 15 It was Darwin's achievement
to have discovered and demonstrated this process.
sixth edn (London: Williams and Norgate, 1922), Part II. For a detailed account of this
theory, see Taylor, Men Versus the State, 76-85.
10
Spencer, Principles of Biology, 2 vols., revised edn (New York: Appleton and Co., 1898),
I, 528.
11
Ibid., I, 531.
12
Ibid. By 'race' Spencer here means a biological sub-species or variety.
13
Spencer, 'A Theory of Population Deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility',
Westminster Review, 1(1852), 468-501. Spencer was correct to insist on the widespread
acceptance of this notion of selection, which had often been employed by naturalists as
evidence of the impossibility of evolutionary transmutation. See S. J. Gould, An Urchin
in the Storm (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990), chap. 3.
14
Spencer, Principles of Biology, I, 532-3.
15
Spencer, Autobiography, I, 502. See also II, 50.
The stimulus to the struggle for existence was provided by population
pressure, which had always been the 'proximate cause of progress'.16
This struggle was both inter- and intra-specific. The relationship
between predators and prey was an incessant cause of mutual adaptation
which produced improvements in senses and organs.17 Successful modi-
fications were inherited by subsequent generations, leading to cumu-
lative and progressive development.18 This struggle was augmented by
another which occurred within each species. 'The stronger often carries
off by force the prey which the weaker has caught. Monopolising certain
hunting grounds, the more ferocious drive others of their kind into less
favourable places. With plant-eating animals, too, the like holds.'19 The
struggle for resources was thus a ubiquitous selective process: 'Placed in
competition with members of its own species and in antagonism with
members of other species, it [the organism] dwindles and gets killed off,
or thrives and propagates, according as it is ill-endowed or well-
endowed.'20 Moreover, Spencer deemed rivalry over resources to occur
even within each individual organism. Organs appropriated blood and
nutrients from a common stock: 'So that though the welfare of each is
indirectly bound up with that of the rest; yet directly, each is antagonistic
to the rest.' This inter-organic competition stimulated the growth and
development of organs.21
Like all organisms, humans were governed by the mechanisms of
direct and indirect equilibration. Despite their relatively low rate of
reproduction, humans were subjected to an ineluctable pressure of
population on the means of subsistence, stimulating their faculties and
engendering competition. Families and races which failed to adapt to
this pressure were liable to extinction. This harsh discipline had enabled
humanity to advance to its present level of development, thus ensuring
'a constant progress towards a higher degree of skill, intelligence, and
self-regulation - a better coordination of actions - a more complete
life'.22
Warfare was the human analogue of predation, and produced similar
consequences: 'Warfare among men, like warfare among animals, has
had a large share in raising their organisations to a higher stage.' Warfare
produced the survival of the fittest groups whose successful traits would
Spencer, Principles of Biology, II, 536.

Spencer, Principles of Sociology, abridged, ed. S. Andreski (London: Macmillan, 1969),
176-7; Spencer, The Study of Sociology, seventh edn (London: Kegan Paul, 1878), 192.
Spencer, Man Versus the State, 133.
Spencer, The Data of Ethics (London: Williams and Norgate, 1879), 17.
21
Spencer, Man Versus the State, 137. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, 75-6.
Spencer, Principles of Biology, II, 526-8.
be inherited by their offspring, thereby ensuring the continual progress
of humanity. 'The killing off of relatively feeble tribes, or tribes relatively
wanting in endurance, or courage, or sagacity, or power of cooperation,
must have tended ever to maintain, and occasionally to increase, the
amounts of life-preserving powers possessed by men.' 23
These predatory relations among different societies were accompanied
by conflicts within societies, necessarily so 'since the nature which
prompts international aggression prompts aggression of individuals on
one another'. 24 But warfare and aggression were not permanent features
of human relationships because the struggle for existence itself under-
went an evolution from violent to peaceful forms. As humanity became
more rational and altruistic it became correspondingly more peaceful
and warfare was eradicated. 25 This did not mean that the survival of the
fittest was likewise eliminated, only that it changed its form from warfare
to the forces of market competition: 'After this stage has been reached,
the purifying process, continuing still an important one, remains to be
carried on by industrial war - by a competition of societies during which
the best, physically, emotionally, and intellectually, spread most, and
leave the least capable to disappear gradually, from failing to leave a
sufficiently numerous posterity.' 26
Industrial competition not only governed inter-social relations, but
also produced a 'peaceful struggle for existence in societies ever growing
more crowded and more complicated'. The selective consequences of
this struggle stimulated the growth in the size and complexity of the
brain.27 Competition also caused the elimination of unfit individuals
and for Spencer it was imperative that this process was not inhibited by
misguided charity for the 'unworthy': 'living and working within the
restraints imposed by one another's presence, justice requires that
individuals shall severally take the consequences of their conduct,
neither increased nor decreased. The superior shall have the good of his
superiority; and the inferior the evil of his inferiority.'28 Spencer assured
his readers that recognition of this principle by no means required that
'the struggle for life and the survival of the fittest must be left to work out
their effects without mitigation'. Private charity was fully consistent with
evolutionary progress so long as it remained within limits, i.e. did not
encourage the procreation of the unworthy.29
Before proceeding to examine Spencer's views on socio-political
evolution I want to draw two inferences from this exegesis of his general
23 24
Spencer, Study of Sociology, 193. Spencer, Data of Ethics, 19.
25 26
Spencer, Principles ofSociology, 1 7 7 - 8 . Spencer, Study of Sociology, 199.
27 28
Spencer, Principles of Biology, II, 5 2 9 . Spencer, Principles of Sociology, 5 4 1 .
29
Spencer, Principles of Biology, II, 5 3 3 .
theory. The first is that Spencer endorsed all the components of the
Social Darwinist world view, even if he arrived at his position by a route
different to that travelled by Darwin. Furthermore, although Spencer
conceived evolution in cosmic terms and sought to incorporate natural
selection within his universal framework, it was organic evolution which
received the greatest emphasis in his numerous writings. 30 He constantly
employed organic analogies and metaphors while consistently seeking
the antecedents of human faculties and behaviour in the animal
kingdom. 31
The second point concerns Spencer's alleged Lamarckism. Spencer
unquestionably assigned greater importance to direct adaptation and the
inheritance of acquired characters than Darwin, as he frequently pointed
out. 32 Nor was this differential emphasis the only disagreement between
the two men. Spencer considered the analogy between natural and
artificial selection to be misleading because the former could isolate
specific traits whereas the latter acted upon 'individuals which are, by
the aggregate of their traits, best fitted for living'. 33 More importantly,
Spencer believed that the significance of natural selection declined as
organisms became more advanced and therefore more self-directed:
Natural selection, or survival of the fittest, is almost exclusively operative
throughout the vegetal world or throughout the lower animal world, charac-
terised by relative passivity. But with the ascent to higher types of animals, its
effects are in increasing degrees involved with those produced by inheritance of
acquired characters; until, in animals of complex structures, inheritance of
acquired characters becomes an important, if not the chief, cause of evolution.34
In humans, especially vis-a-vis the development of their intellectual and
moral faculties, direct adaptation was preponderant. 35 Before construing
these remarks as 'Lamarckian', however, it is necessary to recall
Spencer's distinction between the dual aspect of natural selection. The
comments just cited refer to the role of this mechanism in selecting
innate variations; the culling action of natural selection remained as a
fundamental evolutionary force. Furthermore - and contrary to the pre-
Darwinian view of selection - Spencer insisted that the survival of the
fittest and direct adaptation were integrated processes, combining to
produce the dynamics of development: 'There must be a natural selection
of functionally acquired peculiarities, as well as of spontaneously
30
Spencer maintained that the interpretation of organic nature constituted the most
important part of his Synthetic Philosophy. See 'Preface' to First Principles, xii.
31
This strategy is employed throughout the Data of Ethics, for example.
32
Spencer, Principles of Biology, I, 560; Spencer, The Inadequacy of Natural Selection
(London: Williams andNorgate, 1893), 4 1 - 2 .
33 34
Spencer, Inadequacy, 11, emphasis added. Ibid., 4 5 .
35
Spencer, Principles of Biology, I, 5 5 2 - 3 , 560.
acquired peculiarities', the changes accruing from the former being
speeded up through natural selection. Spencer concluded: 'The survival
of the fittest must nearly always further the production of modifications
which produce fitness, whether they be incidental modifications, or modifica-
tions caused by direct adaptation.'36
There is nothing Lamarckian about these arguments or the world view
they express. Spencer's notion of equilibrium entailed a competitive
dynamic both between and within species which was antithetical to the
Lamarckian perspective. To depict this competition as simply a stimulus
to effort is seriously to misrepresent Spencer's argument. 37 The contrast
between a Social Darwinist perspective and one consistent with a
Lamarckian position is strikingly apparent from a comparison between
Spencer's thesis on the survival of the fittest and Samuel Smiles'
perception of advance through self-cultivation and improvement. For
Smiles, even the poorest labourers were capable of raising themselves as
a class, 'not by pulling down others, but by levelling them up to a higher
and still advancing standard of religion, intelligence, and virtue'. 38 But
for Spencer, evolutionary progress entailed the continuous purging of
the unfit; he had no vision of these latter improving their position and
moving up the evolutionary ladder.
Spencer's goal was a synthesis of natural selection and the Lamarckian
focus upon direct adaptation: the result was an evolutionary theory
which was much closer to Darwin's theory than to the French
naturalist's conception of the self-advancement of the lowly, a concep-
tion also in evidence in the self-help philosophy of Smiles. Unlike the
essay on population of 1852, Spencer's later writings wedded the
winnowing effects of selection to the notion of evolutionary change.
Furthermore, Spencer always insisted both on the centrality of natural
selection in his theory and of the importance of direct adaptation in
Darwin's work, defending what he considered to be the true Darwinian
heritage against Weismann and his disciples. 39 Given the indeterminacy
over the mechanisms of evolutionary change within Darwin's theory,
Spencer's claim, viewed historically, was quite plausible. 40
36 37
Ibid., 5 4 0 , emphasis added. This is the argument of Bowler, Evolution, 2 6 7 , 2 7 2 .
38
S. Smiles, Self-Help, revised edn (London: Murray, 1897), 2 9 4 . O n this point, see m y
'The Struggle for Existence in Nineteenth Century Social Theory: Three Case Studies',
History of the Human Sciences, 8 ( 1 9 9 5 ) , 5 3 - 4 .
39
See Spencer's comments in Principles of Biology, I, chap. XlVa; Spencer, Inadequacy,
41.
40
Spencer was closely linked to the Darwinian circle through his friendship with Huxley
and his membership of the X Club. (See Spencer's comments in Autobiography, I, 4 0 2 -
4; II, 1 1 5 - 1 6 ) . T h e interchange of ideas is apparent in Darwin's o w n work, quite apart
form the borrowing of the phrase 'survival of the fittest'. In his autobiography Darwin
acknowledged Spencer's abilities but confessed to neither liking him nor finding his
From militant to industrial society

Spencer's theory of evolution was not only part of an architectonic
philosophical scheme; it also grounded his political thought. This
consisted of a liberalism which extolled the virtues of individualism and
decried the evils of an interventionist state. By the last quarter of the
century this creed - known as 'Individualism' - was deployed by the
opponents of the 'New liberalism'. Supporters of the latter were
prepared to countenance a democratic interventionist state as a vehicle
for social reform. The Individualists fought to reassert what they saw as
the essence of liberalism - negative freedom and laissez-faire - and
Spencer was their most prestigious advocate.41
Spencer's political ideas reposed upon and were legitimated by his
theory of socio-political evolution. Evolution acted both upon indivi-
duals (as organisms) and upon societies as a whole. To lend credence to
this second claim Spencer argued that social and biological organisms
exhibited many similarities: 'Societies slowly augment in mass; they
progress in complexity of structure; at the same time their parts become
more mutually dependent; their living units are removed and replaced
without destroying their integrity; and the extents to which they display
these peculiarities are proportionate to their vital activities. These are
traits that societies have in common with organic bodies.' 42 Social and
natural bodies displayed differences as well, the most important being
that whereas natural bodies possessed a single centre of consciousness,
in societies there were as many such centres as there were individual
members. Hence there was no separate corporate consciousness
independent of and superior to that of the individuals who comprised
the social organism. From this Spencer derived an important methodo-
logical conclusion, namely that societies consisted of aggregates of
individuals. Since the nature of aggregates - at least in regard to their
essential as opposed to inessential characteristics - was determined by
the traits of their constituent parts, it followed 'that the properties of the
speculative methods and generalisations congenial: C. Darwin and T. H. Huxley,

Autobiographies, ed. G. de Beer (Oxford University Press, 1983), 64. Yet in the Descent
Darwin referred to Spencer as 'our great philosopher' (189) and cited him seven times,
compared to eleven references to Haeckel and seventeen to Huxley.
For an analysis of these developments, see A. Vincent, 'Classical Liberalism and its
Crisis of Identity', History of Political Thought, 11(1990), 143-61; E. Bristow, 'The
Liberty and Property Defence League and Individualism', The Historical Journal,
18(1975), 761-89; Taylor, Men Versus the State. On the growth of welfare legislation
during this period, see D. Fraser, The Evolution of the British Welfare State (London:
Macmillan, 1973).
Spencer, 'The Social Organism', 206.
units determine the properties of the whole they make up', a proposition
that Spencer insisted held true 'of societies as of other things'. 43
Spencer did not consistently adhere to this reductionism and some-
times proposed a more dialectical conception of the relation of part to
whole. 44 But the individual remained the primary focus of his account of
social evolution, enabling him to reassert the significance of 'human
nature' in sociological analysis:
Society is made up of individuals; all that is done in society is done by the
combined actions of individuals; and therefore in individual actions only can be
found the solutions of social phenomena. But the actions of individuals depend
on the laws of their nature; and their actions cannot be understood until these
laws are understood. These laws, however, when reduced to their simplest
expressions, prove to be corollaries from the laws of body and mind in general.
Hence it follows, that biology and psychology are indispensable as interpreters of
sociology.45
Human nature was not static: as with all of nature, it changed over
time, albeit very slowly and in accordance with evolutionary laws.
Spencer eschewed the notions of either a fixed or a malleable human
nature in favour of a 'conception of human nature that is changed in the
slow succession of generations by discipline'. 46 Now a society was a
system of cooperative interactions which allowed members to increase
their welfare and adapt and compete more effectively than was possible
through their unaided efforts. But the ability of people to cooperate, and
hence the mode of cooperation adopted, depended upon their level of
intellectual and moral development. 47 The evolution of human nature,
therefore, held the key to social evolution, and this was the sense in
which Spencer's approach can be described as individualistic. Despite
his deference to the dialectic of whole/part interactions, human nature
provided the ultimate explanation of social change.
Spencer constructed two models of social organisation - the militant
and industrial - which expressed two very different modes of coopera-
tion that in turn derived from different stages of the evolution of human
nature. The militant type was typical of the earliest phases of evolution,
and evidence for the intellectual and moral proclivities of people during
these phases could be derived from a number of sources. One was the
institutions and behaviour of the members of contemporary hunter-
43
Spencer, The Study of Sociology, 5 1 .
44
For example, Principles of Psychology, 2 vols., third edn (London: Williams and Norgate,
1890), II, 535; Spencer, Facts and Comments (London: Williams and Norgate, 1902),
9 4 - 6 ; Spencer, Data of Ethics, 3; Spencer, Study of Sociology, 337.
45
Spencer, Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical (London: Williams and Norgate,
1906), 4 4 .
46 47
Spencer, Study of Sociology, 145. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, II, 508.
gatherer societies, or 'savages'. Another was those members of advanced
societies who, like savages, remained fixed at primitive evolutionary
levels, such as the 'less cultivated', especially women from 'inferior
ranks'. 48 Finally, because he endorsed a 'recapitulation' theory of
human development according to which advanced organisms repro-
duced the various stages of their evolutionary ancestry during their
maturation, 49 Spencer was able to deduce the physical and behavioural
traits of primitive people from the corresponding traits of modern
children, a deduction that was equally unflattering to both:
During early childhood every civilised man passes through that phase of
character exhibited by the barbarous race from which he is descended. As the
child's features - flat nose, forward-opening nostrils, large lips, wide-apart eyes,
absent frontal sinus, etc. - resemble those of the savage, so too, do his instincts.
Hence the tendency to cruelty, to thieving, to lying, so general among
children.50
Due to their rudimentary moral and intellectual capabilities primitives

had no foresight or ability to provide for contingencies. Beliefs were
rigidly adhered to but abstract ideas were impossible, including any
conception of truth, while the imagination was but poorly developed. 51
As was evident from the behaviour of savages, primitives were capri-
cious, possessing an 'impulsive nature incapable of patient inquiry', in
addition to which they were aggressive and devoid of any notions of
morality. 52 Given these traits, any system of social relationships based
upon rational, voluntary cooperation was impossible. This was why the
militant social type was the first organised form of social cooperation.
Cooperation was enforced, producing a regimented and authoritarian
system in which the individual was totally subordinated to the commu-
nity. 'His life is not his own, but is at the disposal of his society.'
Centralisation of power and hierarchy were complete, with intermediate
organisations either prohibited or else closely regulated by the state, with
the position of this latter institution reinforced by a dogmatic religion
from which deviations were severely repressed. 53 In these communities,
48
Ibid., II, 537-8. Although he placed women at a lower stage of evolution than men in
civilised societies. Spencer believed that the differences between the sexes would
diminish in the future; Study of Sociology, 3 7 7 - 9 .
49
Spencer, Principles of Psychology, II, 2 2 0 - 1 . Spencer was here adopting a perspective of
the German school of naturphilosophie. On this, and for an illuminating discussion of
Spencer's theory of psychological evolution, see C. U. M. Smith, 'Evolution and the
Problem of Mind: Part I. Herbert Spencer', Journal of the History of Biology, 15(1982),
55-88.
50
Spencer, Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical, 163.
51
Spencer, Principles of Psychology, II, 523, 5 2 7 - 3 3 .
52
Spencer, Study of Sociology, 116, 174; Principles of Psychology, II, 6 0 1 .
53
Spencer, Principles of Sociology, 5 0 2 - 4 .
virtue was synonymous with bravery and bodily vigour and martial
prowess much admired. The only form of justice was revenge, which
encouraged an ethos conducive to the 'survival of the unforgiving', while
people took pleasure in acts of violence and cruelty and scorned non-
military activities such as trade and productive labour. Throughout the
entire society there existed great deference and loyalty to the authorities
and a corresponding faith and confidence in 'governmental agency'. 54
The struggle for existence between neighbouring tribes was respon-
sible for the emergence of the militant type, which provided the seedbed
for all future cooperation. Warfare motivated the first specialisation
within the primitive horde when a permanent chieftain and his warrior
elite established relations of subordination and domination. Thus was
initiated a vital step in the structural differentiation and functional
specialisation of parts which, for Spencer, constituted the essence of
cosmic evolution.55
There were a number of additional ways in which warfare had
contributed to progress. First, as we have already noted, warfare raised
the average level of ability among humans by killing off inferior
individuals and tribes. Second, war facilitated the creation of ever larger
social units through conquest and slavery. Force alone was responsible
for the welding of small nomadic groups into large tribes and the latter
into small, and then large, nations. Increased social mass augmented
both the need and the opportunity for greater occupational specialisa-
tion. Spencer argued that among the larger social aggregates hostilities
became less frequent and were punctuated by increasingly lengthy
periods of peace, providing an additional stimulus to productive
activities. The unintended consequence of warfare, then, was to nurture
'a social aggregation which furthers that industrial state at variance with
war; and yet nothing but war could bring about this social aggrega-
tion'.56 Third, militant society had the seemingly paradoxical effect of
fostering the qualities conducive to voluntary cooperation, namely a
rational and imaginative perception of the relationship between present
efforts and future consequences. Militant social systems encouraged 'the
power of continuous application, the willingness to act under direction
(now no longer coercive but agreed to under contract) and the habit of
achieving large results by organisations'. 57 These developments were
accompanied by an expansion of morality, the growth of altruism, and a
corresponding decline in aggression, deceit and cruelty. In this way,
militant society was gradually superseded by industrial society. Individ-
ual autonomy expanded and private associations proliferated while the
54 55 56
Ibid., 523-9. Spencer, Study of Sociology, 60 Ibid., 195.
57
domain and the authority of the state gradually contracted. 'Under the
industrial regime the citizen's individuality, instead of being sacrificed by
the society, has to be defended by the society. Defence of his
individuality becomes the society's essential duty.'58
Attention has already been drawn to Spencer's thesis that warfare
declined with the predominance of industrial organisation. Indeed,
beyond a certain point, warfare ceased to have any beneficial impact on
either social structure or individual character. This was because in
modern societies only the healthiest and most capable males were
conscripted and exposed to slaughter, 'leaving behind the physically
inferior to propagate the race ... War, therefore, after a certain stage of
progress, instead of furthering bodily development and the development
of certain mental powers, becomes a cause of retrogression.'59 Altruism
and voluntary cooperation were hindered by bellicosity since 'only when
the struggle for existence has ceased to go on under the form of war, can
these highest social sentiments attain their full development'.60 From
this point on the struggle for existence took the form of industrial
competition.
The relevance of this theory of individual and social evolution to
Spencer's defence of a limited state and economic laissez-faire is not
difficult to perceive. Central to his account of this process was the claim
that the state receded in size and scope with the advance of civilisation.
To substantiate this he constructed an elaborate analogy between the
state and the brain. With development, the brain became more
specialised, focusing on the organism's relationships with the external
world. Industrial activities, in contrast, were analogous to the internal,
alimentary activities of an organism and these gradually acquired
independence from the central regulatory mechanism as evolution
progressed. 'Digestion and circulation', proclaimed Spencer, 'go on very
well in lunatics and idiots, though the higher nervous centres are either
deranged or partly absent. The vital functions proceed properly during
sleep, though less actively than when the brain is at work.' A parallel
process took place within the social body: 'The production and
interchange by which the national life is maintained, go on as well while
Parliament is not sitting as while it is sitting.' The reduction in the
activities of the state, therefore, was a natural consequence of evolu-
tionary progress.61 The specialised tasks to which government was
suited were those implied by 'negative regulation', which consisted of
preventing people from violating the rights of other persons and
58 59
Spencer, Principles of Sociology, 539. Spencer, Study of Sociology, 197.
60
Spencer, Principles of Psychology, II, 577.
61
S p e n c e r , 'Specialised Administration', in Man Versus the State, 2 9 0 , 2 9 2 , 3 0 8 .
defending the society from foreign aggression. If confined to these
spheres, Spencer believed that representative government was not only
the most competent form of government but also the one most
conducive to the preservation of liberty.62 But when governments in
industrial societies exceeded these functions and attempted to regulate
market transactions, promote individual welfare, or aid the sick, the
poor and the unemployed, then they not only invaded personal liberty
but posed a grave threat to future progress.
Spencer was skating on thin ice with these arguments and critics
exploited the weaknesses of his analogy between the brain and the state.
Spencer arbitrarily equated the state in advanced societies with the
dispersed nervous systems of invertebrates whereas with progression up
the evolutionary ladder the brain became, in Huxley's phrase, the
'sovereign power of the body' which it ruled with a 'rod of iron'. 63 The
relevant inference to be drawn from the evolution of the brain, therefore,
was the opposite of Spencer's assertion of the contraction of the scope
and authority of the state. This places a question mark over the
coherency of his model of the social organism and its suitability for a
defence of liberalism, an issue that has been the subject of considerable
debate.64 The point I wish to emphasise has a more general import,
namely that a world view tends to be dominated by the ideological
structure it supports, something which will be very evident throughout
this study. The ideological components of the theory 'drive' the various
elements of the world view, as is clearly the case with Spencer, whose
liberalism preceded his Social Darwinism by many years. Given his
lifelong commitment to radical individualism and his antipathy to state
power, it is hardly surprising that he invoked a brain/state analogy and a
theory of socio-political development which coincided with these prefer-
ences. The social order mirrored the order of nature in that both were
under the governance of inexorable laws - evolution through direct and
indirect equilibrations - which could not be thwarted without courting
62
Spencer, 'Specialised Administration', 2 8 8 - 9 0 ; Spencer, 'Representative Government:
What is it G o o d For?', Man Versus the State, 2 6 5 - 7 0 .
63
T . H . Huxley, Critiques and Addresses (London: Macmillan, 1873), 1 8 - 1 9 . See also
D . G. Ritchie, The Principles of State Interference (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1891),
17-27.
64
W. M. Simon, 'Herbert Spencer and the*Social Organismn', Journal of the History of
Ideas, 21(1960), 294-9; E. F. Paul, 'Herbert Spencer: The Historicist as Failed
Prophet', Journal of the History of Ideas, 44(1983), 619-38; T. S. Gray, 'Herbert
Spencer: Individualist or Organicist?', Political Studies, 33(1985), 236-53; E. F. Paul,
'liberalism, Unintended Orders and Evolutionism', Political Studies, 36(1988), 251-72;
M. Taylor, 'The Errors of an Evolutionist', Political Studies, 37(1989), 4 3 6 - 4 2 ; E. F.
Paul, 'Herbert Spencer - Second Thoughts', Political Studies, 37(1989), 4 4 5 - 8 ; Taylor,
Men Versus the State, chap. 4.
the risk of extinction. One of the tasks of sociology was to expose the
folly of political intervention in the working of natural laws by shattering
the widespread and dangerous illusion that 'societies arise by manufac-
ture, instead of arising, as they do, by evolution'. 65
It is important to bear in mind precisely what was Social Darwinian in
Spencer's arguments. He was vehemently opposed to publicly funded
welfare schemes because he believed them to have the effect of
preserving - indeed, often multiplying - the numbers of the unfit. His
attitude to the latter is graphically displayed in the following description
of London's 'undeserving poor':
'They have no work', you say. Say rather that they either refuse work or quickly
turn themselves out of it. They are simply good-for-nothings, who in one way or
another live on the good-for-somethings - vagrants and sots, criminals and those
on the way to crime, youths who are burdens on hard-worked parents, men who
appropriate the wages of their wives, fellows who share the gains of prostitutes;
and then less visible and less numerous, there is a corresponding class of
women.66
This condemnation was not of itself a product of Social Darwinism

but reproduced a common attitude toward the underclass in Victorian
society. J. S. Mill (certainly no Social Darwinist) expressed similar views
and wrote scathingly about the evils of misdirected charity, which
relieved its recipients of responsibility and shielded them 'from the
disagreeable consequences of their own acts . . . > 6 7 Spencer's Social
Darwinism was exhibited in the explanation he gave for this underclass
and in his interpretation of its likely impact on future evolution. As to the
first, he maintained that for generations the English had supported the
'dissolute and idle' who used 'lying and servility' to delude those in
authority. Consequently the race had for centuries been bred from the
improvident. Liberal spleen against the old Poor Laws was here wedded
to a hereditarian account of their outcomes. As to the second. Spencer
predicted that collective welfare would reduce self-control by mitigating
the effects of having large numbers of children. Through the artificial
preservation of these unfit offspring, society imposed an unnecessary
burden on its successful members, who had to support the profligate
and their progeny as well as their own families. Thus not only were the
unfit no longer exposed to the rigours of the survival of the fittest, but
their increasing numbers would swamp the superior individuals. The
result would be the impoverishment of the stock, and society's eventual
65 66
Spencer, Study of Sociology, 122. Spencer, Man Versus the State, 82.
67
J. S. Mill, The Subjection of Women (London: Dent, 1985), 304. For a discussion of
Victorian attitudes to the urban underclass, see Himmelfarb, The Idea of Poverty, chaps.
14 and 15.
annihilation by its competitors.68 Liberal regimes facilitated progress
because they unequivocally located responsibility for personal welfare in
the individual, leaving those unequal to the task to be eliminated in the
struggle for survival. Unlike many later supporters of eugenics, Spencer
desired this elimination of the unfit through their failure to reproduce
themselves rather than through state intervention to secure their physical
annihilation.69 But the 'survival of the unfit' represented an evolutionary
blasphemy by removing 'nature's' punishment for those too idle or
improvident to adapt. 'Is it not manifest', asked Spencer, 'that there
must exist in our midst an immense amount of misery which is the
normal result of misconduct and ought not to be dissociated from it? . . .
To separate pain from ill-doing is to fight against the constitution of
things, and will be followed by more pain.' 70 He concluded that 'social
arrangements which retard the multiplication of the mentally best, and
facilitate the multiplication of the mentally worst, must be extremely
injurious'. To foster the 'good-for-nothings' at the expense of the
industrious and talented members of society was to engage in 'a
deliberate storing up of miseries for future generations. There is no
greater curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing
population of imbeciles and idlers and criminals.' It was, accordingly,
extremely dangerous to interfere with 'that natural process of elimination
by which a society continually purifies itself'.71
These arguments were integral to Spencer's entire theory of organic
evolution and cannot be dismissed as aberrations or lapses on his part,
as has sometimes been suggested. 72 In them Spencer appealed to the
winnowing aspect of natural selection as a mechanism for facilitating
continuous adaptation. The inevitability of the social manifestation of
this mechanism was presented as a deduction from the general principles
of evolution and the survival of the fittest. This belief was vigorously
asserted throughout Spencer's evolutionary writings and its later
instances did not differ in substance or in tone from earlier versions.
'True' liberals, therefore, were furnished with additional reasons for
resisting the incursions of state power. Not only did this encroachment
reduce the scope of individual freedom and subvert the 'natural'
principles regulating the economic order, it also contravened the general
laws of evolution of which both the freedom and the principles were
reflections.
68
Spencer, Study of Sociology, 369-71.
69
Although Spencer did contemplate the design of a euthanasia machine for 'criminals of
an extremely degraded type*: see Facts and Comments, 162-3.
70 71
Spencer, Man Versus the State, 83. Spencer, Study of Sociology, 344-5, 346.
72
Bannister, Social Darwinism, 10, 50; Bellomy, '"Social Darwinism" Revisited', 41.
Taylor, Men Versus the State, 86-8.
In his critique of the reform movements of his day Spencer relied
heavily upon the 'scientific5 conception of human nature afforded by a
knowledge of evolution. Reformers - particularly socialists - had an
unwarranted and naive faith in the efficacy of political action. They
ignored the fact that the condition of society was determined by the
evolutionary level of human nature, and that the latter was transformed
very slowly in accordance with natural laws refractory to legislative fiat.
'The machinery of Communism, like existing social machinery, has to
be framed out of existing human nature; and the defects of existing
human nature will generate in the one the same evils as in the other.'
The defects in question were love of power, selfishness, injustice and
untruthfulness, all of which had been inculcated during the militant
phase of development and their 'effects accumulated from generation to
generation'.73 Failure to recognise this prevented trade unionists from
realising how their proposals for the reform of industrial relations were
rendered impractical by 'the imperfections of existing human nature,
moral and intellectual', and that contemporary evils 'are not due to any
special injustice of the employing class, and can be remedied only as fast
as men in general advance'.74
Spencer did not confine himself to conservative apologetics, and at
times mobilised the Social Darwinist world view against various facets of
the status quo. For example, he attacked organised religion as an
anachronistic institution and lambasted imperialism as a 'new barbar-
ism', warning against the motives of people who contended that in the
interests of humanity 'the inferior races should be exterminated and
their place occupied by the superior races'. Evolution was not for export
and the oppression of colonial peoples would result in the brutalisation
of the colonising nation rather than any increase in civilisation.75 His
negative evaluation of the mental and moral features of militant societies
was often a thinly veiled critique of the mores of the landed aristocracy
of his own time and place.76 Nor was Spencer oblivious to the
corruption and injustices often found in contemporary commercial
activities, or to the deleterious effects of overwork on the prospects for
happiness of whole classes of people.77 His situation reflects that of
73 74
Spencer, Man Versus the State, 1 0 8 - 9 . Spencer, Study of Sociology, 2 5 0 , 2 5 3 .
75
Spencer, Man Versus the State, 143; Study of Sociology, 213; see also Spencer's essays
'Imperialism and Slavery', 'Re-Barbarisation' and 'Regimentation' in Facts and
Comments.
76
Spencer's critique of militarism was utilised by the anti-war feminists in Britain in their
opposition to the First World War. See M. S. Florence, C. Marshall and C. K. Ogden,
Militarism Versus Feminism, ed. M. Kemester and J. Vellacott (London: Virago, 1987),
8 5 , 1 0 5 - 6 . (I am grateful to Phylomena Badsey for providing m e with this reference.)
77
See, for example, Spencer's criticism of certain features of capitalism in 'From
liberalism generally, fighting a battle on two fronts - against aristocratic
privilege on the one hand and the demands of the organised working
class on the other. For Spencer, to modify liberalism in order to
accommodate the latter was tantamount to a betrayal of the historic
mission of liberalism. Hence: 'The function of Liberalism in the past
was that of putting a limit to the power of kings. The function of true
Liberalism in the future will be that of putting a limit to the powers of
Parliament.'78 In the light of the recrudescence of neo-liberalism and
support for laissez-faire in Britain and the USA in the 1970s, this
prediction has proved remarkably prescient.
Spencer's Social Darwinism

The significance of Spencer as a Social Darwinist resides in two features
of his thought. The first has already been remarked upon: his world-
wide popularity and influence. The second consists of the detail with
which Spencer worked out his philosophy, and its intended comprehen-
sive explanatory scope. This detail and comprehensiveness bring into
relief certain features of his use of Social Darwinism which have a more
general relevance to an understanding of the world view.
Of crucial importance to Spencer's theory of social evolution was his
notion of primitive humans. The 'primitive' was conceptualised as the
point of departure for social evolution, the meeting point of animality
and humanity, with the presumed attributes of the former usually
predominating although these were wedded to distinctly human vices
such as mendacity and lust. Spencer needed to portray primitives as
immoral, irrational and aggressive in order to show how individuality,
freedom and morality emerged during the process of evolution through
a logic of differentiation, specialisation and individuation. It enabled
him to construct an evolutionary continuum and, by means of his
recapitulation perspective, to substitute a number of contemporary
social categories for those at the lowest point of the continuum. Thus
children, women, inferior social ranks and tribal social cultures could all
be substituted for pre-historic man, depending on the context in
question.
The primary purpose of this conceptualisation was to establish a series
of identities and differences within modern societies and to facilitate
judgements about the various social groups in question - or, more
accurately, to legitimate prior judgements arising from Spencer's
Freedom to Bondage', in Man Versus the State, 314-16, which also contains references
to earlier publications on this topic. On overworking see Data of Ethics, 94.
78
political standpoint. To repeat a point made earlier in regard to
Spencer's political and moral convictions, these judgements do not
constitute Social Darwinism. The latter consists of a configuration of
images and metaphors about nature, time and humanity that impart
both drama and credence to his otherwise quite conventional representa-
tions of savages, paupers, women, children and the lower social orders.
By integrating these representations with Social Darwinism, Spencer
invested them with additional bite and moral portent. It was a tactic that
would be adopted by many other Social Darwinists albeit - as we have
already established with Bagehot and Lombroso - often for quite
different ideological purposes.
There are a number of elements to this repertoire of images. First,
there is a series of analogies between biological organisms and social
systems, with interactions within each realm under the empire of the
same principle, the struggle for existence, which induces the imperatives
of adaptation, survival and reproduction. Second, there is an analogy
between human history and organic evolution, since both are created
through the struggle for survival, thereby facilitating a narrative of the
destruction and extinction of some groups and individuals as the
inevitable corollary of the survival and improvement of others. Time
appears as a dimension of winners and losers, and change is not only
accretional and directional, but progressive in some implicitly moral
sense of this term. Finally, development is made possible through the
action of heredity. Operating throughout nature, this mechanism makes
possible the narration of history as progress by producing the traits -
physical, psychological, behavioural - whose visible manifestations
constitute the signs by which winners and losers, fit and unfit, superior
and inferior, can be detected and differentiated. In Spencer's work
heredity appears as a conservative force, functioning to preserve
successful traits induced by adaptive pressures. But the reverse side of
this coin is that the unfit are biologically worthless and no amount of
charity, exhortation or compulsion can alter their hereditarian legacy or
evolutionary fate. Spencer's position here stands in sharp contrast to that
of Brace who believed that meliorative social policies complemented the
workings of nature's laws.
Social Darwinism furnished Spencer with a powerful rhetorical device
which laid claim to the mantle of scientific authenticity. But, as I argued
in chapter 1, Social Darwinism also possessed considerable potential for
the creation of dilemmas and aporias, particularly at its intersections
with the ideological elements of a theory. This is undoubtedly the case
with Spencer's system which contains problems which are once again
instructive for an understanding of the history of Social Darwinism.
The first of these problems relates to Spencer's portrayal of primitive
humans as vicious, immoral, violent and intellectually weak. As noted
above, this portrait was crucial to Spencer's rendition of evolution as the
development of reason, morality, foresight and voluntary cooperation.
Spencer constructed this model of primitive mentality from the alleged
attributes of contemporary 'savages'. Not only was this model highly
questionable but Spencer himself had accumulated material on hunter-
gatherer communities which would have permitted him to paint a very
different picture. 79 Now at times Spencer did conceptualise 'savage'
mental and social life differently. For example, he instanced certain
tribal communities in contemporary India and North America that were
characterised by the absence of centralisation, despotism and hierarchy.
Their members possessed a strong sense of freedom, including respect
for the liberty of their fellows and for the rights of women and
children. 80
Thus free from the coercive rule which warlike activities necessitate, and without
the sentiment which makes the needful subordination possible - thus maintain-
ing their own claims while respecting the like claims of others - thus devoid of
the vengeful feelings which aggressions without or within the tribe generate;
these peoples, instead of the bloodthirstiness, the cruelty, the selfish trampling
upon inferiors, characterising militant tribes and societies, display, in unusual
degrees, the humane sentiments.81
On occasions Spencer went as far as to argue that the inhabitants of

these pre-militant communities sometimes surpassed civilised people in
their possession of virtues such as truthfulness, honesty, justice and
generosity. 82 What then, has become of the aggressive, immoral,
capricious savage, or, for that matter, of evolution? In this scenario,
militant society appears as an interregnum between the peaceful,
industrious, law-abiding social systems of pre-militant times and the
industrial regimes of today, an impression confirmed in such statements
as 'with diminution of warfare and growth of trade, voluntary coopera-
tion more and more replaces compulsory cooperation, and the carrying
on of social life by exchange under agreement, partially suspended for a
time> gradually re-establishes itselfa its re-establishment makes possible that
vast elaborate industrial organisation by which a great nation is
sustained.' 83
These passages conflict with others in which the earliest stages of
social existence are depicted as polar opposites, both temporally and
79 80
Peel, Herbert Spencer, 20. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, 5 4 6 - 8 , 5 5 9 - 6 3 .
81
Ibid., 5 6 1 .
82
Ibid., 5 6 3 ; Spencer, Study of Sociology, 210; Man Versus the State, 112.
83
Spencer, Man Versus the State, 175, emphasis added.
substantively, to industrial systems. Thus Spencer claimed of the
evolution of social types: 'At one extreme we have that small and simple
type of society which a wandering horde of savages presents. This is a
type almost wholly predatory in its organisation. It consists of little else
than a cooperative structure for carrying on warfare - the industrial part
is almost absent, being represented only by the women.' 84 Elsewhere he
observed that the nature required for this type of existence was radically
different from that appropriate to industrial social life, 'and long
continued pains have to be passed through in re-moulding the one into
the other'.85
This inconsistency poses difficulties for Spencer's account of the
dynamics of evolution, for if the psychological and behavioural traits
conducive to industrialism could be found in early social systems then
the roles of population pressure and the struggle for life in inducing
adaptation become problematic. There is an implication that rational
self-interest alone suffices to ensure progress and that, far from emerging
during the course of evolution, it is an innate feature of human nature.
Indeed, it was present in the earliest humans, providing the incentive for
them to enter into social relationships in the first place. 86 These
assertions imply an essentialism on Spencer's part: despite his insistence
on the slow modification of human nature, he nonetheless posits the
existence of attributes that are constitutive of human nature, merely
expanding in strength and scope over time. It is possible, of course, for
an evolutionist to assert that some species have, for a variety of reasons,
retained their structural and behavioural properties over millennia,
without at the same time adhering to essentialism. That Spencer did slip
into essentialism is, I believe, suggested by the fact that this assumption
is closely connected to the inconsistent account of primitives/savages
noted above.87
Spencer's treatment of natural selection was also highly significant for
the subsequent development of Social Darwinism. We saw that Spencer
distinguished between the creative and the winnowing aspects of
selection. Darwin undoubtedly perceived natural selection as creative
for its ability to generate new varieties and even species. Yet his own
language quite often emphasised the culling aspect. This is apparent not
only in some of the statements cited in chapter 1 (e.g. his summary of
nature's injunction to multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the
84
Spencer, 'Specialised Administration', 285.
85
Spencer, 'From Freedom to Bondage', 3 3 3 .
86 Spencer, Man Versus the State, 174.
87
For an analysis of essentialism in Spencer and other nineteenth-century Social
Darwinists, see my 'The Struggle for Existence in Nineteenth Century Social
Thought', 47-67.
weakest die), but in the very sub-title of the Origin on the preservation of
favoured races. Indeed, Darwin toyed with the idea of replacing 'natural
selection' with 'natural preservation'. Spencer's work exacerbated this
ambiguity and induced yet another indeterminacy, this time over the
meaning of selection itself. As we shall see, this tension between the
creative and preservative functions of the survival of the fittest was
typical of later adaptations of Social Darwinism.
Underlying these different accounts of human nature, primitive
mentality, and social evolution, lies a deeper ambivalence concerning
nature itself. This can be discerned in Spencer's treatment of ethics,
which he perceived as a facet of the evolution of conduct in general.
Denning conduct as the adjustment of acts to ends, he described two
types of conduct: self-maintaining and race-maintaining (the care of
offspring by the previous generations). Both evolved simultaneously in
the context of the struggle for existence, which meant that successful
adjustments by one organism entailed adverse effects on others, either
directly, as in the case of predation, or indirectly, as when stronger
individuals acquired more resources than weaker members of the same
group. Spencer contemplated a higher form of conduct in which
adjustments did not involve perverse consequences for others, some-
thing which could only occur in 'permanently peaceful societies', i.e.
communities not engaged in violent activities, either internally or
externally.88 In these conditions a yet more elevated form of conduct
would appear in which individuals not only refrained from obstructing
the adjustments of their neighbours, but actively assisted them through
industrial cooperation or voluntary aid.89 This suggests a future in which
the struggle for existence is mitigated, which was occasionally hinted at
by Spencer when he speculated about a time when population growth
declined with a corresponding reduction of pressure on resources. This
was possible because Spencer proclaimed an inverse ratio between
'individuation' and 'genesis'. The more individuated a creature became,
the more energy was expended on self-maintenance leaving less available
for reproduction, thereby reducing fecundity.90
These arguments point to a time when social relations would be
governed by peace, cooperation and mutual concern. They contrast with
others in which such outcomes seem impossible, or at least so distant as
to be virtually irrelevant. For instance, Spencer insisted that population
was growing and that its pressures 'cannot be eluded'.91 Consistent with
this was the additional claim that: 'Always there must have been, and
always there must continue to be, a survival of the fittest; natural
88 89
Spencer, Data of Ethics, 17-19. Ibid., 19.
90 91
Spencer, Principles of Biology, II, 487-504. Ibid., II, 526.
selection must have been in operation at the outset, and can never cease
to operate.'92 In his writing on ethics Spencer vacillated between
describing concern for others as the apex of moral evolution, and
warnings about the dire consequences of pushing this concern too far
and for the need to recognise the truth 'that egoism comes before
altruism5.93 Earlier in this chapter I remarked on his thesis that there was
competition within biological organisms. This was also true of social
organisms, and necessitated boundaries to altruistic behaviour if evolu-
tionary progress was to continue: 'Not only does this struggle for
existence involve the necessity that personal ends must be pursued with
little regard to the evils entailed on unsuccessful competitors; but it also
involves the necessity that there shall not be too keen a sympathy with
that diffused suffering inevitably accompanying this industrial battle.' 94
Yet moral evolution was presented elsewhere as a development in which
not only did this zero-sum feature of existence diminish, but was
accompanied by aid to alleviate the lot of the less fortunate.
Spencer's equivocation over the implications of social evolution
reflects a deep-seated ambivalence towards the natural order itself. The
discipline generated by the pressure of population on subsistence and
the consequential struggle for survival were, on the one hand, beneficent
because they caused adaptation, the elimination of the unfit, and
progress. But if these were inexorable laws of nature, then what of the
quest for happiness, peace, the elevation of individual character, and the
concern for the condition of others which have traditionally motivated
liberals?95 As we have seen, there are moments in Spencer's writings
when these considerations come to the forefront: but when they do, they
carry the implication that the full realisation of a liberal social order
requires emancipationfromthe laws that govern the natural order.
These ambiguities and aporias in Spencer are partly consequences of
his particular attempt to couple Social Darwinism with liberalism. But
they also inhere in the world view itself, from a perception of nature
which carried within it disturbing implications when applied to
psychology and sociology. These implications were uncovered in the
ideological appropriation of Social Darwinism, particularly when, as
with Brace, Buchner and Spencer, the goals pursued were those of
cooperation and harmony.
92 Ibid., I, 552.
93
Spencer, Data of Ethics, 187.
94
Spencer, Principles of Psychology, II, 6 1 1 .
95
T h e r e is an illuminating discussion of t h e n o t i o n of 'character' in Victorian socio-
political t h o u g h t in R. Bellamy, Liberalism and Modern Society (Oxford: Polity Press,
1992), 1-57.
Social Darwinism in the USA
Introduction
When Darwin published the Origin Americans were preoccupied with
slavery, the future of their nation, and the likelihood of war: indeed, the
Civil War may have impeded the reception of Darwinism during the
1860s. By this time, however, the United States was experiencing many
of the social and political problems besetting Britain, in addition to the
divisive issue of slavery, which made race a more immediate domestic
concern and one, moreover, that was to be constantly fuelled by
successive waves of immigration. This provided a fertile context for
'scientific' approaches to and resolutions of these problems, and
Darwinism was soon enlisted to these ends, as is evident from Brace's
writings on race and class.
Thanks to the efforts of Darwin's supporters, Darwinism had become
well established by the 1870s, although not all American scientists were
prepared to endorse natural selection fully, and neo-Lamarckism
remained influential throughout the century.1 The position of the
distinguished palaeontologist Edward Drinker Cope (1840-97) exempli-
fies both the continued hold of Lamarck on American naturalists and
the powerful fascination exercised by Darwinism. Cope conceded that
natural selection performed a culling action upon organic variations but
insisted it was unable to account for the variations themselves. These he
explained as the consequence of growth forces which increasingly came
under the control of 'intelligent choice' as one ascended the animal
scale.2 Despite this refusal to grant natural selection a wider role, Cope
was profoundly affected by Darwinism. Prior to the publication of the
See E. J. Pfeifer, 'The United States', in Glick, Comparative Reception. Pfeifer (199)
estimates that neo-Lamarckians outnumbered Darwinists among American scientists
by the end of the century.
E. D. Cope, The Origin of the Fittest: Essays on Evolution (London/New York:
Macmillan, 1887), 16, 40; Cope, 'The Energy of Evolution', American Naturalist,
18(1894), 205-19.
104
Social Darwinism in the USA 105
Ascent he had signalled his hostility to natural selection as a cause of
progress while simultaneously perceiving the relevance of Darwinism to
human evolution. He accepted the simian ancestry of humans, endorsed
a racial hierarchy defined by 'greater or less approximation to the apes',
speculated about the evolution of human intelligence, speech, morality
and social organisation, and described sexual differences as the products
of evolution.3 He also indulged in a tortured attempt to reconcile these
positions with divine creation and biblical accounts of human develop-
ment - an attempt which he subsequently admitted was unsuccessful.4
Even for a convinced neo-Lamarckian like Cope, then, Social Darwin-
ism constituted an authoritative - not to say seductive - body of ideas.
Spencer's writings furnished another influential source of evolutionary
theory. In a series of articles published in the New York Herald in 1870 -
the same year she declared her intention of standing for the Presidency -
the feminist Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927) reinterpreted the history of
civilisation in evolutionary terms. Although these essays did not make
use of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, they did insist on
the relevance of biological evolution to the study of society, declaring:
'The same laws that govern the growth and multiply the plant also
govern society and multiply it. The same laws that bring fruit to
perfection and dissolution perfect and dissolve societies. The same laws
that produce and control the units of the animal kingdom produce and
control the units of society.'5 In later years this assumption would
underpin Woodhull's campaigns for eugenics and the elimination of the
unfit.6
Woodhull's essays exhibit the influence of Spencer's doctrine that
evolution and dissolution were derivatives of the persistence of force. In
this she typified the tremendous popularity among Americans enjoyed
by Spencer during the nineteenth century.7 The enthusiasm for Spencer
is captured in a letter to the Englishman by one of his most fervent
admirers and popularisers in the United States, Edward Livingstone
Youmans (1821-87). Youmans wrote: 'I am an ultra and thoroughgoing
American. I believe there is great work to be done here for civilisation.
What we want are ideas - large, organising ideas - and I believe there is
3
Cope, On the Hypothesis of Evolution: Physical and Metaphysical (New Haven: Chatfield
and Co., 1870), 29, 31, 35, 54-5.
4
Ibid., 33-4, 63-70. For the admission that this reconciliation was unsuccessful see the
Preface to Origin of the Fittest, vii. Cope still included an amended version of this essay
in this volume.
5
V. Woodhull, The Origin, Tendencies and Principles of Government (New York: Woodhull,
Claflin, 1871), 48.
6
Woodhull's eugenics are discussed below in chapter 9.
7
Hofstadter, Social Darwinism, 33-5.
no other man whose thoughts are so valuable to our needs as yours are.'8
Though not himself an original thinker, Youmans zealously publicised
Spencer's philosophy in the United States. According to Fiske, in
Youmans Spencer found someone always alert to 'the slightest chances
to promote his interests and those of his system of thought'.9 But
however congenial American Social Darwinists found Spencer, they
were never slavish imitators or uncritical disciples, and they modified his
ideas to suit their own intellectual and ideological requirements. The
Social Darwinist world view remained intact throughout these modifica-
tions and constituted a significant factor not only in the political
controversies of the nineteenth century, but also in the development of
the social sciences and philosophy. This significance requires emphasis
because revisionist historiography has contributed to a serious misrepre-
sentation of the role of Social Darwinism in American thought.
This chapter focuses upon the work of three leading American
intellectuals: Sumner, James and Fiske. The latter, with Youmans, was
one of the most important early American popularisers of Darwin and
Spencer, and his philosophy graphically illustrates both the potential and
the dilemmas contained in Social Darwinism.
The cosmic philosophy of Fiske

The philosopher and historian John Fiske (1842-1901) published his
Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy in 1874.10 The first volume dealt with
abstract matters of knowledge, causation, the persistence of force,
evolution and dissolution. It concluded by rejecting the doctrine of
special creations in favour of the evolutionary theories of Darwin,
Huxley and Haeckel (I, 440-9). This theme provided the point of
departure for the second volume, which commenced with an explana-
tion of natural selection and the survival of the fittest. Fiske maintained
that natural selection was the chief, but not the sole, agency of organic
evolution, and insisted on a role for direct adaptations. However, he was
equally adamant that irrespective of whether variations were internal to
the organism or derived from direct adaptations, they were always
subject to the action of natural selection (II, 61).
Although Fiske depicted natural selection as a 'prodigious' and
'unceasing' slaughter (II, 11, 12), when he came to describe human
8
Youmans to Spencer, 14 December 1863, in Fiske, Life and Letters, 169-70.
9
Fiske, Life and Letters, 115.
10
Fiske had published what was to become a chapter of Outlines as early as 1866, and
other portions had been delivered as lectures at Harvard in 1869. See Fiske's comments
in Life and Letters, 203, and Outlines (I, vii).
evolution he did so with pronounced optimism. He informed his readers
that 'progress has been on the whole the most constant and prominent
feature of the history of a considerable and important portion of
mankind' (II, 193). Not all social change was progressive, and only a few
societies had attained the heights of civilisation, but nonetheless progress
was the law of history (II, 196). For Fiske sociology was a branch of
psychology because social change was governed by psychic develop-
ments, which he summarised as 'a gradual supplanting of egoism by
altruism' (II, 201, original emphasis). Altruism originated within
conjugal and parental relations which owed their permanence to the
prolonged helplessness of the human infant and thus furnished the basis
of moral evolution (II, 360). n Hostility, warfare and aggression
dominated the primitive condition but gradually sympathetic feelings
were extended to the tribe as a whole. With the increased size and
complexity of societies came an extension of altruism to the point where
shared humanity alone became the focus of obligations to others (II,
207). The individual replaced the family as the fundamental unit of
society, and his or her requirements predominated over those of the
aggregate as a whole (II, 223). Fiske envisaged a future in which
individuals existed in perfect harmony with their fellows, united in a
World Federation (II, 228). He embraced a 'Cosmic Theism' in which
God was equated with Spencer's Unknowable and was therefore
accorded a scientific validation (II, 412-15). In a later essay Fiske
asserted that although the evolution of a complex organism was due to
the aggregation of minute circumstances, the theist could still believe
that these changes were 'an immediate manifestation of the creative
action of God'.12
Fiske's optimistic vision included a time - one he considered not too
far distant - when warfare would become extinct (II, 252). He referred
to natural selection as rigorous and constant - 'like a power that
slumbers not nor sleeps'.13 What form, then, would natural selection
take in this period of peace and mutual harmony, and how would
progress continue? Not only did Fiske provide no answer to these
questions, but sometimes his own arguments implicitly contradicted the
possibility of this future condition. For example, when Fiske addressed
the issue of why progress was confined to the European Aryans, he
concluded that the reason was to be found in the rigorous selective
pressures to which Aryans had been exposed. Certainly natural selection
11
Fiske was to develop this argument at length in his The Meaning of Infancy (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1909).
12
Fiske, Darwinism and Other Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1879), 7.
13
Ibid., 15.
was mitigated within complex societies, where the advanced division of
labour allowed the less fit to fill a niche and hence survive: 'But while
natural selection among individuals grows somewhat less rigorous, its
effects upon rival or antagonistic societies are in no wise diminished in
their beneficent severity. The attributes which tend to make a society
strong and durable with reference to surrounding societies are the
attributes which natural selection will chiefly preserve' (II, 259). The
attributes in question were self-restraint and intelligent foresight and
their stimulation resulted in an increased military capacity and
efficiency. Natural selection had eliminated the threat of invasion by
uncivilised and barbaric peoples and concentrated the power of war on a
'grand scale' in societies in which 'predatory activity is at a minimum
and industrial activity at the maximum' (II, 264). In these communities,
the possibility of invasion and military humiliation, rather than their
actuality, motivated investment in military strength (II, 260).
According to this reasoning, progress entailed a reduction of the
struggle for existence within civilised societies accompanied by the
maintenance of potentially hostile relations among them which acted as
a selective pressure. But what then of the World Federation, the
eradication of warfare, and universal harmony and altruism?14 Fiske's
philosophy alternated between a description of an evolutionary outcome
(peace and harmony) in which the laws of nature (and hence of
evolution) were suspended, and another in which these laws continued
to operate in ways that made the first outcome highly improbable. The
ceaseless 'beneficent severity' of natural selection sits awkwardly with
the predicted obligations owed to persons simply by virtue of a shared
humanity. Here, once again, we encounter the dilemma which the
determinism and universalism of Social Darwinism posed for thinkers
like Fiske who believed in moral progress and the triumph of civilisation.
These could be shown to be the work of natural laws such as the struggle
for existence. But the complete realisation of these ideals implied a
future state in which the laws of nature were no longer applicable to
humans. And unless these laws were suspended, the harmonious ideal
appeared unrealisable.
Sumner and the 'iron spur9 of competition

Although he believed in progress, Fiske shared Spencer's mistrust of
social engineering. The European Aryans had progressed precisely
14
Fiske continued to take this idea of federation seriously, later proposing it as an 'Anglo-
Saxon' mission which would bring peace and prosperity to the entire world. On this,
see Hofstadter, Social Darwinism, 176-8.
because their cultures were flexible, containing an inbuilt tendency to
variation which allowed for innovation without revolution (II, 272-9).
Fiske objected to the 'Jacobin' for failing to appreciate the resistance of
habits to rapid change. Habits were the outcome of adaptations and
were fixed through heredity; change could come only through new
adaptations. Societies could not be made, but rather they grew in
accordance with the laws of nature. Thus 'men cannot be taught a higher
state of civilisation, but can only be bred into it' (II, 489, original
emphasis).
William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) made this conservatism the
explicit message of his sociology. Like Fiske, Sumner (a professor of
political economy at Yale) was influenced by Spencer during the 1870s.
But in contrast to both Fiske and Spencer, Sumner eschewed optimism
and was considerably less sanguine about either the fact or the
inevitability of progress. The foundation of his work, from his essays
during the 1880s to the publication of his study of folkways in 1906, was
the assumption that Darwinism was as relevant to an understanding of
social life as it was to the organic world. Because Sumner's Social
Darwinism has been downplayed by revisionist historians,15 there is a
need to establish in detail the nature and role of the Darwinist world
view in his theories.
Sumner's essay 'Sociology', published in 1881,16 contained a compre-
hensive statement of his social philosophy. It began with an explicit
linkage between sociology and biology:
We have already become familiar, in biology, with the transcendent importance
of the fact that life on earth must be maintained by a struggle against nature and
also by a competition with other forms of life. In the latter fact biology and
sociology touch. Sociology is a science which deals with one range of phenomena
produced by the struggle for existence, while biology deals with another. The
forces are the same, acting on different fields and under different conditions
(14).
The cause of the struggle against nature was population growth which
placed pressure on resources. This produced considerable social
distress, but also the impetus for development, especially when coupled
with another law, that of the diminishing returns on labour. According
to Sumner, progress had meaning only in relation to these two laws:
'The laws of population and the diminishing return, in their combina-
tion, are the iron spur which has driven the race on to all which it has
15
Cf. Bannister, 'William Graham Sumner's Social Darwinism'.
16
Reprinted in S. Persons, ed., Social Darwinism: Selected Essays of William Graham
Sumner (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963). This collection also contains the essay
'War' which is considered below.
ever achieved . . . ' (16). The advance from the sexual division of labour
within the family to complex systems of specialisation and exchange was
due, like developments in the arts, to the struggle these laws generated.
At this juncture Sumner introduced what for him was a crucial
distinction between two facets of struggle. 'There is first the struggle of
individuals to win the means of subsistence from nature, and secondly
there is the competition of man with man in the effort to win a limited
supply' (16). The first - the 'struggle for existence' - involved a
relationship between each person and nature; the second - the 'competi-
tion for life' - was a social relationship. Both were exacerbated by
population growth and neither should be mitigated by social reforms.
'The law of the survival of the fittest', wrote Sumner, 'was not made by
man and cannot be abrogated by man. We can only, by interfering with
it, produce the survival of the unfittest' (17).
In another essay Sumner applied this distinction to an analysis of
warfare. Contrary to most of the popular anthropology of the period, he
did not regard warfare as endemic to primitive societies because war
arose out of the competition for life, not from the struggle for existence
(35). In the latter struggle, members of a primitive tribe cooperated with
one another, and while potentially hostile to other tribes their small
numbers placed little pressure on land and resources, which reduced the
seriousness of conflict. Population growth led to territorial expansion
and bloodshed. 'Real warfare comes with the collisions of more
developed societies' (30).
Hostile inter-group relations produced two moral codes - one for
inside the group and another for outsiders. Sumner referred to these
two sentiments as 'industrialism' and 'militancy' respectively, and
averred that 'Industrialism builds up; militancy wastes' (50). Yet he
insisted on the benefits of militancy in terms of the development of
social organisation and cohesion, discipline, cooperation, fortitude and
patience (40). Sumner counselled the avoidance of war if possible and
disapproved of its use as a deliberate policy instrument (56). But by his
own arguments, war was ultimately unavoidable, and there was no
reason to believe in the possibility of universal peace (56). 'It is the
competition for life . . . which makes war, and that is why war has
always existed and always will. It is in the conditions of human
existence' (36).
In these essays, then, Sumner forcefully elaborated all the elements of
the Social Darwinist world view. In his commentaries on the social and
political issues of the times he drew upon this world view to support his
arguments against socialism, collective welfare and state interference. It
is his spirited defence of individualism and laissez-faire which has earned
Sumner notoriety as a Social Darwinist. But, as I shall argue later, this
world view was still very much in evidence in his overtly academic
publications.
In What Social Classes Owe to Each Other, published in 1883, 17
Sumner tackled the question of public welfare. The question resolved
into this: was there any class which had the right to formulate demands
on another class, or to get the latter to fight the battle of life on its
behalf? Sumner responded by appealing to the order of nature: 'We
cannot get a revision of the laws of human life. We are absolutely shut
up to the need and duty, if we would learn how to live happily, of
investigating the laws of Nature, and deducing the laws of right living in
the world as it is' (14). The first requirement was to distinguish
hardships which derived from faulty social and political institutions from
those which flowed from the struggle for existence. The first were
modifiable through collective effort: the second could only be faced
manfully (18). All adult individuals were responsible for their welfare
and the welfare of their dependants in the struggle with nature, and
hence entitled to reap the rewards of their efforts. This, for Sumner, was
a permanent feature of the human condition: 'There can be no rights
against Nature, except to get out of her whatever we can, which is only
the fact of the struggle for existence stated over again' (135).
Politically enforced charity violated this precept and distorted nature's
laws by shifting the burden of the struggle from some classes on to
others. Paupers were consumers, not producers, and Sumner objected
to the use of emotive but ill-defined expressions such as 'poor' and
'weak', which camouflaged their parasitism. What he thought about
such people is evident from the following statement: 'Under the names
of the poor and the weak, the negligent, shiftless, inefficient, silly and
imprudent are fastened upon the industrious and prudent as a
responsibility and a duty' (21). This moral condemnation of paupers
was accompanied by a celebration of the 'Forgotten Man' - the frugal,
unassuming, industrious man (and woman) who, without being con-
sulted, was forced to support the improvident (123, 132-3, 145-9). In
another publication, Sumner wrote: 'The Forgotten Man is weighted
down with the cost and burden of the schemes for making everybody
happy, with the cost of public beneficence, with the support of all the
loafers, with the loss of all the economic quackery, with the cost of all the
jobs.' He proposed that the Forgotten Man was therefore someone more
worthy of pity than the 'good-for-nothing'.18
17
New York: Harper.
18
'The Forgotten Man' in Persons, Social Darwinism, 133.
In the text on classes, Sumner maintained that unskilled workers in
the United States were in a favourable position due to the shortage of
labour, needing only to be freed from the parasites who lived off them.
Freedom was in fact an essential condition, and being 'an affair of laws
and institutions which bring rights and duties into equilibrium', it was a
consequence of modern social developments (33). Liberty, then, had
nothing to do with issues such as democracy and universal suffrage.
History disclosed 'a tiresome repetition of one story', namely the
appropriation of the state by a class for the purpose of living in luxury.
The causes of this lay deep in human nature and were not peculiar to
any particular class, so irrespective of which class governed, there was a
need to protect individuals from the abuse of state power (30-2). Civil
liberty consisted of ca status created for the individual by laws and
institutions, the effect of which is that each man is guaranteed the use of all his
own powers exclusively for all his own welfare' (34, original emphasis).
Equality was incompatible with liberty (16), and any interference in
society and economy through political engineering was doomed to be
counter-productive:
Whatever we gain ... will be by growth, never in the world by any reconstruction
of society on the plan of some enthusiastic social architect. The latter is only
repeating the old error over again and postponing all our real chances of real
improvement. Society needs first of all to befreedfromthese medlars [sic] - that
is, to be left alone. Here we are, then, once more back at the old doctrine -
Laissez-faire. Let us translate it into blunt English, and it will read, Mind your
own business (120).
Sumner was adamant that the appearance of capital - which was
simply stored and accumulated labour, i.e. human energy (62) -
represented a great advance for civilisation by providing people with
some insurance against the 'sport of Nature' (59). Capitalism, based
upon private property, civil liberty and contract, he described as a 'great
social cooperation. It is automatic and instinctive in its operation' (66).
This spontaneity should not be subverted by socialistic schemes for
redistributing property which failed to understand that the irksome
necessity of labour was induced by the struggle for existence, not by the
machinations of capitalists. Sumner certainly considered 'plutocracy' -
the domination of the state by capitalists - to be a real danger in the
United States (106-7). Nor was he opposed to trade unions: although
critical of the abuses to which they were liable (94, 130) he considered
them quite legitimate instruments in the conflict between employers and
labourers, and even urged that they should assume responsibility for the
industrial regulatory functions currently exercised by government
(93-5). What Sumner desired was that no class should be able to use the
state to despoil another. Good government was confined to the provision
of'peace, order, liberty, security, justice, and equality before the law'. 19
These activities established the social framework within which industrial
activities could flourish; thereafter, it was the responsibility of each
individual to provide for his or her wants. 'The State gives equal rights
and equal chances just because it does not mean to give anything else'
(41). In other texts Sumner concluded that conservatism was the only
sound political position, which he defined as the belief that 'the only
possible good for society must come of evolution not of revolution'.20
This being so, then it was 'a matter of patriotism and civic duty to resist
the extension of State interference'.21
In his assault on collective welfare Sumner did not level the charge
made by Spencer, i.e. that it represented an evolutionary regression to
the militant type of society. For Sumner, militancy and industrialism
were psychological propensities arising from outgroup aggression and
ingroup solidarity respectively. He tended to conceptualise the extremes
of evolutionary development in terms of 'barbarism' and 'civilisation',
but, like the English philosopher, he believed that the advance from one
state to the other had been very uneven. Not only did mankind represent
every grade of civilisation, from the most barbarous to the most
advanced, but these levels were reproduced within the most civilised
states. As Sumner pointed out in his essay on classes, this was especially
true of large cities 'where the highest triumphs of culture' coexisted with
'survival of every form of barbarism and lower civilisation' (70). Civil
liberty and laissez-faire therefore constituted the foundations for future
development by placing the onus of adaptation exclusively on the
individual: 'The penalty of ceasing an aggressive behaviour towards the
hardships of life on the part of mankind is, that we go backward. We
cannot stand still' (73). Sumner's evolutionary sociology thus exhibited
many of the features of Spencer's theory: development as a consequence
of unceasing struggle which, being a law of nature, was ineluctable; an
uneven social advance from a primitive to a civilised condition, with the
distinct possibility of stagnation if current political trends were not
reversed; the construction of a category of the unfit, largely on the basis
of a moral evaluation ('loafers', the 'silly', etc.) whose parasitic behaviour
threatened future evolution; and laissez-faire elevated to the status of a
natural law, creating the appropriate social milieu within which selection
could occur.
19
Sumner, Collected Essays in Political and Social Science (New York: Henry Holt, 1885),
99.
20
'The N e w Social Issue', in Persons, Social Darwinism, 163.
21
'State Interference', in Persons, Social Darwinism, 108.
Sumner's sociology differed from that of Spencer, however, on a
number of points. 22 For example, Sumner made far less use of analogies
from the animal kingdom, and was sceptical about the alleged
inheritance of instincts from an animal ancestry.23 Even more significant
is their different interpretations of militancy and warfare. Spencer's
evolutionary perspective on the impact of natural selection on human
societies allowed for a transformation of the struggle from violent to
peaceful means. Sumner's position was more static: ingroup selection
was peaceful, but militancy remained important between states. Uni-
versal peace was impossible because war derived from the competition
for life and was therefore an inevitable feature of the human condition.
This argument expresses Sumner's qualified acceptance of progress.
Societies became larger and more complex through time, leading to
increased specialisation, advances in the arts and sciences and in
economic productivity, and the emergence of civil liberty. But the
optimism of both Spencer and Fiske was absent from the pages of
Sumner's publications. The very circumstances of advancement appear
to coexist with an unalterable condition of effort and abstinence:
'Labour and self-denial, to work yet abstain from enjoying, to earn a
product yet work on as if one possessed nothing, have been the condition
of advance for the human race from the beginning, and they continue to
be such still.'24 This struggle for welfare 'constitutes history, or the life
of the human race on earth'.25 Nature for Sumner unquestionably acted
as a model for social relations, as for Spencer and Fiske. But it was a
much harsher one in that, unlike the other two men, Sumner did not
seek to soften what he saw as the realities of the natural order by erecting
a vision of a future world in which these realities were transcended or
even mitigated. He approved of peace and repudiated militancy and
violence, yet the laws of nature indicated no possibility of mankind's
emancipation from either. Spencer and Fiske counselled patience in the
face of the laws of progress; Sumner offered stoical acceptance of the
need for ceaseless struggle.
22
These differences, and their significance, render inappropriate the description of
Sumner's sociology as 'Spencerianism in American dress'. See the essay of that title by
H. E. Barnes in Barnes, ed., An Introduction to the History of Sociology, abridged edn
(London: University of Chicago Press, 1966), chap. 17.
23
Sumner, in Folkways ( N e w York: Ginn, 1906), argued that this inheritance was possible
but unproven (2). Later he drew parallels between human and organic heredity and
variation but insisted that these had n o value (84). Sumner was not consistent in this,
however, and occasionally likened humans to 'other animals' (4).
24
Sumner, Collected Essays, 4 0 .
25
Sumner, 'Sociology', 24.
Sumner's science of society

Sumner's pungent critiques of state interventionism and his celebrations
of individualism and laissez-faire have become fused with Social
Darwinism in the popular mind. Like Spencer, Sumner has come to
exemplify the ruthless advocacy of the survival of the fittest with a
concomitant disregard for the impact of the struggle for existence on the
losers. This last judgement is, in my view, apt: both men utilised Social
Darwinism as a weapon against state intervention on behalf of people
whom they stigmatised as evolutionary (and moral) failures. The
evidence for this is overwhelming and I see no purpose in denying it or
explaining it away, particularly in view of the ubiquity of this attitude
towards the underclass at that time. What I do object to is the conflation
of this particular ideological position with Social Darwinism per se. In
the case of Sumner, this can result in an underplaying of the role of
Social Darwinism in his Folkways, which formed part of a more
comprehensive project of a science of society.26 Although published
almost fifty years after Darwin's Origin, therefore, Folkways is important
for an appreciation of Sumner. An examination of this text not only
underscores the continuity of Sumner's Social Darwinism over time, but
also helps elucidate some of its ideological resonances which are easily
passed over by concentrating on the laissez-faire aspects of his earlier
writings.
Folkways emerged through need, and in primitive times the only
guides to effort were pleasure and pain. 'Thus ways of doing things were
selected, which were expedient. They answered the purpose better than
other ways, or with less toil and pain. Along the course on which efforts
were compelled to go, habit, routine, and skill were developed' (2). This
was how folkways emerged in primitive societies - overwhelmingly
unconscious, uniform, invariable and imperative modes of thought and
practice which became the cultural heritage of the group (2-4).
Once again, Sumner invoked a distinction between the struggle for
existence, which took place between the individual and nature, and the
competition of life. The latter comprised 'the rivalry, antagonism, and
mutual displacement in which the individual is involved with other
organisms by his efforts to carry on the struggle for existence for himself.
26
It has been alleged that after the mid-1880s Sumner avoided the expression 'survival of
the fittest'. Cf. Bannister, 'William Graham Sumner's Social Darwinism', 102;
Bellomy, ' "Social Darwinism" Revisited', 37. But in Folkways (265) Sumner explicitly
referred to slavery and forced labour as consequences of the survival of the fittest. L.
Coser highlights other continuities between Folkways and Sumner's earlier work in
'American Trends', in Bottomore and Nisbet, eds., A History of Sociological Analysis,
295-7.
It is, therefore, the competition of life which is the societal element, and
which produces societal organisation' (16). The struggle with other
organisms thus engendered cooperation as well as competition (17).
Commentators are quite right to point out that the distinction
between the struggle for existence and the competition of life was not
always easy to discern in Sumner's arguments.27 He ascribed industrial
organisation to the struggle for existence (157), defined aristocracies as
groups who were superior in this struggle (183), and derived slavery
from the tendency of stronger groups to exploit weaker ones in the
struggle for existence (265). In all these instances, but certainly in the
case of aristocracy and slavery, one might have expected these
phenomena to derive from 'rivalry and antagonism' and hence from the
competition of life. But what is important to the present study is the fact
that Sumner assigned struggle, however conceived, a preponderant role
in the evolution of folkways. In a remarkable anticipation of the views of
some modern sociobiologists on intra-familial antagonisms, he described
the conjugal bond as a cooperative union between the sexes brought
about by the struggle for existence, but containing within it conflicting
interests (between males and females and between parents and children)
which all folkways sought (never with complete success) to resolve (345-
7, 310).
Selection acted upon variations: what were the sources of variations if
folkways induced uniformity and invariability? Sumner's answer was
partly prefigured in his earlier essays in which he had argued that the
masses were governed by their passions and instincts, and only in the
elite were conscience and reason sufficiently elevated to curb these
primitive tendencies.28 In Folkways this argument was developed more
fully. Sumner distinguished between 'classes' (sub-divisions of society)
and the 'masses'. The latter were the conservative core of society,
dominated by the folkways. Classes were the sources of variation,
introducing changes which the masses then imitated (45). Thus: 'It is
the classes who produce variation; it is the masses who carry forward the
traditional mores' (47). Sumner's concept of social structure is expli-
cated in the following statement:
Every civilised society has to carry below the lowest section of the masses a dead
weight of ignorance, poverty, crime, and disease. Every such society has, in the
great central section of the masses, a great body which is neutral in all the policy
of society. It lives by routine and tradition. It is not brutal, but it is shallow,
27
Persons, 'Introduction', Social Darwinism, 3; Bannister, 'William Graham Sumner's
Social Darwinism', 97.
28
Sumner, What Social Classes Owe To Each Other, 75.
narrow-minded, and prejudiced. Nevertheless it is harmless. It lacks initiative
and cannot give an impulse for good or bad. It produces few criminals. It can
sometimes be moved by appeals to itsfixedideas and prejudices. It is affected in
its mores by contagionfromthe classes above it (50).
As this citation makes plain, the masses initiated nothing: creativity was
the prerogative of the few. 'Only the elite of any society, in any age,
think ...'(206).
Sumner repeated his earlier conviction that no class could be trusted
to rule society impartially and hence the task of constitutional govern-
ment was to devise means for preventing the abuse of state power. At the
same time, he was convinced of the inevitability of a ruling class. 'In
every societal system or order', affirmed Sumner, 'there must be a ruling
class or classes; in other words, a class gets control of any society and
determines its political form or system. The ruling class, therefore, has
the power' (169). This meant that ultimately all controversies over rights
were resolved by force, although he used this latter term in a broad
sense. 'Nothing but might has ever made right, and if we include in
might (as we ought to) elections and the decisions of courts, nothing but
might makes right now' (65). All disputes have to end, and they are
terminated by force: the aggrieved parties invariably complain of violated
rights, but they are ultimately 'overborne by force of some kind.
Therefore might has made all the right which ever has existed or exists
now' (66).
In Folkways, then, Social Darwinism functions as an organising
narrative. In the earlier essays, while this function was discernible it was
secondary to the rhetorical use of Darwinian concepts to support
Sumner's political and moral views. This use appears in the later text as
well, for instance in Sumner's strictures on the notion of wage-slavery
(178-9). But the main thrust of this book was to catalogue various
folkways and to show how they arose through and were modified by the
struggle for existence and the competition of life. Indeed, by focusing
upon the sources of social variation and by including a chapter on
'Societal Selection', Sumner was more strictly Social Darwinist in
Folkways than in his earlier publications. In this he may have been
influenced by the uncompromising versions of Social Darwinism
associated with European theorists such as Westermarck, Vacher de
Lapouge, Ratzel, Gumplowicz, Ammon and Galton, who appear in his
notes and bibliography. Yet Sumner did not explicitly assign a
preponderant role to heredity as did many of these authors; for him,
social evolution was analogous to, rather than derivative from, organic
evolution, and he sought to explicate the sources of variation and
conservation and the cultural mechanisms through which competition
and selection took place. He was thus a determinist because for him
evolutionary laws were inexorable and unavoidable, but he was not a
biological reductionist in that the laws in question operated in and
through social beliefs, practices and institutions.
James and genius

Spencer, Fiske and Sumner shared a perception of science as the
domain of certainty. Scientific laws, for them, were deterministic, and
their discovery and formulation in the realm of human behaviour
constituted the goals of psychology and sociology. During the 1870s this
understanding of science was challenged by American philosophers in
ways which were to lead to innovative conceptions of scientific method
and hence of the nature and content of the social sciences. The new
philosophy was 'pragmatism' and its leading practitioners were Charles
Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey. Darwinism was to play
a crucial role in the formation and development of pragmatism.29
Peirce (1839-1914) pioneered the pragmatic view of scientific method
in an essay of 1877 entitled 'The Fixation of Belief. Peirce grasped the
revolutionary import of Darwin's approach to evolution in his assertion
that: 'Mr Darwin proposed to apply the statistical method to biology.'
This had already been successfully achieved in the theory of gases, which
could not predict the movement of any particular gas molecule but
made probabilistic statements about collections of molecules. 'In like
manner, Darwin, while unable to say what the operation of variation and
natural selection in every individual case will be, demonstrates that in
the long run they will adapt animals to their circumstances.'30
This appreciation of the probabilistic nature of science in general, and
Darwinism in particular, was central to James's attack on the determi-
nistic conception of science as popularised by Spencer and his disciples.
For James, science was concerned with statements of probabilities and
lacked the certitude ascribed to it by Spencer. As James argued in his
The Will to Believe (1897), failure to understand the true nature of
science was responsible for the misconstrued relationship between
science and faith. Far from being mutually opposed they were in fact
connected, since scientific knowledge reposed upon faith in the validity
of science as a source of knowledge. James urged his readers to resist
29
See P. Wiener, Evolution and the Founders of Pragmatism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1949).
30
Peirce, 'The Fixation of B e l i e f , in Hollinger and Capper, eds., The American Intellectual
Tradition ( N e w York: Oxford University Press, 1993), II, 15. For a discussion of
Peirce's theory of science and its impact o n James, see P. J. Croce, 'William James'
Scientific Education', History of the Human Sciences, 8 ( 1 9 9 5 ) , 9 - 2 7 .
what he saw as the tyranny of science, arguing that it had never actually
demonstrated the invalidity of religious belief.31 He suggested a
Darwinist interpretation of the various religious creeds and their
histories, claiming that 'the freest competition of the various faiths with
one another, and their openest application to life by their several
champions, are the most favourable conditions under which the survival
of the fittest can proceed'.32
An illustration of James's exploration of the social implications of
Darwinism is afforded by his essay of 1880 on 'Great Men and Their
Environment'.33 Although this text commenced with the assertion of a
'remarkable parallel' between the facts of social evolution and the facts
of zoological evolution as propounded by Darwin, it repudiated
Spencer's interpretation of both processes. The Englishman was
accused of making change exogenous to the individual by locating its
sources in the environment or in ancestral conditions (218). James
posed the question of the social equivalent of the accidental variations
upon which natural selection acted. His answer was that these variations
took the form of 'great men' - creative and imaginative individuals
whose genius generated the raw material which the environment then
selected (226). It was precisely this 'fermentative influence of geniuses'
which caused social evolution to take one direction rather than another
(229).
Thus social evolution is a resultant of the interaction of two wholly distinct
factors, - the individual, deriving his peculiar giftsfromthe play of physiological
and infra-social forces, but bearing all the power of initiative and origination in
his hands; and second, the social environment, with its power of adopting or
rejecting both him and his gifts. Both factors are essential to change. The
community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies
away without the sympathy of the community (232).
Darwin's distinction between the sources of variation and the selective
action of the environment could also be fruitfully applied to the
production and subsequent fate of mental phenomena. According to
James, the lower strata of the mind generated variations in the form of
'random images, fancies, accidental out-births of spontaneous variation
in the fundamental activity of the excessively instable human brain,
which the outer environment simply confirms or refutes, adopts or
rejects, preserves or destroys, - selects, in short, just as it selects
morphological and social variations due to molecular accidents of an
analogous sort' (247).
31
James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: Dover
Publications, 1956).
32 33
IbuLs 'Preface', xii. Reproduced in James, The Will to Believe, 2 1 6 - 5 4 .
What is striking about this formulation is the combination of accident
and causation in its characterisation of organic, mental and social
evolution, reflecting James's conception of the probabilistic form of
scientific method. It is additionally noteworthy for its description of
genius. James was opposed to Spencer's rejection of 'Great Men'
approaches to historical explanation (232-4), and his celebration of the
importance of genius could easily be construed as a reafnrmation of an
elitist approach to the analysis of social change. But for James, genius
was an accident. Contrary to the prevailing hereditarian intrepretations
of genius as a property confined to outstanding families, James seems
much closer to modern views of creative genius as something which,
even if containing a hereditary component, is randomly distributed
within a population.34
James published this essay at the same time that Sumner was
developing his own version of social evolution. Referring to it as a Social
Darwinist tract might appear preposterous to those accustomed to
equate this body of ideas with the rhetorical uses to which it was assigned
by Sumner and Spencer. But even a casual inspection of James's essay
reveals the world view in its entirety. The difference lies in his
interpretation of some of its components. Selection was given a much
wider connotation than elimination through war or industrial competi-
tion and included the selection of ideas and arguments as perhaps the
most important mechanism of social change. The role of chance was
emphasised in the production of variation. Above all, James's statistical
understanding of scientific laws allowed him to place a particular
construction on the fifth element of the world view: the application of
evolution to mental and social phenomena. Contingency and probability
combined to open up a space for human action, to establish a social
environment with room for reason and faith, causality and will. The
pragmatist evaluation of Darwinism and its social implications were
central to the construction of this theoretical perspective.
Conclusion
By the beginning of the 1880s Darwinism had been put to a variety of
theoretical usages by American intellectuals. Brace made it the basis of a
science of racial development; Fiske and Sumner employed it to show
34
The sociobiologist Wilson proclaims that the combination of genes responsible for any
particular gifted person is unlikely to appear in the same family more than once. 'So if
genius is to any extent hereditary, it winks on and off through the gene pool in a way
that would be difficult to measure or predict.' E. O. Wilson, On Human Nature
(London: Harvard University Press, 1978), 198.
that social change was refractory to political and legislative engineering;
James extolled the evolutionary significance of genius. Sumner's adapta-
tions achieved the greatest notoriety and his name, along with Spencer's,
has become synonymous with Social Darwinism. But Brace and James
were every bit as committed to the world view as Sumner and Spencer,
as indeed they were to the idea of individual liberty. Having different
conceptions of how the latter was realised, and different evaluations of
the status quo with respect to this realisation, Brace and James differed
from Sumner and Spencer on the ideological implications of Darwinism.
Moreover, James re-interpreted the world view itself. But the compo-
nents of the world view and their interconnections were clearly
discernible in all these instances.
The American situation affords a vivid illustration of both the diversity
of contexts in which Social Darwinism could be employed and the
impossibility of deducing a theorist's ideological position from the fact
of being a Social Darwinist. Brace and Fiske both believed Darwinism to
substantiate progress as a historical law; Sumner was at best sceptical
about the existence of any such law. Brace, Fiske and James explicitly
argued for the compatibility of Darwinism and religious belief, while
Sumner's views on warfare differed from those of Fiske (at least when
the latter was in his optimist mode). In all instances, nature was assigned
normative status as a guide for the social sciences and/or as a model for
social action. The world view itself, however, with its indeterminacies,
allowed for radically different perceptions of nature and its laws. It also
promoted hesitancies, ambivalences and inconsistencies within the same
thinker as he sought to come to terms with the social ramifications of
these laws.
This feature has already been commented upon in the work of Fiske
and Sumner, but it is also evident in James's writings. For example, in
his book on psychology James dismissed the claim that habits were
inherited. Habit undoubtedly represented the 'enormous flywheel of
society, its most precious conservative agent'.35 But its heritage was
social rather than biological, since it was not inscribed in the constitution
of the mind. It was precisely because habits were not inherited in this
way that men could think anew, recombine ideas and innovate. This is
why man was, above all, 'the educable animal'.36 Instincts, on the other
hand, were inherited, and James sometimes depicted their influences in
ways which contradicted his strictures against scientific certainty as well
as placing severe limits on the educability of humans. Aggression and
warfare, deriving from the circumstances of primitive tribal existence,
35 36
James, Principles of Psychology, I, 121. Ibid., II, 368, original emphasis.
were instances of the instinctive heritage of human nature. 'If evolution
and the survival of the fittest be true at all, the destruction of prey and
of human rivals must have been among the most important of man's
primitive functions, the fighting and the chasing instincts must have
become ingrained.'37 Whatever pacific virtues men professed, these
'smouldering and sinister traits' remained part of their psychological
make-up. 'It is just because human bloodthirstiness is such a primitive
part of us', continued James, 'that it is so hard to eradicate, especially
where a fight or a hunt is promised as part of the fun.' 38 Likewise with
women: totally formed in character by the age of twenty, they possessed
brains that were less efficient than those of men, rendering them
unreceptive to thoughts that were inaccessible to their 'direct
intuition'.39
These claims were highly deterministic and placed boundaries to the
efficacy of education. In making them James appears to be guilty of
espousing the rigid determinism of which he was elsewhere so critical.
What they reflect, in part at least, is the ambivalence of someone who on
the one hand wished to develop a science of psychology along Darwinist
lines, which involved the linking of human and animal behaviour via the
doctrine of descent, and on the other wanted to acknowledge the
importance of individual creativity and freedom. Social Darwinism
served both causes, but not in ways that were always commensurable.
37 38 39
Ibid., II, 412, original emphases. Ibid. Ibid., II, 368-9.
Social Darwinism in France and Germany
Introduction
When Darwin published the Origin, France and Germany were in the
throes of socio-economic change and political conflict. In France the
legacy of the Revolution was one of cleavage and political confrontation
expressed in the episodes of insurrection, restoration and coup which
occurred until the formation of the Third Republic. Born from the
trauma of military defeat and civil war, the Republic was itself a
precarious compromise that was to be riven by crises during its seventy-
year history. Class divisions, provincial loyalties and the dislocative
impacts of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation were compounded
by an embittered antagonism between the Catholic Church and the
forces of anti-clericalism. Small wonder, then, that French philosophers
and social theorists were continually preoccupied with what Comte had
designated the 'seventh science': la morale. Their aim, whatever their
political predilections, was to discover an authoritative body of beliefs
capable of uniting the nation around an ethical consensus. The
achievements of the natural sciences ensured that many theorists would
seek to emulate these disciplines in the search for models and methods
that could assist in the construction of this moral concordance.
After the abortive revolution of 1848, Germany also experienced
political division against a background of brisk economic growth and
social change. After national unification under Bismarck, the new Reich
was fraught with continuing regional differences and enmities, com-
pounded by hostility between Protestants and a sizeable Catholic
minority. Abrasive class divisions were reflected in the emergence of the
largest socialist party in Europe, in addition to a sharp differentiation
between rural/agrarian and urban/industrial sub-cultures. Tensions with
rival nationalities added to these difficulties, and in the neighbouring
Austro-Hungarian Empire these tensions between Germans and other
ethnic groups were such as to encourage some of the former to
contemplate an expansion of the Reich that would include all German
123
nationals within its boundaries. To the pressures wrought by industria-
lisation, urbanisation, nationalism and democratisation were added
conflicts between religious orthodoxy and a critical and rationalist
temper exemplified by a new spirit of biblical criticism and the growth of
science, particularly in the field of biology.
Both national contexts, therefore, provided fertile conditions for the
reception and development of the Social Darwinist world view. As we
have seen in the cases of Britain and the USA, the world view offered the
promise of new certainties that could be inferred from the processes
which regulated both history and human nature, namely adaptation,
selection and heredity. The theorists who represent the main focus of
this chapter - Clemence Royer and Ernst Haeckel - were quick to
exploit this promise in France and Germany respectively.
Royer and the semiotics of nature

Historians of science agree that, for a variety of reasons, Darwinism had
a limited impact on French biology.1 In the realm of social theory,
however, Darwin found an early champion in the person of Clemence-
Auguste Royer (1830-1902), who produced a translation of the Origin
in 1862 and was a staunch advocate of Darwinian and evolutionary ideas
in the Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris, of which she was for many years
the only female member.2 Royer hailed from a monarchist and religious
background but became an ardent convert to republicanism and anti-
clericalism. Prior to her translation of the Origin she had absorbed the
evolutionary views of Lamarck as well as the teachings of political
economy. Both influences were evident in her prize-winning study on
taxation in which she described nature as a 'work of perpetual
transition', as a series of gradual changes. She likened society to a
biological organism and cautioned against the twin dangers of seeking to
prevent change and trying to proceed too rapidly. Royer also insisted
that the laws of supply and demand were as immutable and universal as
1
For the reception of Darwinism in France see C. Limoges, 'A Second Glance at
Evolutionary Biology in France', in Mayr and Provine, TTie Evolutionary Synthesis;
R. Stebbins, Trance' in Glick, Comparative Reception; Y. Conry, LyIntroduction du
darwinisme en France au dix-neuvieme siecle (Paris: Vrin, 1974).
2
See J. Harvey, 'Evolutionism Transformed: Positivists and Materialists in the Societe
d'Anthropologie de Paris from Second Empire to Third Republic', in Oldroyd and
Langham, The Wider Domain of Evolutionary Thought; Harvey, ' "Doubly Revolu-
tionary": Clemence Royer Before the Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris', Proceedings of
the Sixteenth International Congress For the History of Science, Symposium B, 1981,
250-7. There are valuable discussions of Royer in L. Clark, Social Darwinism in France,
12-16, 25-7, 34-7, 72-3; and Clark, 'Le Darwinisme social en France', La Recherche,
19(1988), 193, 194.
Social Darwinism in France and Germany 125
the laws of biology and physiology, drawing a parallel between the
growth of physical organs and the progressive elaboration of political
institutions from primitive times to the present. Progress was a fact of
the natural world affecting all species and from which it was vital to draw
the relevant moral and political conclusions. Inequality she considered
to be natural and the foundation of the social division of labour, though
this was no warrant for consolidating differences into a caste system
through unjust legislation. Inequalities also marked the relationships
among the various human races and, as in the animal kingdom, 'the
higher races seem destined to supplant the lower races and to make
them disappear or slowly assimilate them.' 3 Dedicated to all 'free men',
the book extolled the virtues of individualism, economic freedom and
competition, themes that were to be prominent in her subsequent
publications.
In the long and provocative preface to her translation of the Origin*
Royer not only embraced an unequivocally Darwinist perspective, but
chided the English naturalist for failing to draw the necessary conclu-
sions about political and moral evolution from his inquiries (xxxix, lxii).
She was excited by the comprehensiveness of Darwinism and by its
potential relevance to so many areas. Every so often, claimed Royer, a
work appeared which synthesised the achievements of an entire era,
constituting a cosmogony, a theology and a sociology. Darwin's book
was just such a work, capable of integrating the study of nature, morals,
politics and international relations (xii).5 Royer foresaw the possibility
of a semiotics of nature because for her nature was a text, a system of
signs, and it was the task of the philosopher to 'decipher the meaning of
the often incoherent signs that it delivers to our interpretation, like the
scattered fragments of an inscription for which we sometimes do not
even know the language' (xiv). Her main contribution to this project
was a study of human evolution, which appeared in 1870, a year before
Darwin's Descent,6 Royer deserves recognition, therefore, as one of the
earliest pioneers, not only in the dissemination of Social Darwinism,
but also in its formulation and application to social and political
phenomena.
In her Origine de Vhomme et des societes, Royer rejected creationist
3
Royer, Theorie de Vimpot, ou la dime sociale, 2 vols. (Paris: Guillaumin, 1862), I, x-xi, 5,
20,66-7, 141.
4
Royer, 'Preface' to Darwin, De Vorigine des especes, ou des lots du progres chez les etres
organises, tr. Royer (Paris: Guillaumin, 1862),
5
In her foreword to the second edition of her translation, Royer equated Darwin's work
to a 'revolution'. Royer, 'Avant Propos', De Vorigine des especes par selection naturelle, ou
des lots de transformation des etres organises, second edn (Paris: Guillaumin, 1866), vi.
6
Royer, Origine de Vhomme et des societes (Paris: Guillaumin, 1870).
accounts of human origins, arguing that all living things evolved from an
anterior state in accordance with the two biological laws of heredity and
variability. These laws were complemented by two others: the struggle
for life, which arose out of the pressure exerted by population growth on
resources, and natural selection (6-14). The result was the survival of
the fittest, and Royer was emphatic in her portrayal of the ubiquity and
relentlessness of its effects, insisting that 'struggle, war and not peace, is
the inescapable law of life. Species struggle against other species,
varieties against other varieties, and within each variety, in the social
group, the tribe, the family itself, individuals struggle against other
individuals' (520). Human beings had evolved from ape-like ancestors,
as reflected in the fact that all the allegedly human attributes, such as
language, cognition, intelligence and moral faculties, were to be found
in the animal kingdom, albeit in rudimentary form (55-8, 85-6, 136).
There was, therefore, nothing unique about the mental and physical
constitution of humans: what they had evolved were greater variety and
complexity of instincts, sentiments and faculties which enabled them to
attain superiority over other animals (95).
The continuity between humans and animals was graphically illu-
strated by savages, among whom the struggle for existence was especially
acute. Royer dismissed Rousseau's portrait of the state of nature as a
peaceful and benign condition. She argued that 'man in a savage state, at
universal war with nature and his fellow men, is placed in conditions of
life common to animals; he must, therefore, have all their instincts and
passions . . . ' (222). To be gentle and good in these circumstances would
have been disastrous, which is why savages were driven by ferocious and
degrading passions which made theft, murder, rapine, mendacity and
violence normal features of their lives. Royer qualified this account
somewhat by agreeing with Rousseau that a savage was capable of
empathising with another's suffering. But she insisted that this deeply
rooted sentiment did not suffice to offset the other features of primitive
mentality and render savage existence an age of innocence and gold
(230-2, 248).
Progress from this primitive condition took place through adaptation,
selection and the inheritance of acquired characters. Individuals who
adapted passed their successful traits to their offspring, thereby enhanc-
ing the chances of the latter in the struggle for life. Modern people had
inherited the mental make-up of the savage, but the passions of the
former were more complex and diversified, and accompanied by new
ones, for example the passion for truth, justice and beauty. This made
modern men more individualistic than savages, and more modifiable
(169, 215-7, 270-2). Hence the evolution of humanity was progressive,
showing a gradual improvement over time. Darwinism, wrote Royer in
the 'Preface5, had made necessary a clear choice between the doctrine of
progress and the dismal dogma of the Fall, and she left her readers in no
doubt of her own choice on this issue: £I believe in progress.'7 Yet in her
book she warned against any complacent belief in the inevitability of
progress as arrests and reversals had happened throughout history and
could happen again (274). Furthermore, the sanguinary instincts and
passions of the savage still lurked in the breasts of modern man, as
exemplified by the hunter, the absolute monarch intoxicated with
power, and the 'popular masses' (250).
Royer was adamant that continued progress depended upon the
existence of inequalities. Differences were the raw material on which
selection operated, and throughout nature those species with a marked
tendency to variability enjoyed an advantage in the struggle for life, since
some of these variations would be useful. Competition and selection
took place at all levels, from the individual to the species: 'The struggle
between individuals produces the selection of individuals. The struggle
between varieties decides their future. The struggle between species has
as its consequence the triumph of some, the disappearance or emigration
of others' (14). Among humans the same processes were at work, both
within societies, and between societies and races.
Within advanced societies, inequalities were biologically grounded.
Occasionally, admitted Royer, these inequalities outlived their useful-
ness and, becoming ossified in outmoded customs and institutions, were
the cause of resentment and conflict. But she felt confident enough to
propose a general law to the effect that every social inequality originated
in a 'natural' inequality and only persisted if it corresponded to a social
need (545-6). 'Men', proclaimed Royer, 'are by nature unequal', a
principle she extended to the different races in the conviction that the
higher races were destined to supplant the lower in the course of
evolution. Since the resources of the planet were finite then it was both
necessary and right that their usage should fall to the races most capable
of utilising them. This made warfare between the Aryans and inferior
races legitimate, although the former could still allow the latter to exist if
their labour was made essential by climatic conditions. Sometimes it
might even be beneficial to allow racial inter-mixing to create varieties,
though in general Royer considered 'the mixing of blood between higher
and lower races' to be 'immoral'.8 Within and between advanced
societies warfare was to be condemned, and Royer evidently saw
8
Royer, 'Preface', lxiv. Royer, 'Preface, lxi; Origine, 531-2.
competition here taking a peaceful form, although she did not elaborate
on this point.
Royer, therefore, endorsed all the elements of the Darwinist world
view, which she applied to questions concerning the origins and develop-
ment of humans and their social arrangements. She also forcefully raised
what she saw to be the political and ethical implications of this world
view.
Liberty, equality and the status of women

Royer's preface to her translation of the Origin possessed the tenor and
the challenge of a manifesto. It opened with a resounding declaration of
faith in human reason: 'Yes, I believe in revelation, but in a permanent
revelation of man to himself and by himself, in a rational revelation
which is only the result of the progress of modern science and
awareness...' (v). This proclamation reflected her lifelong adherence to
the ideals enshrined in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment - ideals
that celebrated reason, liberty and progress (xi).9 This stance was ac-
companied by a pungent anti-clericalism. What distinguished Darwin-
ism from other revelatory modes was the former's bases in induction
and Cartesian doubt and its freedom from prejudice. Christianity, in
contrast, was a stifling and debilitating dogma, a sign of sickness and
decrepitude, an obstacle to freedom and progress (viii-ix, xiii-xiv).
Darwinism also controverted the notion that human nature possessed
a fixed and immutable essence which, in one form or other, provided the
intellectual scaffolding of platonism, Christianity and socialism. These
doctrines attempted to restrict individual liberty in the name of this
timeless essence. Darwinism showed that no such permanent qualities
existed, that human nature, as with all of nature, was subject to change
over time (xviii-xix). For Royer, this entailed a commitment to freedom
as an essential prerequisite, in modern conditions, for experiment,
innovation, and for the proliferation of variations which would then be
exposed to competition in order that the most beneficial would be
selected and progress maintained. She hailed Darwin's work as a great
weapon for the 'liberal and progressive party' because it justified a
political regime dedicated to the principles of unlimited personal liberty
and free competition (xx, lxii). In the Origine she expressed her ideal as
liberty 'without limit, with its struggles and perils ... without any civil
restraint [regie-morale] other than respect for the equal rights of others'
(580). But this equality of liberty was the only form of equality consistent
9
See Royer's defiant reassertion of these views in her 'Avant Propos' of 1866, vii.
with evolution. Since nature had decreed the unequal value of
individuals, liberty allowed each one to realise his or her own worth, and
competition weeded out the unsuccessful. Egalitarian policies stifled
initiative and reduced the rewards accruing to effort and success (583-
4). 'The formula for the highest social prosperity is therefore equality of
initial liberty for each member of the national group, and the free play of
individual capabilities [forces] and initiatives' (585). One of the objectives
of science must be the exposure of the absurdity of egalitarian creeds
and the demonstration that 'equality of liberty and progress through
inequality is the law of equity and the road to happiness for all...' (587).
Royer looked to Darwinism to provide a naturalist foundation for
ethics. In her view, it established an absolute criterion for distinguishing
between right and wrong because 'the moral rule for every species is that
which tends to its conservation, to its multiplication, to its progress,
relative to place and time'.10 This was the rationale for Royer's
swingeing attack on misguided public and private charity, i.e. charity
which, by evolutionary standards, had the consequence of sacrificing the
good to the bad:
What is the result of this exclusive and unintelligent protection accorded to the
weak, the infirm, the incurable, the wicked, to all those who are ill-favoured by
nature? It is that the ills which have afflicted them tend to be perpetuated and
multiplied indefinitely; that evil is increased instead of diminishing, and tends to
grow at the expense of good.11
The targets of this diatribe were the losers in the struggle for existence
whose hereditary defects would be perpetuated and increased by
charitable actions aimed at their protection and welfare. In the light of
these sentiments it is ironic (or perhaps poetic justice) that Royer,
although achieving some belated public recognition and financial
security by the end of her life, at one time fell into indigence and was
obliged to enter a retirement home. 12
We have already encountered Royer's assertion that social inequalities
invariably had a biological foundation. There was, though, an exception
to this rule: the subordinate position of women in modern societies.
This arose with the appearance of warrior societies which provided the
opportunity for male domination to replace the equal relationships
between the sexes that had prevailed hitherto. Royer repudiated the idea
that patriarchal relations had any natural or biological foundation. She
considered them to be an interregnum in the otherwise co-equal
development of the sexes, and responsible for an unbalanced evolution
10
Royer, 'Preface', lxiii. Royer developed her ideas on ethics in her Le Bien et la lot morale
(Paris: Guillaumin, 1881).
11 12
Ibid., lvi. Harvey,' "Doubly Revolutionary"', 256.
of the mental faculties and social roles of men and women. Hence 'it
follows from these considerations that there is nothing inevitable,
nothing absolute, about the differences in aptitudes and functions which
exist today among the two halves of humanity'. Races which failed to
recognise this and adapt to modern conditions by allowing women
freedom to participate in intellectual progress would succumb to more
enlightened rivals in the struggle for life, and vanish from the face of the
earth.13
Royer was in a good position to appreciate the workings of
patriarchalism, since her failure to secure an academic post was probably
a result of her gender. Her feminism, therefore, resonated her experi-
ences as well as her convictions, and was conveyed with passion in her
writings. Yet its relationship to her hereditarian determinism is highly
problematic, and it is difficult to resist the impression of intellectual and
political opportunism in her insistence that the position of females
represented an exception to the general rule that social inequalities
reflected biological differences. To argue for the social determination of
sex roles is therefore an aporia in her writings, a switch in the mode of
argumentation stemming from certain ideological motives that led her to
contradict the assumptions that grounded her work.
In assessing Royer's Social Darwinism it is tempting to focus on those
facets of her 'Preface' which had so shocked her contemporaries, i.e. her
feminism, anti-clericalism and her critique of charity for the 'unfit'. But
to do so would be to understate in some respects the importance of her
ideas. She never achieved the readership and popularity of Haeckel and
Spencer, but her projected 'semiotics of nature' should be seen as one of
the earliest attempts to locate Darwinism within a wider philosophical
framework - one that was systematically formulated and explicitly linked
to socio-political issues. It was a framework proposed as an alternative to
religion through a comprehensive account of humanity - its origins, its
history, its relationship to the rest of nature, and its future. It was, in
short, an attempt to discover a naturalistic basis for la morale - one that
was capable of dealing with the inescapable fact of humanity's location
in time and hence with the historicity and seeming contingency of its
institutions and beliefs, of those very attributes by which it had, in
various cultural contexts, defined itself as human. Royer's efforts
confronted these issues by elaborating what she took to be the
13
Royer, Origine, 391; 'Preface', lx. For discussions of Royer's feminism, see Harvey,
' "Doubly Revolutionary"'; and Harvey, ' "Strangers to Each Other": Male and
Female Relationships in the life and Work of Clemence Royer', in P. Abir-Am and
D. Outra, eds., Uneasy Careers and Intimate Lives (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1987).
philosophical, ethical and political implications of the Darwinian
revolution in biological science.
Royer was not alone in France in her efforts to enlist Darwinism in the
service of liberalism. A Belgian-born economist, Gustave de Molinari
(b. 1818), was a prolific publicist of the doctrines of political economy
which he readily assimilated to Darwinism. His L'Evolution economique,14
for example, applied Darwinian concepts to the development of what he
designated as the modern 'economic state', i.e. an international system
of production and exchange. This state, and its continual progress,
comprised a regime of 'unlimited competition' in which the penalty for
remaining stationary for industries and nations was inevitable destruc-
tion (77). Molinari distinguished between la petite Industrie in which
production was principally achieved through physical labour, and la
grande industrie where mechanical force dominated production. Since
the birth of civilisation (i.e. the appearance of agriculture), the second
type had gradually superseded the first, while the individual entrepre-
neur had in turn given way to industrial society and the current
international system (43). Throughout this development, the motor of
change was the struggle for existence.
In early phases of this evolution, struggle took the form of warfare.
War, or its threat, encouraged invention, eliminated the least capable
individuals and nations, and constrained the winners to cultivate their
powers in order to maintain their dominance (86-8). But with the
development of industry, war ceased to be advantageous in the struggle,
and was replaced by economic competition. This Molinari considered to
be even more effective as a goad to progress than warfare because whereas
the latter was confined to the ruling classes, the former was universal in its
scope (88). Competition eliminated the less intelligent, industrious and
moral races. Within each society, evolution raised the general level of
ability, and the least capable individuals slipped to the bottom of the
social hierarchy, although even here there was no refuge from the brutal
selective pressure of competition (94). Nor could one look forward to a
golden age of repose in the future: 'No! competition is struggle, it is the
civilised form of war, which it is destined to abolish ...' (85).
Like Royer, Molinari was fervently opposed to either monarchical
reaction or socialistic utopianism (136). He was aware that coincident
with the production of great wealth there had occurred an equally great
multiplication of pauperism which neither public nor private charity
seemed capable of reducing (102). This he ascribed to the transitional
status of modern societies and to defects in human nature: moral and
14
G. de Molinari, UEvolution economique du dix-neuvieme siecle: theorie du progres (Paris:
Reinwald, 1880).
intellectual evolution had not kept pace with economic change. The
solution was not to be found in social reconstruction, but in moral
progress as a precondition for increased wealth and its more equitable
distribution (125, 134). Here one detects an ambivalence on Molinari's
part with regard to the implication of economic evolution. On the one
hand, the trend was towards an equilibrium between production and
consumption which represented 'an evolution towards order and justice'
(84). On the other hand, competition was inescapable and entailed the
expropriation and eventual destruction of the weak by the strong (90,
94). Molinari did not explain how moral evolution of any sort could
overcome this dilemma.
Ernst Haeckel and Darzvtnismus

In contrast to France, Darwinism was rapidly endorsed by German
biologists. The reception was uneven, certainly, and some leading
naturalists were unconvinced, including the translator of the Origin,
which was published in German in I860.15 But many scientists not only
endorsed Darwinism, but succeeded in popularising it widely among the
German public. This popularisation also extended to the social applica-
tions of Darwinism which gained credence from the fact that they were
executed by established and, in some instances very eminent, natural
scientists. The elaboration of Social Darwinism was in full flow by the
mid-1860s, with German intellectuals quick to realise the implications
of Darwin's work.
Social Darwinists made clear to their audiences that, as in the animal
and plant kingdoms, human modification took place through natural
selection. The 'struggle for existence' rapidly became a popular catch-
phrase, described by the naturalist Schmidt as 'a badge and common
property of our age'.16 This opinion was shared by the most famous and
effective populariser of them all, a gifted zoologist from the University of
Jena, Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), who referred to struggle as 'a watch-
word of the day'. This accorded with Haeckel's wishes because he was
determined that Darwinism should not remain the preserve of a
privileged caste, but should 'become the common property of all
mankind'.17 Recent scholarship has demonstrated the predominantly
liberal orientation of early Social Darwinism in Germany; only subse-
15
For the history of Darwinism in Germany, see W. M. Montgomery, 'Germany' in
Glick, Comparative Reception.
16
Schmidt, The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism, 140.
17
E. Haeckel, The History of Creation, 2 vols., tr. E. R. Lankester (London: King, 1876), I,
161; I, 4.
quently did it become appropriated by racists and militarists, and then
never exclusively so. 18 But German liberalism differed from Spencerian
individualism in that while it extolled the virtues of private property,
economic competition, freedom of speech and association, and secular
education, it also endorsed a strong nation-state and the vigorous
assertion of German national interests.19 These features of German
liberalism are important to an understanding of the work of Ernst
Haeckel.
Haeckel was not only a creative naturalist in his own right but an
indefatigable advocate for evolutionary theory in particular and for
scientific education in general. His popular studies went through
numerous editions and were translated into several languages. 20 For
Haeckel and his followers, commitment to a scientific appreciation of
man and nature carried with it the responsibility of challenging super-
natural explanations, and they accused religious authorities - especially
the Roman Catholic Church - of obfuscating the pursuit of scientific
knowledge and perverting education. These attacks made Haeckel a
controversial figure during the nineteenth century, and this continues to
be the case in the present day, for modern scholars disagree over how his
work should be interpreted. Some regard him as a thorough-going
Social Darwinist, eugenicist, Aryan supremacist and anti-Semite who
recommended racial and national conflicts as essential to progress. In
these respects, Haeckel is deemed to be a forerunner of and contributor
to National Socialism, all the more influential because his scientific
credentials lent authenticity to his racism and bellicosity. 21 Other
historians have argued that the incidence of Social Darwinism in
Haeckel's writings has been greatly exaggerated and have objected to
18
P. J. Weindling, Darwinism and Social Darwinism in Imperial Germany (Stuttgart: Gustav
Fischer, 1991), 16. See also R. Weikart, 'The Origins of Social Darwinism in
Germany*; T. Benton, 'Social Darwinism and Socialist Darwinism in Germany: 1860-
1900', Rivista diFilosofia, 73(1982), 79-121.
19
For a discussion of German liberalism in the context of social theory, see W. D. Smith,
Politics and the Science of Culture in Germany, 1840-1920 (Oxford University Press,
1991). There is an illuminating discussion of the different political contexts of
Darwinism in Britain and Germany in Weindling, Darwinism and Social Darwinism,
chap.1.
20
Kelly, The Descent of Darwin, 25, describes The History of Creation (1868) as the chief
source for Darwinism in Germany until 1900, by which time it had gone through nine
editions. Another book, The Riddle of the Universe (1899) was translated into twenty
languages and by 1914 had sold over 300,000 copies in Germany alone. See H.-G.
Zmarlik, 'Social Darwinism in Germany Seen as a Historical Problem', in H. Holborn,
ed., Republic to Reich: The Making of the Nazi Revolution, tr. R. Manheim (New York:
Pantheon, 1972), 452.
21
D. Gasman, The Scientific Origins of National Socialism (London: Macdonald, 1970);
J. Moore, 'Varieties of Social Darwinism'; G. J. Stein, 'Biological Science and the
Roots of Nazism', American Scientist, 76(1988), 50-8; Lerner, Final Solutions, chap. 2.
treating his ideas as a 'theoretical rehearsal for Nazism5, and instead
located the German populariser within a secular and rationalist critical
tradition.22 The following account is not directly concerned with the
relationship between HaeckePs ideas and those of National Socialism,
but in evaluating the extent to which his ideas can be legitimately
described as Social Darwinist it is possible to arrive at an assessment of
their ideological import.
Haeckel perceived a close relationship between philosophy and
science. For him, the former was a synthesising activity which inter-
preted the results of science and coordinated all knowledge into 'one
grand and harmonious whole'. 23 HaeckePs own philosophical system
was 'monism', which asserted 'the unity of all nature, the animating of
all matter, the inseparability of mental power and corporeal substance'.
Monism repudiated supernatural or teleological explanations on the
grounds that 'all phenomena are due solely to mechanical or efficient
causes .. .' 24 Nature in its entirety must be approached from the
standpoint of a unified descriptive and explanatory framework.
The framework in question was evolution. Organisms, arising from
inorganic matter by 'spontaneous generation', underwent a continuous
process of diversification and perfection. This was the 'law of progressive
development', according to which species were modified over time to
produce new species. Evidence for this development and the descent of
all living beings from earlier life-forms was furnished by embryology:
'The history of the foetus is a recapitulation of the human race.' This
was encapsulated in HaeckePs famous Biogenetic Law to the effect that
ontogeny recapitulated philogeny.25
Haeckel was a devotee of the principle of the inheritance of acquired
characters, dismissing Weismann's theory of the germ-plasm as mere
metaphysical speculation. In this he considered himself to be faithful to
the heritage of Lamarck and Darwin, insisting that the transmission of
acquired characters was attested to by an enormous body of evidence
and was 'an indispensable foundation of the theory of evolution'.26
Darwin's specific contribution to evolutionary science was his theory of
natural selection. The Englishman's meticulous marshalling of evidence
revealed the struggle for life to be the impersonal regulator of the
22
Kelly, Descent of Darwin, 8, 101, 114. Kelly maintains (113) that any hints of Social
Darwinism in Haeckel's popular writings 'are minor asides and do not affect the general
tone or substance of his work'.
23
Haeckel, Freedom in Science and Teaching (no tr.) (London: Kegan Paul, 1879), 79;
History of Creation, II, 349.
24
Haeckel, History of Creation, I, 22; Haeckel, The Evolution of Man, tr. J. M c C a b e , 2 vols.
(London: Watts, 1910), II, 748.
25 26
Haeckel, Evolution of Man, I, 4. Ibid., II, 736.
'reciprocal action of heredity and adaptation in the gradual transforma-
tion of species'. Nature did not unfold in accordance with God's design,
for its changes were 'merely the inevitable outcome of the struggle for
existence, the blind controller .. ,' 27 Haeckel preferred the expression
'competition for the means of subsistence' to 'struggle for existence',28
but his portrayal of this process was graphic and he was uncompromising
in the inferences he drew from its universality. The objective contempla-
tion of nature, he argued, gave no warrant for any belief in peaceful
coexistence:
We shall ratherfindeverywhere a pitiless, most embittered Struggle of All against
All, Nowhere in nature, no matter where we turn our eyes, does that idyllic
peace, celebrated by the poets, exist; wefindeverywhere a struggle and a striving
to annihilate neighbours and competitors. Passion and selfishness - conscious or
unconscious - is everywhere the motive force of life ... 29 Man in this respect
certainly forms no exception to the rest of the animal world.
There was no justification for crediting nature with a moral order. 'We
can only see a "moral order" and "design" in it when we ignore the
triumph of immoral force and the aimless features of the organism.
Might goes before right as long as organic life exists.'30 Yet it was
through this 'purposeless drama' that progress occurred. The struggle
for existence, particularly among organisms closely resembling one
another, engendered adaptive pressures which induced specialisation,
diversification and perfection. These benefits were equally apparent in
the free competition of labourers: 'The greater or more general the
competition, the more quickly improvements are made in the branch of
labour, and the higher is the grade of perfection of the labourers
themselves.'31 Haeckel was somewhat vague, however, on why this
struggle took place, and did not deduce its necessity from the ratio
between population growth and resources. The competition for the
means of subsistence appears as an existential datum, an inescapable
feature of nature and of society.32
Haeckel tirelessly reminded his readers that human beings were
governed by the same laws that ruled the rest of the natural order. He
castigated the anthropocentric claim that man was the centre of the
universe, insisting that 'as our mother-earth is a mere speck in the
sunbeam of the illimitable universe, so man himself is but a grain of
27
Haeckel, The Riddle of the Universe, tr. J. McCabe (London: Watts, 1900), 269, 275.
28 29
Haeckel, History of Creation, I, 161. Ibid., I, 19-20, original emphasis.
30 31
Haeckel, Evolution of Man, I, 72. Haeckel, History of Creation, I, 164.
32
Such is also the case with a popular account of human evolution published by Haeckel's
disciple, Boelsche, which omits any mention of population in its discussion of natural
selection. Cf. W. Boelsche, The Descent of Man (no. tr.) (London: Simpkin, Marshall,
1926), 8 6 - 9 1 .
protoplasm in the perishable framework of organic nature'. 33 Because
humans were merely highly developed vertebrates, all of their character-
istics were prefigured in the animal kingdom. Indeed, it was apparent in
the ontogenesis of each individual that the first few weeks in the womb
recapitulated a genealogy reaching beyond our vertebrate ancestry to
even more primitive life-forms.34 In order to combat Christian pride in
the uniqueness of humanity - which he saw as an obstacle to scientific
progress - Haeckel was particularly fond of stressing the continuity
between humans and the primates. Every organ in the human body had
been inherited from the apes, and the same was true of mental faculties,
with the differences between man and the apes being quantitative rather
than qualitative in nature. Even the maternal instinct stemmed from 'the
instinct which is found in its extreme form in the exaggerated tenderness
of the mother-ape'. Neither speech nor reason could be legitimately
regarded as the exclusive prerogative of man, while social duties 'are
merely higher evolutionary stages of the social instincts which we find in
all social animals .. .' 35
Haeckel's insistence on human subordination to the empire of natural
laws often assumed the form of biological reductionism. For example,
he claimed: 'We can only arrive at a correct knowledge of the social
body, the State, through a scientific knowledge of the structure and life
of the individuals who compose it, and the cells of which they are in turn
composed.'36 Likewise, he referred to social phenomena as the outcome
of the laws of inheritance, adaptation and natural selection, from which
had evolved the social division of labour, just as specialisation and
differentiation had occurred in plants and animals. In fact, it was
precisely due to the operation of these laws that progress was made
possible, that 'the history of man is the history of his progressive
development*.37 The struggle for existence was very much a feature of this
development. 'The ferocious conflict of interests in human society',
observed Haeckel, 'is only a feeble image of the existence of the combat,
incessant and cruel, which reigns throughout the living world.' 38 He
concluded that the 'whole history of nations, or what is called "Universal
History", must therefore be explicable by means of "natural selection" -
33
Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, 15. Cf. Haeckel, History of Creation, II, 264.
34
Haeckel, History of Creation, I, 170; Haeckel, Evolution of Man, II, 4 0 4 .
35
Haeckel, Evolution of Man, II, 738; Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, 5 1 , 128, 359. There
are similarities here with Darwin's comparison between humans and apes. See
D e s m o n d and Moore, Darwin, 2 4 4 .
36
Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, 8.
37
Haeckel, History of Creation, I, 2 7 1 - 9 , 2 8 2 , original emphasis.
38
Haeckel, Le Monisme: lien entre la religion et la science, tr. G. Vacher de Lapouge (Paris:
Schleicher, 1902), 33.
must be a physico-chemical process, depending on the action of
Adaptation and Inheritance in the struggle for life. And this is actually
the case.'39 Thus the fate of nations and races 'is determined by the
same "eternal laws of iron" as the history of the whole organic world',
while the destiny of individuals was likewise governed 'with an iron
necessity' by mechanical causes.40 These facts occasionally prompted
Haeckel to deny the existence of free will: 'The will of the animal, as well
as that of man, is never free.' This assertion, made in Haeckel's first
popular book, was repeated over three decades later: 'The human will
has no more freedom than that of the higher animals, from which it
differs only in degree, not in kind.'41 There is a tension at the heart of
Haeckel's system between this reductionism and determinism on the
one hand, and his commitment to ethical values and ideals on the other.
This commitment was plainly articulated in Haeckel's insistence that
scientific materialism did not imply ethical materialism, which he
rejected for its ascription of no other motive to human conduct than
sensory gratification and for ignoring the role of ethical forces in human
conduct.42
Before examining the ideological implications of Haeckel's Darwin-
ismus, it is pertinent to underline the fact that Haeckel quite clearly was a
Social Darwinist. All the components of the Darwinian world view were
articulated in his writings and their relevance to the study of humans
steadfastly maintained. Haeckel also went further than merely proposing
the relevance of Darwinism to the study of humans, by insisting that
nature supplied humans with a model capable of guiding moral and
political actions. Although he described natural selection as a 'blind
controller', Haeckel did not perceive history as a dimension of chance
and accident or the future as unpredictable. Despite his objections to
arguments from design and Creation, he still perceived the existence of
an order in nature and advocated 'a complete and honest return to
Nature and to natural relations'. The order in question consisted of
biological laws and people must recognise their subjection to these laws
and the need to live in conformity with them. This recognition would
facilitate the rearrangement of social institutions such as the family and
the state 'not according to the laws of distant centuries, but according to
the rational principles deduced from knowledge of nature. Politics,
morals, and the principles of justice, which are still drawn from all
possible sources, will have to be formed in accordance with natural laws
only.'43
39 40
Haeckel, History of Creation, I, 170. Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, 277-8.
41
Haeckel, History of Creation, I, 237; Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, 133.
42 43
Haeckel, History of Creation, I, 36-7. Ibid., II, 368.
Haeckel was not only a highly influential populariser of Social
Darwinism, but wrote at a time when the application of Darwinism to
psychological and social phenomena was still in its infancy. Further-
more, although Haeckel once warned of the dangers inherent in the
unqualified transfer of scientific theories to the political domain, and
described his own occasional ventures in this area as of 'no objective
value',44 he was a vigorous polemicist on behalf of secularism and
educational reform, in addition to other causes. As he pointed out in the
very text in which he made this disclaimer: 'Every great and comprehen-
sive theory which affects the foundations of human science, and which,
consequently, influences the systems of philosophy, will, in the first
place not only further our theoretical view of the universe, but will also
react on practical philosophy, ethics, and the correlated provinces of
religion and politics.'45 It is precisely Haeckel's adventures in these
'correlated provinces' which are the basis of controversies over the
ideological import of his ideas. What was this ideological import, and
how did it relate to Haeckel's Social Darwinism?
Darwinismus, inequality and religion

One of the documents invariably cited in any discussion of Haeckel's
ideology is his response to an accusation made by the eminent German
cytologist and liberal politician, Rudolf Virchow, to the effect that
Darwinism implied socialism and was therefore politically subversive.
To this charge Haeckel's riposte was that socialism and Darwinism were
'about as compatible as fire and water'. The equality of rights, duties
and possessions advocated by socialism was invalidated by biology,
which demonstrated how 'in the constitutionally organised communities
of men, as of the lower animals, neither rights nor duties, neither
possessions nor enjoyments have ever been equal for all the members
alike, nor ever can be'. The more complex and highly organised a
society became, the more pronounced was the division of labour,
producing a variety of tasks, with concomitant discrepancies in the skills
required of, and the rewards commanded by, the individuals who
performed them. Such facts rendered socialist egalitarianism 'a fathom-
less absurdity'.46 Any political tendency to be inferred from Darwinism
- 'as is, no doubt, possible' - was unlikely to accord with the doctrine of
equality:
The cruel and merciless struggle for existence which rages throughout all living
nature, and in the course of nature must rage, this unceasing and inexorable
44 45 46
Haeckel, Freedom in Science, 94-5. Ibid., 88. Ibid., 90-2.
competition of all living creatures, is an incontestable fact; only the picked
minority of the qualified 'fittest' is in a position to resist it successfully, while the
great majority of the competitors must necessarily perish miserably ... The
selection, the picking out of these 'chosen ones', is inevitably connected with the
arrest and destruction of the remaining majority At any rate, this principle of
selection is nothing less than democratic, on the contrary, it is aristocratic in the
strictest sense of the word.47
Some commentators have seen these remarks as typifying Haeckel's
elitism and authoritarianism; for others, they were delivered during the
heat of a polemical exchange and should not be taken too seriously.48 By
relating these comments to Haeckel's overall philosophical and ideo-
logical system rather than considering them in isolation, it is possible to
evaluate their significance.
The first point to note is that the anti-democratic and anti-socialist
features of this statement were not ad hoc but belonged to a series of
arguments about the general impact of differentiation and selection on
all social organisms, including humans, and I have already shown how
such arguments were integral to Haeckel's evolutionary philosophy.
Second, anti-egalitarian assertions appear throughout Haeckel's
writings. The History of Creation, his first popular book, emphasised
individual inequalities and posited a law 'that all organic individuals
from the commencement of their individual existence are unequal,
though often very much alike'. These original differences became
exacerbated during the life-cycle due to adaptation, and acquired
differences were then transmitted to the individual's progeny, thus
producing progressively greater degrees of differentiation through time.
This was why the members of the 'lowest tribes' were so much alike that
they could scarcely be distinguished, in contrast to the highly individ-
uated appearances of the English and Germans. 49
As this last statement suggests, the dynamics of evolution created
inequalities between races as well as within societies. Haeckel divided
humanity into twelve species and thirty-six races on the basis of
differences in speech and hair-type, which he regarded as the most
reliable indices of race. These species and races could be arranged in a
hierarchy according to their degree of proximity to the apes. The most
primitive peoples were almost indistinguishable from the latter, eating
wild fruit and living in herds containing no trace of marriage and family
life which, to Haeckel, were the building blocks of civilisation. He
47
Ibid., 93, original emphasis.
48
Bannister (Social Darwinism, 267) claims Haeckel made these statements tongue in
cheek.
49
Haeckel, History of Creation, I, 228, 232, 281.
affirmed that all 'woolly-haired' peoples 'are on the whole at a much
lower stage of development, and more like apes' than straight-haired
races. The former were 'incapable of a true inner culture and a higher
mental development' even when they inhabited a civilised milieu like the
USA. The Mediterranean species, in contrast, had always been the most
physically and mentally advanced type, and, with the exception of the
Mongolians, the only one with a history and a civilisation. The English
and Germans were the best representatives of this species, and were
laying the basis for a new era of even higher mental development.50 His
views on inequality were summed up as follows: 'The most primitive
races, such as the Veddahs of Ceylon, or the Australian natives, are very
little above the mental life of the anthropoid apes. From the highest
savages we pass by a complete gradation of stages to the most civilised
races. But what a gulf there is, even here, between the genius of a
Goethe, a Darwin, or a Lamarck, and an ordinary philistine or a third-
rate official.'51
Haeckel believed racial inequalities to be biologically determined, and
he denied any possibility of reducing them through education or other
'artificial methods'. It was futile to try and civilise the lower races
because the necessary precondition for human culture, 'the perfecting of
the brain', had not taken place; any contact with civilisation accelerated
their extinction rather than their improvement. Haeckel was adamant
that all the inferior races 'will sooner or later completely succumb in the
struggle for existence to the superiority of the Mediterranean races'. 52
While the Europeans were destined to spread across the globe, the lower
races were doomed to perish. 'Even if these races were to propagate
more abundantly than the white Europeans', proclaimed Haeckel, 'yet
they would sooner or later succumb to the latter in the struggle for
life.'53
The anti-egalitarian sentiments expressed in Haeckel's defence of
Darwinism against the charge of socialism were not, therefore, off-the-
cuff remarks but part of a system of beliefs about the unequal value of
human beings brought about by the operation of biological laws. Closely
connected to these beliefs were others that anticipated the eugenic
programmes of some later Social Darwinists. Haeckel approved of the
elimination of weak and sickly infants among the ancient Spartans and
the American Indians, and lamented the preservation of inferior babies
at the expense of strong and healthy children in modern states. He
50
Ibid., II, 303-10, 3 2 1 - 3 , 332.
51
Haeckel, Last Words on Evolution: A Popular Retrospect and Summary, tr. J. McCabe
(London: Owen, 1906), 1 0 0 - 1 .
52 53
Haeckel, History of Creation, II, 3 6 3 , 325. Ibid., I, 256.
accused militarists of proposing to squander the best of the younger
generation in needless wars, leaving the unfit and infirm safe at home to
breed, thus perpetuating their disabilities and diluting the biological
value of the population. This value was additionally under threat from
medical practitioners who kept alive the chronically sick and insane long
enough for them to reproduce, and by a judicial failure to make adequate
use of the death penalty. The latter sanction was required not just in the
interests of justice, but for 'weeding out' incorrigible criminals among
the population. This weeding process eased the struggle for existence
among 'the better portion of mankind' and prevented the transmission
of criminality to the offspring of these 'degenerate outcasts'. He warned
that these examples of 'artificial selection' were responsible for the
currently poor mental and physical condition of most individuals and
the scarcity of healthy and 'free and independent spirits'. 54
In spite of these degenerative tendencies, Haeckel remained confident
that their effects would ultimately be counteracted by the irresistible
action of natural selection in maintaining and enhancing the progress of
civilisation:
The result of the struggle for life is that, in the long run, that which is better,
because more perfect, conquers that which is weaker and more imperfect. In
human life, however, this struggle for life will ever become more and more of an
intellectual struggle, not a struggle with weapons of murder. The organ which,
above all others, in man becomes more perfect by the ennobling influence of
natural selection is the brain. The man with the most perfect understanding, not
the man with the best revolver, will in the long run be victorious; he will transmit
to his descendants the qualities of the brain which assisted him in the victory.
Thus then we may justly hope, in spite of all the efforts of the retrograde forces,
that the progress of mankind towards freedom, and thus to the utmost
perfection, will, by the happy influence of natural selection, become more and
more certain.55
Haeckel's disparaging assessment of the intellectual capabilities of
non-whites and his dismissal of their cultures, his attitude to the sick and
the insane and his desire to weed out criminals, appear to lend credence
to the thesis of his complicity in the elaboration of a proto-Nazi ideology.
The fact is, as will become only too evident in subsequent chapters,
these ideas were quite unexceptional by the standards of the time and
were widespread throughout European and American society. We have
already encountered similar notions in the work of Darwin, Spencer,
Royer and Sumner, who were all liberals. Furthermore, Haeckel, like
these thinkers, was equally ready to utilise Social Darwinism to attack
established institutions and traditions as well as to uphold existing
54 55
Ibid., I, 170-1, 173-4, 172. Ibid., I, 174, original emphasis.
conventions and values. He bemoaned the lack of biological and
anthropological training among judges and politicians, which he held
responsible for their numerous blunders and inadequacies. He derided
the political and cultural pretensions of the hereditary nobility, whose
inbreeding, aloofness and 'unnatural' education he despised. He was
critical of conservative governments and political reactionaries in
Germany who aligned themselves with repressive clerical forces in order
to curtail the spread of science and enlightenment and stifle academic
freedom.56 Above all, Haeckel condemned the prevailing German
educational system for its excessive focus on the classics and religious
indoctrination at the expense of science. I f the modern state gives every
citizen a vote', reasoned Haeckel, 'it should also give him the means of
developing his reason by a proper education, in order to make a rational
use of his vote for the common weal.' 57
What connected these disparate themes in Haeckel's discourse was
their location within an allegedly scientific account of the world and of
human nature. For him these political positions were matters of fact and
reason, not of faith or Utopian idealism. The main obstacles to the public
recognition of this were the Church (especially the Roman Catholic
Church) and Christianity in general. They represented rival systems of
knowledge and thus were the prime targets of his polemical use of Social
Darwinism. Haeckel insisted that all public issues were secondary to the
question of the relationship between the state and organised religion:
'Whether a Monarchy or Republic be preferable, whether the constitu-
tion should be aristocratic or democratic, are subordinate questions in
comparison with the supreme question: Shall the modern civilised state
be spiritual or secular?'58 It is worth exploring Haeckel's anti-clericalism
in more detail, for it reveals the major ideological thrust of his writings
and illuminates the role played by Social Darwinism in his arguments.
Haeckel pronounced an irreconcilable antagonism between science
and religion: 'Where faith commences, science ends.' 59 This was
because they reposed upon incompatible claims to knowledge; respec-
tively, reason and revelation. Only knowledge of nature could constitute
genuine revelation, and this was founded on rational, scientific methods.
The obtuseness of religious authorities on the thesis of man's ape-like
ancestry was typical of the way in which religion impeded scientific
knowledge. In language reminiscent of that used by Huxley in his
famous encounter with Bishop Wilberforce, Haeckel declared it prefer-
56
Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, 6-9; Haeckel, History of Creation, I, 181; Haeckel, Last
Words, 102-3, 110.
57 58
Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, 372. Ibid., 9.
59
Haeckel, History of Creation, I, 9.
able to be the 'advanced offspring of a simian ancestor' who had evolved
through struggle 'than the degenerate descendant of a god-like being,
made from a clod, and fallen, for his sins, and an Eve created from one
of his ribs'.60 This led Haeckel into an often impassioned denunciation
of religious influences in German culture. He despised what he saw as
the narrow-mindedness and bigotry of German Catholicism and
excoriated the 'eel-like sophistry' of the Jesuits in the belief that 'the
charlatan of the Vatican is the deadly enemy of free science and free
teaching'. The practices of priestly celibacy, confession and the sale of
indulgences he stigmatised as immoral and/or prejudicial to family life.
Haeckel's most intemperate invective, however, was directed against the
Papacy, which he referred to as 'the greatest swindle the world has ever
submitted to', while its doctrines were 'an unscrupulous tissue of lying
and deceit' employed in the service of 'mental despotism and secular
power'.61
Haeckel's objections to religion went beyond Catholicism to the
fundamentals of Christianity itself. The truly valuable part of Christian
teaching - the Golden Rule to love one's neighbour - was as old as
civilisation and had its roots in the social practices of many animals. The
same was also true of the kernel of Christianity adopted by monism, i.e.
love, the equality of men before God, charitable conduct towards the
poor and the wretched, all of which were 'merely higher evolutionary
stages of the social instincts, which we find in all higher social
animals.. .' 62 Other features of Christianity were totally objectionable.
Its anthropocentrism encouraged a disdainful contempt towards the rest
of nature, whereas Darwinism, by demonstrating man's links with the
animals, taught us to regard the latter as our brothers, though Haeckel
evidently did not wish to extend this fraternity to the 'lower' races.
Christ reinforced the Asian undervaluation of women who were
stigmatised as unclean, whereas in reality 'men and women are two
different organisms, equal in worth, each having its characteristic virtues
and defects'. Even the injunction to love one's neighbour was exagger-
ated by Christians to the detriment of egoism, a vital factor in self-
preservation and creativity in the advance of civilisation. Its extension to
one's enemies was downright unnatural, implying that the theft of a
German colony by the English should be met by the renunciation of the
remainder of Germany's overseas possessions. 63 Finally, to this cata-
logue of sins must be added the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
60
Haeckel, Evolution of Man, II, 7 4 2 .
61
Haeckel, Last Words, 4 3 , 4 7 , 106, 125; Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, 3 3 3 .
62
Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, 3 5 8 - 6 0 , 3 5 9 . See also Haeckel, Freedom in Science, 9 6 .
63
Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, 3 6 1 - 6 .
'Death puts an end, in man as in any other Vertebrate, to the
physiological function of the cerebral neurone, the countless micro-
scopic ganglionic cells, the collective activity of which is known as the
"soul".' 64
Convicted of so many egregious violations of the discoveries of
evolutionary science, Christianity had to be replaced by a new religion:
monism. This was pantheistic, upholding the existence of an impersonal
God resident in every atom.65 Haeckel often waxed lyrical on the
religious dimension of monism: "The will of God is at work in every
falling drop of rain and every growing crystal, in the scent of the rose and
the spirit of man.'66 God and the world were one, since God was
equivalent to nature or substance, which meant that, as far as Haeckel
was concerned 'pantheism is the world system of the modern scientist'.61
Haeckel's professed scientific materialism was juxtaposed with a mystical
adulation of nature derived from the influence of German Naturphiloso-
phie on his thought.68 But Haeckel quite plainly regarded monism and
Christianity as competing belief-systems, equally comprehensive in
scope but based upon incompatible knowledge claims, and Social
Darwinism was central to his attempt to buttress the authority of the
former and undermine that of the latter.
Haeckel's Social Darwinism, therefore, acted as a comprehensive
framework within which the mysteries of nature and society could be
investigated. Contemporary German society might be conflictual and
fragmented, but political difficulties, like scientific problems, were
resolvable through the application of reason and science and by the
realisation of a philosophical project which revealed the interconnection
of all these different areas and their governance by universal laws of
nature.
Haeckel's personal political trajectory mirrored the development of
German liberalism in general, which had lost its revolutionary and
emancipatory character by the end of the nineteenth century and
assumed a more stridently nationalist and authoritarian posture.69
Notwithstanding his polemics against the establishment and Prussian
militarism, Haeckel admired the authoritarian Bismarck as a 'great
64 65
Haeckel, Evolution of Man, II, 578. Haeckel, LeMonisme, 3 4 - 5 .
66
Haeckel, Last Words, 112.
67
Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, 296, original emphasis.
68
For the impact of Naturphilosophie on Haeckel, see Gasman, Scientific Origins, xvii-xx;
Kelly, Descent of Darwin, 24, 28.
69
There are excellent assessments of the influence and political direction of Haeckel's
work in P. Corsi and P. Weindling, 'Darwinism in Germany, France and Italy', in
Kohn, Darwinian Heritage, 6 8 5 - 9 8 , and Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics
Between Unification and Nazism, 1870-1945 (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 4 0 - 8 .
statesman'.70 Becoming disillusioned with Germany's political leader-
ship in his later years, he joined ultra-nationalist organisations such as
the Pan German League, which contributed to the political culture in
which National Socialism was spawned. As with German liberalism, too,
he upheld an organic rather than an atomistic conception of social
reality, believing that in complex systems the individual parts were, 'like
good citizens', subordinated to the welfare of the whole.71 All of these
features of his thought are commensurable with the content and
development of liberalism in Germany, and it is to this context that
Haeckel should be assigned rather than some form of proto-Nazism.
Haeckel directed his polemical energies and rhetorical skills primarily
against the opponents of evolutionism, secularisation and scientific
freedom. At the same time, the significance of his views on inequality,
race and eugenics should not be minimised. Their importance does not
consist in their links with Nazism, but rather in their wide acceptance
among the European and American intelligentsia. Haeckel's denigration
of 'lower races', paupers, criminals and people suffering from congenital
mental and physical illness did not differ from the views expressed by
Royer and Spencer. All thinkers buttressed these opinions with Social
Darwinism: but Haeckel's views surely derived an added authenticity
from his status as a gifted and eminent naturalist.
Conclusion
It is now appropriate to make some general observations about the
pioneering examples examined in the last four chapters. First, all of the
theorists examined so far made selection, adaptation and heredity
fundamental processes in their accounts of social and psychological
change. Competition was the cause of adaptation and eliminated the
unfit. It occurred both within and between societies, in peaceful and
violent manifestations, although the majority of thinkers upheld an
evolution of struggle itself, from warfare to industrial competition or the
selection of ideas. This proved to be a troublesome concept, however,
with Sumner and Fiske equivocating over the future of warfare, and
70
Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, 342. See Gasman, Scientific Origins, 128. For an analysis
of the Pan German League and its relationship to the German right, see G. Eley,
Reshaping the German Right (London: Yale University Press, 1980); R. Chickering, We
Men Who Feel Most German (London: Allen and Unwin, 1984).
71
Haeckel, Freedom in Science, 58. On this aspect of Haeckel's thought, see P. Weindling,
'Theories of the Cell State in Imperial Germany', in C. Webster, ed., Biology, Medicine
and Society 1840-1940 (Cambridge University Press, 1981), 119. On the coexistence of
individualism and collectivism in German liberalism, see Weikart, 'The Origins of
Social Darwinism in Germany', 471.
Royer and Haeckel approving of bellicose relationships between races at
different stages of evolution. The overwhelming tendency was to depict
the struggle for existence as taking place between individuals and
groups, although the German geologist Rolle focused almost exclusively
on the latter, while Brace focused on the former. An important
consequence of this treatment of competition was that social conflict (at
least in certain guises) could be presented, not as a symptom of social
instability and decline, but as the motor of progress.
Progress was a second salient feature of these pioneering efforts,
although here Sumner would constitute an exception. This does not
mean that these theorists were oblivious to the possibility of stagnation
or even regression. Even Spencer, who is normally perceived as an
unwavering apostle of progress, was fully aware of these possibilities.72
With this qualification in mind, it is still true that evolution was on the
whole progressive and humanity was the highest point of development.
Regression was always possible and vigilance was required to ensure that
the laws of nature were not infringed by ignorant politicians and
reformers. In addition, even the most advanced societies contained
survivals from previous evolutionary phases which were responsible for
social pathologies. But all thinkers seemed confident that Western
civilisation would continue to advance in the future.
A third facet of these pioneering theorists was their deterministic
conception of natural law. None adopted Peirce's probabilistic represen-
tation of natural selection except James, and even he failed to do so
consistently in his text on psychology. Dewey's characterisation of
eighteenth-century social thought is thus equally applicable to the
theories studied so far: 'Change was working on the side of man but only
because of fixed laws which governed the changes that take place. There
was hope in change just because the laws that govern it do not change.
The locus of the immutable was shifted to scientific natural law .. ,' 73
This made for excellent rhetoric when attacking misguided policies but
was inherently problematic, as we have seen, when a theorist came to
make positive policy proposals, some of which implied the emancipation
of humanity from the inexorability of natural laws.
Fourth, the theorists so far studied upheld biological reductionism to
varying degrees. Culture certainly acted as an environment to which
individuals must adapt, but usually successful adaptations became
hereditary. This position possessed considerable rhetorical potential for
72
R. N y e , 'Sociology and Degeneration: T h e Irony of Progress', in Chamberlin and
Gilman, eds., Degeneration, 5 5 - 9 .
73
J. D e w e y , 'Time and Individuality', in John Dewey: The Essential Writings, ed.
D . Sidorsky ( N e w York: Harper Torchbooks, 1977), 136, original emphasis.
the defence of inequalities or for denigrating attempts at social
engineering, but encountered difficulties if the theorists wished to
modify behaviour or institutions, which, since they were predominantly
liberal in outlook, they sometimes wished to do. As we noted with Royer
and her stance on the subordination of women, this required recourse to
cultural rather than biological explanations. More generally, theorists
elaborated a notion of 'social selection', describing social practices and
values which had a selective impact upon members of society. Some-
times social selection worked in conjunction with its natural counterpart;
more often it was perceived to run counter to the requirements of the
'natural order'. This argumentation was discernible in Darwin's Descent
and was evident in the work of Spencer, Royer, Lombroso, Haeckel and
Sumner and assumed considerable importance in later Social Darwinist
theories, as we shall see. Social selection represents social processes
which, particularly if opposed to the workings of natural selection, are
very powerful. Their existence poses problems for biological deter-
minism - how are they to be explained? - as well as to the health and
potential survival of the societies in which they occur. Thus nature
provided the social scientist with a means of explaining the structures
and dynamics of social systems, but it also acted as a normative reference
point, an ideal to be emulated, when these systems were threatened by
'unnatural' cultural forces.
Fifth, there emerges from Social Darwinist discourse a rather
nebulous but ubiquitous category: the 'unfit'. It includes the indigent,
the sick, criminals, the urban underclass and varying ethnic and racial
groups. This category is not an artefact of Social Darwinism but derives
from social and political values and prejudices that pre-exist the world
view. Nor is the substitutability of these groups, i.e. the extent to which
the description of one can be transferred to another, a product of Social
Darwinism. Race, class and, as we shall see, sometimes gender as well,
furnished a reservoir of interchangeable judgements, concepts and
metaphors. What Social Darwinists did was locate these judgements,
concepts and metaphors within an evolutionary continuum which
explained, through selection and heredity, why the persons to whom
they were applied were losers in the battle for life. In this way, not only
the categorisation, but also the treatment of these persons was validated
by science.
Sixth, the ideological orientation of pioneering Social Darwinism was
overwhelmingly liberal when due consideration is given to the differing
national connotations of this term. 74 Early European Social Darwinists,
74
These connotations are explored in detail by Bellamy in Liberalism and Modern Society.
therefore, were never conservative in the sense that they were uncritical
champions of the status quo. like all liberals, they faced a double
challenge from the entrenched forces of reaction and the reformist and
sometimes revolutionary demands of the underprivileged. That is why
their arguments sometimes appear as emancipatory (e.g. when opposing
militarism, clericalism and aristocratic privilege), sometimes as con-
servative (e.g. when opposing welfare legislation). The United States
lacked a feudal legacy and hence this Janus-faced aspect of liberalism is
less evident there. But the liberal orientation of American Social
Darwinists seems quite evident. Sumner, though a vociferous opponent
of increased democratisation and welfare schemes, was an equally
pungent critic of plutocracy and a supporter of trade unions. Brace, one
of the earliest pioneers in the use of Social Darwinism, held progressive
views on race and devoted his life to improving the conditions and
educating the minds of the 'dangerous classes'. One major difference
between European and American Social Darwinists, however, concerns
religion. Spencer, Huxley, Biichner, Haeckel and Royer were ardently
anti-clerical in sentiment, whereas Americans like Brace, Fiske and
James perceived Darwinism and religion to be commensurable. A liberal
disposition, then, provides no basis for inferring a thinker's position on
specific issues: Spencer opposed imperialism, Royer endorsed colonial
expansion.
The pioneers discussed so far disseminated the world view and
explored some of its social implications. Their efforts are instructive
because they highlight problems implicit in the world view which were to
figure markedly in the subsequent history of Social Darwinism. But this
history is one in which the world view was to be enlisted in other causes,
some of which were antithetical to the liberal values endorsed by the
majority of the pioneers.
Part III
Case studies
Reform Darwinism
Introduction
There is a sense in which many of the theorists discussed thus far could
be regarded as 'reform Darwinists'. A. R. Wallace was a socialist;
Lombroso, Brace, Haeckel, Royer and Biichner advocated considerable
social and political change; and even Spencer and Sumner could be
highly critical of contemporary values and institutions. With the
extension of democracy during the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, though, there came an intensification of debates over universal
suffrage, equality, the emancipation of women, welfare provision and
international fraternity. Darwinism was enlisted by protagonists on all
sides of these debates: the concern of this chapter is with theorists
supportive of socio-political change in the direction of greater equality,
public welfare, and democracy. They ranged from Marxist revolution-
aries through to democratic socialists and 'New Liberals' - all sharing a
commitment to the use of state power in order to achieve their goals -
but also included anarchists desirous of radical change but opposed to
the state in any form.
The purpose of this examination is two-fold. The first is to argue that
although there was a genre of reformist and socialist Darwinism, some of
what has been subsumed under this label was actually opposed to
Darwinism as defined in this study. The second aim is to explore the
discursive limits of the world view. No matter how polysemous the
elements of Social Darwinism were, their integration into a systematic
whole acted as a constraint upon their appropriation by any and every
ideological and theoretical enterprise. We have already encountered
examples of how such constraints generated tensions within theories
which presented peaceful cooperation as an ultimate social objective.
The investigation of reform Darwinism allows for a richer analysis of
such constraints and tensions.
151
Socialism and Darwinism

One association in need of clarification is the relationship between
Darwinism and the theories of Marx and Engels. Karl Marx (1818-83)
and Frederick Engels (1820-95) were both of the opinion that Darwin's
theory of evolution was a major scientific achievement. In his speech at
the graveside of Marx in 1883, Engels asserted: 'Just as Darwin
discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx dis-
covered the law of development of human history . . . j l This admiration
aside, Marx and Engels did not perceive the struggle for existence
replicated in social relations in the guise of class conflict. The remainder
of Engels' graveside peroration made plain that the law of social
development accredited to Marx was the latter's theory of the produc-
tion of material necessities as the foundation of social relations, and the
theory of surplus value as the 'law of motion' specific to the capitalist
mode of production.2
The fathers of revolutionary socialism were acutely aware of the reality
of the struggle for existence in contemporary society; but for Marx and
Engels this struggle, far from being an inescapable feature of the human
condition, was determined by socio-historical conditions. The capitalist
mode of production generated competition which became intensified
and universalised through the expansion of modern industry and the
creation of world markets. Engels described this situation as 'the
Darwinian struggle of the individual for existence transferred from
Nature to society with intensified violence'.3 But the prevalence and
virulence of the struggle for life in capitalism was caused by the capitalist
mode of production and would be transcended with the overthrow of
capitalism and the establishment of socialism.
This raises an important point about the discursive limits of Social
Darwinism. Resort to Darwinism would hardly constitute an acceptable
methodological tactic for theorists who wished to construct a science of
society with its own principles of explanation. Marx and Engels believed
1
K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1968), 435.
Engels celebrated Darwin's achievements in biology on several occasions, e.g.
'Introduction' to The Dialectics of Nature (1875—6), in Marx and Engels, Selected Works,
350; The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), Selected Works, 465;
'Ludwig Fuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy' (1886), Selected
Works, 621.
2
For discussions of the relationship between Marx and Engels and Darwinism, see G.
Runkle, 'Marxism and Charles Darwin', Journal of Politics, 23(1961), 108-26; Jones,
Social Darwinism, 63-9. There is also a detailed discussion of Engels' later writings and
their relation to Darwinism in Benton, 'Social Darwinism and Socialist Darwinism in
Germany', 110-20.
3
Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880), Selected Works, 423.
Reform Darwinism 153
their socialism was scientific, not because it borrowed the principles and
explanations of the natural sciences, but because, like these sciences, it
established general laws from the analysis of the relevant data. In human
history the most important data consisted in the relationships of produc-
tion and exchange arising from the necessity for people to provide the
material conditions of their existence. The study of these relationships
revealed the laws governing social change in general as well as those
pertinent to specific modes of production.
Marxism expressed a world view very different to that of Social
Darwinism. Both aspired to an explanation of their subject matter by
general laws and rejected teleological and supernatural accounts, but
Marx and Engels were adamant that the laws relevant to the animal and
plant kingdoms were not pertinent to the study of human history. Social
structures, social transformations and human nature itself had to be
understood in the context of a materialist conception of social and
historical reality.4 Men made themselves, indirectly and - invariably -
unconsciously, through the activities and relationships involved in
producing their means of subsistence. From this 'first premise' of the
'materialist method' it followed that social phenomena were not to be
explained as the effects of universal features of human nature, nor as the
expression of biological laws. So Marx and Engels were implacably
hostile to Malthus and his theory of population. For them, population
increases could be accommodated by technological advances and
enhanced productivity; any struggle for existence was the outcome of the
exploitative class relationships characteristic of capitalism rather than the
manifestation of some putative universal 'natural' law.
In addition to its methodological incompatibility with Social Darwin-
ism, Marxism's vision of a future in which - with the socialisation of the
means of production, the eradication of classes and the withering away
of the state - social relationships would be more meaningfully and
harmoniously constituted, was very much at odds with the proclamation
of an ineluctable struggle for survival. Marx envisaged the possibility of
the creation of abundance and an end to the crippling constraints on
individual development imposed by the specialised division of labour.
Contrary to the views of many Social Darwinists (and social evolutionists
in general), Marx did not regard increasing specialisation as the
concomitant of an expansion of individuation and autonomy, but as
their nemesis. His speculations concerning the possibility of being
shepherd, hunter and critic while not exclusively occupying any of these
roles was a repudiation of the presumed correlation between specialisa-
4
For an elucidation of this position, see K. Marx, The German Ideology, Part I (London:
Lawrence and Wishart, 1970), 42.
tion and individual fulfilment. In its original formulation, Marxism,
whether conceived as a method of inquiry or as a social and political
ideology, was incommensurable with Social Darwinism.
However, as the history of Social Darwinism attests, originators of
ideas are unable to control the careers of their theories, and Marxism
was no exception in this respect. The theory itself contained a series of
indeterminacies providing ample opportunity for the formulation of
different, even antithetical, interpretations which, in turn, were trans-
lated into divergent political strategies. These included the viability of
and necessity for proletarian revolution; the role of conscious human
agency in historical change; and the nature and functions of the state in
capitalism. Even theorists claiming the mantle of orthodoxy had ample
scope for innovation; synthesising Marxism and Darwinism was one
such possibility.
One of the most influential of these syntheses was produced by
August Bebel (1840-1913), a founder of the German Social Democratic
Party. His Die Frau und der Sozialismus, which argued in favour of sexual
equality, first appeared in 1879 and had gone through fifty editions in
several languages by 1911.5 Bebel's position was that 'civilization is
governed by immanent laws; and it is the task of the historian to discover
these laws and under their guidance to shew how existing evils may be
removed, and conditions brought into harmony with nature' (57). The
laws in question were those of growth, heredity and adaptation (69). But
though he endorsed Darwinism, Bebel was condemnatory of the manner
in which this theory had been used by the bourgeoisie to legitimate anti-
egalitarian and reactionary policies, insisting that 'Darwinism, like every
real science, is eminently democratic . . . ' (127).
Bebel's response was to acknowledge both that the whole of nature
was governed by the struggle for existence and that this struggle was
currently fiercer than ever before in modern society, engulfing individ-
uals, classes and the sexes (156). But he was adamant that this was the
last great social struggle - one which would result in the realisation of
socialism. He reasoned that the struggle for existence could not be
automatically transferred to humanity because, unlike animals, people
were capable of thought and reason. As they evolved they became
increasingly influenced by rational considerations rather than by the
blind struggle for existence in which the stronger organisms supplanted
the weaker (127, 129, 253). With socialisation of the means of pro-
5
A. Bebel, Woman in the Past, Present and Future (London: Zwan, 1988). The original
1879 edition was followed by a new, improved edition in 1883. See the 'Introduction'
to the 1988 edition by M. Donald, i; Benton, 'Social Darwinism', 98; Weindling,
Healthy Race and German Politics, 94.
duction, the end of exploitation and poverty, and the realisation of
equality, human history would move on to a different plane in which
conflict and the desire for dominance would be eradicated from human
nature. The Malthusian thesis that struggle was endemic due to the
ever-present threat of over-population Bebel dismissed as true for
capitalism but not for socialism. The latter would be able to produce
more efficiently and make productive use of the vast tracts of wilderness
in the Americas and Africa (241, 248). Fecundity was regulated by
social conditions, which for Bebel proved that 'relationships of supre-
macy, character and bodily peculiarities of individuals as well as of
whole classes and nations depend primarily on the physical conditions of
existence, in other words, on the social and economic distribution of power'
(127, original emphasis). This environmentalist position was predicated
on the action of the inheritance of acquired characters as the principal
mechanism for producing and transmitting adaptive traits.
At the heart of Bebel's theory, however, there was an ambivalent
attitude to nature. Although arguing that reflexivity and rationality
separated humans from organic nature, rendering inadmissible the
transfer of the laws regulating the latter realm to the sphere of human
relations, Bebel sometimes advocated nature as a model for social
relationships. In fact, part of Bebel's indictment of the bourgeois social
and economic order was that it had deviated from the path of nature.
The innate desires of both sexes were suppressed and distorted resulting
in lunacy and suicide. 'Neither sex', he asserted, 'can overstep natural
boundaries, as it would destroy its proper purpose in doing so . . . '
(122). Modern society was responsible for a contradiction between
people as 'natural' and sexual beings on the one hand and their
membership of society on the other, thereby creating social and
psychological pathologies. It was because socialists looked to nature for
their model of a healthy social order that their theories were genuinely
scientific: 'Nature is everywhere our instructress, and if we abide by her
teaching, the final victory must be ours' (264). Bebel's text thus
contained a tension between the social and the biological, alternating
between interpreting social relationships as culturally determined on the
one hand, and seeing them as the outcome of the laws of struggle,
adaptation and inheritance on the other. In addition, it contained an
ambivalence over nature itself, vacillating between a vision of nature as
something to be overcome and as a model to be emulated. These
contradictory positions derived from Bebel's desire to integrate revolu-
tionary, egalitarian socialism with the Social Darwinist world view,
which required him to steer a difficult course between cultural and
biological modes of explanation. Like liberals who anticipated a future in
which cooperation and peace were the norm, socialists and other radicals
encountered difficulties with universal laws of struggle and survival of
the fittest when they attempted to specify their ideal socio-political
systems. Hence the shift between biological and cultural explanations
which marked the theory of Bebel and which we can expect to discern in
other socialists and reformists.
This expectation is confirmed in the work of Enrico Ferri (1856-
1929), an Italian criminologist and a deputy in the national parliament
between 1886 and 1924. Ferri was originally a Radical, converting to
socialism in 1893, although he subsequently supported Mussolini and
flirted with Fascism.6 In 1894 he published his influential Socialism and
Positive Science? in which he set himself the daunting task of synthesising
Marx, Spencer and Darwin (xi).
Ferri was particularly concerned to refute the charge made by Haeckel
and others that Darwinism was incommensurate with socialism. To do
this he employed a number of arguments. First, he acknowledged innate
inequalities between people (including 'natural' inequalities between the
sexes) that could not be eradicated by social reform. The goal of social-
ism was to equalise the conditions and opportunities for all individuals
and to prevent 'parasites' such as 'bankers and public speculators' from
living off the efforts of others. But people varied in their capabilities, and
socialists simply required that each should work according to his or her
ability. He used a biological analogy to justify this: 'In the biological
organism no living cell remains inactive, and it is only nourished by
mutual exchanges in proportion to its work; in the social organism no
individual ought to live without working, whatever may be the form of
his work' (15).
Second, Ferri agreed with his opponents 'that the struggle for
existence is a law inherent in humanity as in all living beings, although
its forms are continually changing and though it gets weaker' (25). This
proviso was crucial, for although the struggle 'tyrannically' regulated all
organisms and was a 'law inseparable from life', among humans it was
itself subject to an evolutionary transformation from its primitive violent
form to one in which intellectual rather than physical force was decisive.
'The successive changes in the extent, or the ideals of the struggle for
existence, are accompanied by a progressive mitigation of the methods
of the struggle; violent and muscular at first, they become more and
more peaceful and intellectual . . . ' (28). Despite occasional relapses,
this process of amelioration would continue, although Ferri acknowl-
6
Pick, Faces of Degeneration, 145-7.
7
Originally published in Rome in 1894. The edition I have used was translated from the
French edition of 1896 by E. Harvey (London: Independent Labour Party, 1905).
edged the continuation of the struggle for existence in some form,
however attenuated, under socialism.
Third, while Ferri equated the struggle for existence with class
struggles in societies, he drew attention to 'another law of natural and
social Darwinism' - that of mutual cooperation and solidarity, which
became 'progressively more efficacious in social evolution'. This was an
argument often deployed in the service of social and political reform,
and Ferri cited the work of one of its leading proponents, Peter
Kropotkin, who will be considered below. Ferri's view was that the law
of increasing social solidarity would become even more preponderant in
social evolution with the collectivisation of property and the elimination
of class exploitation and divisions (35-7).
Finally, Ferri insisted that 'fitness' was relative to the circumstances in
which organisms were placed. In modern societies, those who survived
did so in corrupted conditions which distorted the workings of natural
selection. Ferri attacked the dysgenic consequences of military conscrip-
tion and war as well as marriage conventions which enabled rich but
degenerate women to secure husbands while poor but robust females
had to choose between celibacy or prostitution. He criticised capitalism
as an economic system favouring the unscrupulous while condemning
the proletariat to debilitating working and living conditions. All this
would be rectified by socialism:
In freeing society of all the corruptions with which an unbridled economic

individualism pollutes it, socialism will necessarily correct the effects of natural
and social selection. In a society physically and morally healthy, the best
adapted, those who will consequently survive, will be healthy.
In the struggle for existence, victory will belong to him who possesses the
greatest and most fruitful physical and moral energies (44).
Socialism, declared Ferri, would only abolish the evils of the current
system, while preserving its real achievements in the arts, sciences and
technology, and in the cultivation of personal liberty. Everything, in
society as in nature, progressed through often imperceptible changes.
When evolution reached a certain threshold, then a revolution took
place which completed the process of transformation. Like Bernstein in
Germany and the Fabians in Britain, Ferri advocated the gradual
conquest of political power and the winning of concessions by the
proletariat, so that a point would be reached when the final socialist
'revolution' would be bloodless (120-4, 134-5).
Ferri's difficulty in accommodating revolutionary praxis to the notion
of the gradual processes of evolutionary change prompted him to opt for
a reformist and democratic brand of socialism. But Ferri conceded a
great deal to hereditarian thinking in his views on women, inequality and
criminality, blurring the boundaries between sociological and biological
explanations in a way which compromised the coherence of his theory of
social change. For example, he defended the concept of the 'born
criminal', arguing that while socialism would eliminate crimes caused by
miserable social conditions and poverty, it would be unable to eradicate
those deriving from the abnormal organic constitution of the criminal.
Thus 'what will not disappear are outrages on chastity through sexual
pathological inversion, murders committed by epileptics, robberies
caused by psycho-pathological degeneracy, etc' (33). 8 His debt to
biological determinism was equally evident in the thesis that mutual aid
and cooperation were laws of nature. As with Bebel, explanation shifted
from biological to sociological causes and back again without any
theoretical rationale for the change, although there was, of course, a
transparent ideological reason for the shift. But Fern's text attests to the
hold of biological and hereditarian thinking on socialist intellectuals.
This hold is graphically illustrated by a very different synthesis of
socialism and Darwinism undertaken by the German, Ludwig Wolt-
mann (1871-1907), a holder of doctorates in philosophy and medicine
and a Social Democratic Party activist during the 1890s. 9 Woltmann
eschewed revolution in favour of the gradual evolution of socialism
advocated by his compatriot Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932) in the
latter's Evolutionary Socialism of 1899. 10 However, Woltmann was also
convinced of the superiority of the Aryan race and started a journal,
Politische-Anthropologische Revue, for the promulgation of racial theories.
For him, anthropology demonstrated that the 'intellectual power of the
white races is without doubt higher than that of all the other races'. 11
Because organic transformations took place over a very long period, the
characteristics of the different races had remained unchanged through-
out human history and pre-history.
Woltmann contended that the emergence of human culture had
transformed the struggle for existence from one hitherto directed
8
These arguments were not uncommon among socialists of the period. See, for example,
Lawrence Small, Darwinism and Socialism (London: Independent Labour Party, 1907/
8). The author argued that the social and moral instincts had been fixed by natural
selection, and proposed eugenics programmes to check the propagation of the diseased,
deformed and criminal (12-13).
9
For details of Woltmann's background and political views, see Weindling, Health, Race
and German Politics, 119-20, 129-30.
10
Although Bernstein was influenced by the British Fabians, several of whom embraced
Social Darwinism, there is no evidence of Darwinism in this text, despite its title. See
E. Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism (New York: Shocken, 1961).
11
L. Woltmann, Die Darwinische Theorie und der Sozialismus (Dusseldorf: Michels, 1899),
305.
primarily against natural conditions and other creatures into a racial
conflict over territory, food and power: 'New and more violent conflicts
of interest arose in mankind's struggle amongst themselves. Races
trampled on one another as if they were different species. The process of
selection was repeated on a narrower but higher sphere of existence, in
the struggle of man against man.' 12 Arguing that society itself was an
organic entity, Woltmann attempted to convince German workers that
they would benefit from national solidarity in the struggle for existence
against other nations. In this context, socialism for Woltmann signified
increased possibilities for technical and intellectual advance brought
about through domestic cooperation. It entailed substituting conscious
control and direction for the laws of fate and chance, emancipation from
the superstitions and myths of religion, and a healthy enjoyment of work
and earthly existence. This required a genuine harmonisation with
'Mother Nature', and hence, as with Bebel, nature afforded a model to
be emulated by a healthy social organism: 'In this respect, socialism is a
true return to nature.' 13
In the race theory proposed by Woltmann, the extensiveness of
evolutionary time was invoked as a justification for what amounted to a
form of essentialism. Human nature varied in accordance with race, but
racial characteristics remained unchanged for millennia and could be
taken as fixed. For Woltmann, evolutionary time, far from problema-
tising the idea of a fixed human nature, allowed for a differentiation of
mankind into races, the various attributes of which were stable; having
been formed very gradually they were refractory to any rapid transmuta-
tions, save through miscegenation.
The British Fabians

In Britain, intellectuals associated with the Fabian Society played an
important role in disseminating a socialism which eschewed violent
change in favour of the gradual assumption of power through education,
the ballot and administrative reform. Some historians discern a close
connection between the Fabians, eugenics and Social Darwinism, while
others, though acknowledging this connection, dispute its closeness and
significance.14 While a comprehensive investigation of this relationship
12 13
Ibid., 301. Ibid., 397.
14
'Social Darwinism, eugenics and Fabianism could have been made for each other.'
This is the verdict of Shaw in 'Eliminating the Yahoo', 43. In contrast, Searle, pointing
to the environmentalism inherent in Fabianism, describes its relationship to eugenics as
a flirtation. G. R. Searle, 'Eugenics and Class' in Webster, Biology, Medicine and Society,
231 and 240-2.
is beyond the scope of this study, it is possible to analyse the use of
Social Darwinism by some Fabian theorists.
An important figure during the formative years of Fabianism was the
philosopher David. G. Ritchie (1853-1903), who was a member of the
Fabian Society from 1889 to 1893. His Darwinism and Politics,15
published in 1889, sought to dissociate Darwinism from what Ritchie
alleged was its monopoly by conservative apologists, while admitting
that the language of natural selection did lend itself to the legitimation of
laissez-faire and racial, sexual and class inequalities (12).
Ritchie endorsed an objective elucidation of the laws governing social
relations, but argued that once established, these laws, being simply
generalisation from experience, had no claims 'upon our reverence'
(33). In his view, social evolution showed how conscious and deliberate
adaptation among humans was analogous to the 'spontaneous variation'
among animals and plants in the struggle for existence, although he
appreciated the difficulty of deciding the boundaries between biological
inheritance and cultural transmission in human affairs (40-1, 53).
Ritchie described war as the 'primitive form of the struggle between
races and nations' (29) but, contra Spencer, he designated economic
competition as more primitive still, as 'only a phase of the oldest form of
the struggle for existence - the struggle between individuals for subsist-
ence, and that . . . therefore belongs to a lower type than the struggles
between organised communities, where a strict organisation mitigates
the internal strife' (45).
Complementing this social evolution was another in which inherited
instincts were gradually replaced by imitation and education in intelli-
gent behaviour, facilitated by the greater size of the brain and the
prolongation of infancy in humans. For Ritchie this showed human
inheritance to be more a matter of moral and intellectual culture than of
biology. His conclusion was:
From the fact that human societies, like natural organisms, grow and are not
made, we have certainly to learn that every evil cannot be remedied in a day. But
from the other, at least equally important fact, that human societies do not
merely grow but are consciously altered by human effort, we have also to learn
that every evil is not to be accepted as inevitable (68).
Ritchie applied this reasoning to a number of contemporary issues. He
recognised a real danger of population growth outstripping food supplies
and proposed birth control as a remedy. This measure would reduce
excess population, especially among those who were currently going
overseas with missionary and colonial zeal and enslaving, demoralising
15
London: Swan Sonnenschein.
and destroying the 'lower races' (96-7). Fewer children would mean
healthier children, but birth control was intimately linked to the position
of women in society, and Ritchie was strongly in favour of equality for
women and their full participation in political and economic life instead
of their restriction to maternal and domestic roles (99). He rejected
patriarchy and its rationalisation in terms of the presumed inferiority of
women, which - assuming it to have any basis in fact at all - he believed
would be eliminated in the course of evolution once equality was
instigated (82). like J. S. Mill before him, he argued that womanhood
was largely a social construct, and concluded: 'It is hypocritical to deny
the political capacity of women, simply because their political mcapacity
has through long centuries been so diligently cultivated . . . ' (86, original
emphasis).
If these arguments hinted at a limited commitment to Social
Darwinism, this impression was dispelled by a second edition.16 In two
additional chapters Ritchie attacked the claim by A. R. Wallace that
natural selection was incapable of explaining the emergence and
development of cognitive, moral and aesthetic properties. In doing so he
clarified his views on the evolution of the struggle for existence: 'Natural
selection operates in the highest types of human society as well as in the
rest of the organic realm; but it passes into a higher form of itself, in
which the conflict of ideas and institutions takes the place of the struggle
for existence between individuals and races' (106). Thus struggle
evolved from one between individuals to a conflict between aggregates
of individuals in the form of races and nations, and then to the conflict
of ideas. It was this progression which made socialism a realistic prospect
and at the same time enabled Ritchie to reaffirm his allegiance to Social
Darwinism: 'Progress comes only by struggle, though the struggle in its
highest form may go on within the individual soul and may cause no
death but the death of partial truths that have become errors and of
customs that have outlived their use' (141). Moreover, as he had
reminded his readers in the first edition, there was always one aspect of
this struggle which could never be eliminated, i.e. 'the struggle against
nature, including the blind forces of human passion' (100, original
emphasis). With these arguments Ritchie both affirmed the importance
of cultural and social conditions in human development, and retained
the struggle for existence as the principle of change. This type of
synthesis of Social Darwinism and socialism was to prove popular
among the Fabians. However, as is apparent from Ritchie's thesis that
social reforms would rapidly produce organic transformations in
16
London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1891.
women, it was one which subordinated biological to sociological
explanation to such a degree that the former was virtually eliminated as a
factor in social change.
There is an equally discernible hesitancy over the respective roles of
heredity and environment in the publications of Graham Wallas (1858-
1932) who, in the application of Darwinism to the investigation of
human nature, sought a means of strengthening democracy by providing
the latter with a scientific foundation. Wallas, one of the original
members of the Fabian Society, became disillusioned with the elitism
and authoritarianism of some of its leaders, notably the Webbs. 17 For
him, democracy was not simply a matter of environmental engineering,
but involved active citizenship and the living of a 'good' life.
Wallas came to the conclusion that any vision of the good life must, in
the manner of Aristotle, concern itself with the nature of those who were
to live it, a concern he found to be lamentably absent in contemporary
political thinking. The theories of human nature found in current -
particularly liberal and utilitarian - discourses were woefully impover-
ished, with their over-intellectualised conceptions of people as rational,
calculating, self-interested beings. The solution was to turn to scientific
psychology for an understanding of human nature, and here Wallas
believed Darwin had provided a critical direction with his investigations
of human descent. Darwinism allowed for the possibility of an objective
grasp of human psychology within a comparative framework that
included animals; this would facilitate a more realistic basis for demo-
cratic theory and practice. As Wallas observed: 'Unless he is prepared to
study undismayed the nature of man as evolution has for the moment
left it, the reformer who is also a politician will find his life one of
constant and cruel disillusion.'18
In his Human Nature and Politics (1908) and subsequent publications,
Wallas sketched the main features of human psychology. In the slow
course of evolution people had, through adaptation and selection, come
to possess an inherited constitution which exhibited little variation from
the Stone Age to the present day.19 Of paramount importance were
inherited predispositions, or instincts, the products of an interaction
between individual and environment established through natural selec-
tion. Biologically speaking, human nature was, to all intents and
17
Wallas contributed an essay on 'Property Under Socialism' to the Fabian Essays of
1889. For details of Wallas's break with the Fabians, see M. J. Wiener, Between Two
Worlds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 52-3; T. H. Quaker, Graham Wallas and the
Great Society (London: Macmillan, 1980), chap. 2.
18
G. Wallas, 'Darwinism and Social Motive' (1906), in Wallas, Men and Ideas (London:
Allen and Unwin, 1940), 93.
19
G. Wallas, Human Nature in Politics, third edn (London: Constable, 1927), 25.
purposes, fixed. Wallas was an anti-Lamarckian, believing that the
results of personal experience and achievements, while they could
modify the habits and proclivities of individuals (as was apparent even
among animals), could not be inherited. Each new generation started
'not where their fathers left off, but where their fathers began'. 20
Furthermore, this instinctual apparatus was a very powerful factor in
shaping a person's behaviour: 'Things that are nearer sense, nearer to
our more ancient evolutionary past, produce a readier inference as well
as a more compelling impulse.'21 Wallas developed an analysis of the
way in which images and symbols in election campaigns were used to
appeal to this ancient instinctual apparatus, which included affection,
inquisitiveness, self-preservation, competitiveness, fear and curiosity.
Intelligence was also an inherited disposition, and it was to this that
Wallas looked in order to guide personal conduct and social organisa-
tion. 'Thought', he argued, 'may be late in evolution, it may be
deplorably weak in driving power, but without its guidance no man or
organisation can find a safe path amid the vast impersonal complexities
of the universe as we have learnt to see it.' 22 Although the different
dispositions of the human psyche could be analysed separately, in
actuality they were all part of a complex and interrelated whole: 'The
mind of man is like a harp, all of whose strings throb together; so that
emotion, impulse, inference, and the special kind of inference called
reasoning, are often simultaneous and intermingled aspects of a single
mental experience.'23
If human psychology was largely the product of natural selection,
what role did the struggle for existence play in the modern world? Here
Wallas was vague. He accused those believing that war and imperial
conflict were manifestations of the struggle for survival of misunder-
standing the doctrine of natural selection. Darwinism demonstrated that
the human race was a biological whole, and that we should have 'love for
that infinitely varying multitude'. It was a great 'intellectual tragedy' of
the nineteenth century 'that the discovery of organic evolution, instead
of stimulating such a general love of humanity, seemed at first to show
that it was forever impossible'. Modern warfare was completely dysgenic
in its consequences, and Wallas was convinced of the need to destroy
the belief that progress was only possible through conflict between
peoples.24 He pointed out that individualists such as Spencer had once
20
G. Wallas, The Great Society (New York: Macmillan, 1920), 8.
21 22
Wallas, Human Nature, 106. Wallas, Great Society, 45.
23
Wallas, Human Nature, 99.
24
Wallas, Human Nature, 286-92; Wallas, Great Society, 164-5. Wallas, 'Comment on Dr
Jack's Article "The Peacefulness of Being at War"', Men and Ideas, 96-8.
considered social progress to be possible only through a 'beneficent

private war' within societies. This view had now been abandoned, and
Wallas anticipated a similar rejection of the doctrine of inter-ethnic
struggle:
The evolutionists of our own time tell us that the improvement of the biological
inheritance of any community is to be hoped for, not from the encouragement of
individual conflict, but from the stimulation of the higher social impulses under
the guidance of the science of eugenics; and the emotional effect of this new
conception is already seen in the almost complete disappearance from industrial
politics of that unwillingly brutal 'individualism' which afflicted kindly English-
men in the eighteen-sixties. An international science of eugenics might in the
same way indicate that the various races should aim, not at exterminating each
other, but at encouraging the improvement by each of its own racial type.25
Wallas apparently believed that eugenics should replace natural

selection as the source of biological progress. But he was of the opinion
that in the meantime much could be done to improve the environment.
The need for this meliorism was intensified by the vast industrial and
urban networks, with their international connections that together made
up the modern Great Society. This Society was inconsistent with a
mental apparatus developed ages ago. 'Why', asked Wallas, 'should we
expect a social organisation to endure, which has been formed in a
moment of time by human beings, whose bodies and minds are the
result of age-long selection under far different conditions?' 26 Modern
civilisation was threatened by war, by egoism and by the ignorance of the
masses who were manipulated by ruthless entrepreneurs and politicians,
one of the potential dangers inherent in representative democracy. 27 Yet
unlike many of his contemporaries, Wallas did not turn his back on
democracy. He believed in the power of reason and education to provide
people with an understanding of their evolutionary heritage, and to
appreciate the need to control their destinies by becoming enlightened
and participatory citizens. He remained dedicated to attaining greater
social equality, including female suffrage,28 and propounded a vision of
humanity in which he hoped that science would 'suggest a kinder pity
for all the bewildered beings who hand on from generation to generation
the torch of conscious life'. 29 While for Wallas evolution showed human
nature had not changed for millennia and must be taken as fixed by the
aspiring politician, he used this as a rationale for social reform and
environmental meliorism rather than as an alibi for the status quo.
Yet the work of Wallas exhibited many of the difficulties already
identified in the work of reform Darwinists. His notion of the human
25 26 27
Wallas, Human Nature, 292-3. Wallas, Great Society, 8. Ibid., 301-2.
28 29
Ibid., 345. Wallas, Human Nature, 296.
psyche as a complex of predispositions unaltered for millennia estab-
lished the parameters of social and political action. However, Wallas
never really confronted the limits heredity posed to the efficacy of
educational and social reform. That he believed in the existence of such
limits is evident from his assertion that: 'If, indeed, a man's "nurture"
has not corresponded to his "nature", the possibility of anything like
complete Happiness may have been destroyed for him before he is
thirty.'30 But the implications of this strong hereditarianism for the
programmes he endorsed were unexplored. Wallas did not analyse the
ways in which deeply seated impulses and instincts could be repressed
or moderated or redirected by cultural processes in order to achieve
harmony between an individual's nature and his or her milieu. Nor did
he perceive the threats to individuality and liberty inherent in such
efforts, or in eugenics, and could even propose 'deliberately placing the
males and females of hopelessly backward tribes on different islands' in
order to prevent their propagation.31 Throughout his writings there is an
unresolved tension between the project of grounding a scientific
psychology in Darwinian principles and the desire to employ this
psychology in the service of democracy and social equality. This results
in a contradiction between, on the one hand, his view that individuals
were governed by natural forces, and on the other, his strong commit-
ment to rationally informed voluntarist political action.
Some Fabians did not shrink from the authoritarian implications of
eugenics programmes. In 1889 the Fabians published an important and
influential statement of the movement's ideas and aims in the form of a
collection of essays which went to five editions by 1948. 32 A dominant
theme was evolution, both of society in general and of socialism in par-
ticular, one which was especially pronounced in the contribution by
Sidney Webb (1859-1947). Webb underlined the organic nature of
society and the duty of individuals to work for the continuation of the
community. Individual actions inimical to collective welfare 'must
sooner or later be checked by the whole, lest the whole perish through
the error of its member' (53). The rationale for the priority of collective
over individual needs was a Social Darwinist one: 'We know now that in
natural selection at the stage of development where the existence of
civilised mankind is at stake, the units selected from are not individuals,
but societies' (53). Among animals, physical strength or agility were the
selected attributes; among men it was cerebral power which, at a certain
stage of development, was in turn superseded by social organisation.
Webb concluded that man must use his sociological knowledge to
30 31
Wallas, Great Society, 362. Wallas, Human Nature, 294.
32
G. B. Shaw, ed., Fabian Essays (London: Allen and Unwin, 1948).
achieve mastery over his destiny by consciously adapting to these new
conditions, and he made it quite clear that the claims of the individual
were very much secondary to those of the social organism:
If we desire to hand on to the afterworld our direct influence, and not merely the
memory of our existence, we must take even more care to improve the social
organism of which we form part, than to perfect our own individual develop-
ment. Or rather, the perfect and fitting development of each individual is not
necessarily the utmost and highest cultivation of his own personality, but the
filling, in the best possible way, of his humble function in the great social
machine (54).
This entailed the eradication of individualistic competition within the
community, 'for the free struggle for existence among ourselves menaces
our survival as a healthy and permanent social organism'. Conscious
control and coordination of the various parts of the social system were
now necessary, and this was the reason for what Webb perceived as an
'irresistible glide into collectivist Socialism' (56). These themes were to
remain integral to Webb's brand of elitist and technocratic socialism,
including a commitment to eugenics and the elimination of undesirable
elements in the population, all in the cause of national efficiency. These
policies were linked to reforms in public administration, health, educa-
tion, housing and employment in order to produce a healthy and
vigorous population capable of responding to the challenges of the
modern world. Social Darwinism enabled Webb to connect domestic
reform to national efficiency in the service of imperialism, for he, like
some other Fabians, was obsessed with the ability of Britain to survive in
the competitive struggle with other powers for colonies, markets and raw
materials. 33
Were Fabianism and Social Darwinism, then, always so closely
entwined? Examination of the texts of other Fabians reveals this not to
be so. The playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is a case in
point. He was a self-avowed evolutionist and 'neo-biologist', but he was
a pungent critic of Darwinism, which he believed to be fundamentally in
error because of its explanatory reliance on blind, objective forces.
'There is', he observed of Darwinism in the Preface to his play Back to
Methuselah,34 'a hideous fatalism about it . . . ' (xl). Improvement was
possible only 'through some senseless accident' (xvi), while every act of
33
See Olivier's contribution on moral evolution in the same collection of essays. The
author (who was governor of Jamaica 1907-13) wrote of societies perishing 'as societies
organically weak among stronger competitors have done and will do' (102). For an
early Fabian statement of the problem of Britain's survival as a great power see G. B.
Shaw, ed., Fabianism and the Empire: A Manifesto of the Fabian Society (London: Grant
Richards, 1900), especially 3-4.
34
London: Constable, 1931.
pity or fellowship was interpreted as 'a vain and mischievous attempt to
lessen the severity of the struggle and preserve inferior varieties from the
efforts of Nature to weed them out' (li).
Shaw described his own theory of evolution as Lamarckian, although
this designation is of questionable accuracy. He called it a 'new vitalism'
and 'creative evolution', stressing the role of will and striving in
producing novel evolutionary forms. Lamarck had realised how 'living
organisms changed because they wanted to'. There was no question of
the survival of the fittest, but the acquisition of new habits through
volition and effort (xxii-xxiii). Shaw was convinced that the 'will to
power', the desire to achieve, was the driving force of evolutionary
change (Hi): 'If you can turn a pedestrian into a cyclist, and a cyclist into
a pianist or a violinist, without the intervention of Circumstantial
Selection, you can turn an amoeba into a man, or a man into a
superman, without it' (xxii).
This 'Lamarckism' did not prevent Shaw from supporting eugenics or
the reduction in the numbers of the unfit through birth control, for he
believed that certain categories of the unfit owed their situations to
hereditary defects rather than to social circumstances. In his retro-
spective 'Sixty Years of Fabianism', 35 Shaw wrote: 'There are in our
asylums idiots whose existence is a horror, lumps of flesh barely capable
of breathing and swallowing; and we waste human lives in enabling these
half-created things to live instead of sensibly and mercifully killing them'
(225). The same fate was advocated for 'incurably mischievous crimi-
nals'. 'If criminals can be reformed, reform them', advised Shaw, adding
that we should discover how this could be achieved through scientific
psychology. 'Meanwhile they should not be punished: they cannot help
being what they are. But they should be painlessly liquidated, not caged'
(227-8). He also proposed a 'democratic aristocracy' in which the
people would choose their leaders from the 'naturally qualified five per
cent' of the population, the 'born managers, statesmen, artists and
philosophers' supplied by Nature, 'guaranteed and empanelled as such
by the best available anthropometric methods' (221, 223-4).
In his focus on conscious needs and volitions in bringing about
evolutionary change, Shaw not only misunderstood Lamarck, but
advocated a version of evolutionism and eugenics that clearly was not
Social Darwinist. Shaw shared some of the ideological preoccupations of
the Webbs, including their hereditarian and authoritarian attitudes to
the 'unfit'. But he totally rejected the notion of the struggle for survival,
especially between members of the same species, as a mechanism for
35
Published in the 1948 edition of Fabian Essays.
evolutionary progress. Thus the relationship between Social Darwinism
and Fabianism was a complex one defying any straightforward general-
isation. In the case of Webb, Ritchie and Graham Wallas the relationship
was close and the world view undoubtedly furnished the scaffolding for
their political ideals and policy proposals. It must be recognised, though,
that these proposals varied considerably between, for instance, those of
the technocratic and elitist Webb and the much more democratic
Ritchie and Wallas. In the case of Shaw, the connection was absent,
while in some other one-time Fabians it was highly complex.36
Liberty, equality and democracy

The appalling conditions created by industrialisation and urbanisation,
coupled with the growing political demands of the masses, generated
heated controversies over whether personal welfare was the responsibility
of the individual or of the community. Some liberals, like Spencer and
Sumner, continued to believe that this responsibility was entirely an
individual matter; others came to accept the case for public intervention
on behalf of people who were unable to fend for themselves.
An influential advocate of the second position was one of the original
standard-bearers of Darwinism, T. H. Huxley, whose later writings took
up the question of the moral implications of the struggle for existence.37
There is a long-standing tradition in Darwinian historiography of taking
Huxley at his word when he declared the discontinuity between the
spheres of nature and ethics.38 In fact, nothing could be further from the
reality of Huxley's own writings on ethics.
Huxley argued that the struggle for existence was a 'cosmic process',
but social life, while part of nature in the broad sense of this expression,
36
For example, H. G. Wells ( 1 8 6 6 - 1 9 4 6 ) . Wells has been linked with Social Darwinism
and eugenics by Shaw, 'Eliminating the Yahoo'; Carey, The Intellectuals and the Masses,
chaps. 6, 7; M . Coren, The Invisible Man (London: Bloomsbury, 1993). However,
Wells' relationship to Social Darwinism was complex (a point recognised in Carey's
study), as demonstrated by B e l l o m y , ' "Social Darwinism" Revisited', 8 1 - 5 .
37
T . H. Huxley, 'The Struggle for Existence: A Programme', The Nineteenth Century,
2 3 ( 1 8 8 8 ) , 1 6 1 - 8 0 ; Huxley, Evolution and Ethics (London: Macmillan, 1893). Although
Huxley has the reputation of being Darwin's bulldog it is noteworthy that his early
interventions on behalf of Darwinism avoided mention of selection and struggle. Cf.
Huxley, Man's Place in Nature and Other Essays [1863] (London: D e n t , 1906). For a
detailed study of Huxley's scientific and political positions, see di Gregorio, Huxley's
Place in Natural Science.
38
For an example of this interpretation, see D . Raphael, 'Darwinism and Ethics', in
Barnett, A Century of Darwinism, 347. Other instances are cited in Helfand, 'T. H.
Huxley's "Evolution and Ethics": T h e Politics of Evolution and the Evolution of
Polities', 159, note 1. This interpretation still persists: see Boucher, 'Evolution and
Polities', 94; Bowler, Evolution, 2 3 0 - 1 ; Ruse, Darwinism Defended, 2 6 7 - 8 .
differed from other aspects of nature in that it was created by man.
Social life gradually evolved an 'ethical man' opposed to 'natural man'
because the former lived at peace with his neighbours, thereby
circumscribing the struggle for existence. Because of the discrepancy
between population growth and resources, however, this struggle
reappeared in the industrial and commercial relations between nations.
Huxley insisted that 'so long as the natural man increases and multiplies
without restraint, so long will peace and industry not only permit, but
they will necessitate, a struggle for existence as sharp as any that ever
went on under the regime of war'.39
Huxley, however, was perturbed by the urban poverty and squalor
accompanying industrial competition. He advocated the provision of
urban amenities and leisure facilities and in particular a programme of
public education, as methods both of ensuring social stability and
increasing competitiveness in international markets: 'Under such
circumstances an education rate is, in fact, a war tax, levied for the
purposes of defence.'40 He acknowledged that raising the incomes of
working people would make the nation's goods more expensive and less
competitive. But he rather lamely side-stepped this problem by asserting
that a stable society composed of healthy and vigorous persons would be
unlikely 'to be troubled with many competitors of the same character,
and they may be safely trusted to find ways of holding their own'. 41
Far from constituting a refutation of Social Darwinism as is
sometimes claimed, these arguments were an attempt to enlist the world
view in a political cause, one equally opposed to the radical individ-
ualism of Spencer and the socialism of Wallace and other reformers.42
In this attempt Huxley fluctuated between claiming social relations were
outside of the struggle for existence, and placing them under the
governance of this law due to the pressure of population on food
supplies. Thus sometimes morality was seen as a triumph over nature,
(of 'ethical man' over 'natural man'), and at others as part of nature, as
when he discerned a rudimentary 'ethical process' in the social systems
of birds and animals which formed the starting point for moral
evolution.43 Even here, Huxley was ambivalent over the implications of
this evolution. On the one hand this was a story of moral progress in
which concern for others was nurtured and developed, while on the
other Huxley warned his audience that retrogression was as likely as
progression, and that human nature could be changed only on condition
that we 'cast aside the notion that the escape from pain and sorrow is the
39 40 41
Huxley, 'Struggle for Existence', 168. Ibid., 177. Ibid., 172.
42
Helfand, 'T. H. Huxley's "Evolution and Ethics"'.
43
Huxley, Evolution and Ethics, 5 6 - 7 .
proper object of life'. 44 This ambivalence should not be read as
symptomatic of confusion on Huxley's part, for it has already been
encountered at the very heart of other reform-oriented uses of
Darwinism, with their fluctuating images of nature as model and threat.
Huxley tried to show that the struggle for existence between nations
made necessary the provision of some publicly funded welfare. The
critic, journalist and historian of ideas, Leslie Stephen (1832-1904)
drew the opposite conclusion from this struggle. Stephen had produced
a book on the 'science of ethics' which was heavily influenced by
Darwin.45 Like Spencer, he attempted to synthesise utilitarianism with
evolutionary theory,46 which in this instance resulted in a radical revision
of classical utilitarianism. Stephen argued that society was not an
aggregate of individuals but an 'organic growth' governed by the same
laws of nature as those regulating the development of natural organisms,
i.e. adaptation through a struggle for existence induced by the pressure
of population on resources (118, 120-1, 165). There was, however, one
very important difference between animal and human evolution in that
adaptive changes in the latter consisted of social transformations rather
than modifications to the individual. Moral evolution reflected this fact.
The growth of reason facilitated a recognition of the distinction between
morality - 'the sum of the preservative instincts of a society' devoted to
its collective welfare - and prudence^ which was confined to the welfare of
the individual (208). Progress entailed the triumph of morality over
prudence as individuals gradually became capable of preferring the good
of society to their own happiness. Hence collective utility was not
equivalent to the sum of individual utilities because the two could be
antagonistic. When they were, collective welfare had priority over
individual welfare.
In an essay on 'Ethics and the Struggle for Existence', Stephen
enlisted his theory of moral evolution to attack redistributive welfare
schemes, including those proposed by Huxley. 47 Such schemes under-
mined the sense of social obligation which for Stephen was the hallmark
of ethical progress: 'A system which should equalise the advantages of
the energetic and the helpless would begin by demoralising, and would
very soon lead to an unprecedented intensification of the struggle for
44
Huxley, 'Struggle for Existence', 163; Huxley, Evolution and Ethics, 27.
45
L. Stephen, The Science of Ethics [1882] (London: Murray, 1907). For an account of
Stephen and his work, see L. Annan, Leslie Stephen: The Godless Victorian, revised edn
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984).
46
For Spencer's synthesis of evolution and utilitarianism, see D . Weinstein, 'Equal
Freedom, Rights and Utility in Spencer's Moral Philosophy', History of Political
Thought, 11(1990), 1 1 9 ^ 2 .
47
L. Stephen, 'Ethics and the Struggle for Existence', Contemporary Review, 6 4 ( 1 8 9 3 ) .
existence' (170). Additionally, these schemes ignored the inevitability of
the struggle for survival. Stephen did envisage a future society in which
self-interested motives had completely disappeared and where 'every
man worked for the good of society as energetically as for his own'.
'That day is probably distant, but even upon that hypothesis the struggle
for existence would still be with us, and there would be the same
necessity for preserving the fittest and suppressing, as gently as might be,
those who were unfit' (170). This was because the struggle derived from
the pressure of population upon the finite resources of the earth and
hence could never be transcended, no matter how humanised a form it
took. Thus although they drew politically antagonistic conclusions from
Darwinism, both Huxley and Stephen wished to present human
evolution as a story of moral progress, while remaining haunted by the
implications of the naturalistic process that had made this evolution
possible - selection. This conundrum is also in evidence in the work of
the next theorist to be examined.
Benjamin Kidd (1858-1916) was a clerk and autodidact who achieved
fame with the publication of Social Evolution** Even more so than
Huxley, Kidd was supportive of the New Liberalism and welcomed the
coming to power of the masses, 'gradually emerging from the long
silence of social and political serfdom' (10). Though hostile to socialism,
Kidd believed that equality of opportunity, state welfare, democracy and
the emancipation of women were engraved in the process of evolution. 49
Kidd was convinced that Darwinism provided an opportunity 'for the
biologist to advance over the frontier and carry the methods of his
science boldly into human society' (28). Weismann's theory of the
germ-plasm conclusively demonstrated that the only way for progress to
occur was through the inheritance of 'congenital variations' above the
average for the race as a whole, and the elimination through competition
of those variations below this average. The battle for life was indispens-
able to this process: all organisms reproduced at a rate above that
supportable by present resources, and without competition specimens
below the norm for the species would multiply and obliterate the
superior organisms. In being subject to this law, man demonstrated its
cosmic necessity (18).
Early humans - like modern 'savages' - engaged in 'ceaseless armed
struggle' and lived in societies organised along military lines. Among the
48
London: Macmillan, 1894. Kidd's Social Darwinism has sometimes been miscon-
strued. See C. Brinton, English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century (London:
Benn, 1933), 6, where Kidd is associated with the racist theories of A m m o n and
Lapouge. For Kidd's repudiation of racism and nationalism, see Crook, Benjamin Kidd,
66, 24.
49
Crook, Benjamin Kidd, 3 1 8 .
most advanced nations this type had been replaced by an industrial
mode of organisation. This transformation was neither complete nor
inevitable: the vast majority of societies were either eliminated by rivals
or became arrested at a certain point in their development. Those that
did reach the industrial phase were engaged in two forms of competition.
The first of these was external, i.e. with other nations, for markets and
resources. According to Kidd, nations exhibiting the greatest degree of
'social efficiency' triumphed in this struggle, and this in turn depended
upon whether a nation was inhabited by a race with the requisite
qualities. These had nothing to do with intellectual capabilities, skin
colour or descent, but comprised 'strength and energy of character,
humanity, probity and integrity, and simple-minded devotion to concep-
tions of duty . . . ' (325). It was the Anglo-Saxon race, particularly as
represented by the English-speaking peoples, which best exemplified
these traits, which explained its international pre-eminence.
Of equal evolutionary importance was a second mode of struggle
occurring within nations. Although non-violent, consisting of competi-
tion for jobs, rewards and status, it was absolutely crucial to the
maintenance of social efficiency and the virility and energy of the
citizenry. The political emancipation of the masses played an important
part in enhancing this rivalry by allowing a larger proportion of the
population to participate in the struggle, thereby intensifying it and
augmenting efficiency. Political liberty and its associated stress on
personal obligation had transported this form of the struggle for
existence to every aspect of social life in the advanced societies of
Western civilisation: 'In our families, our homes, our pleasures, in the
supreme moments of our lives, how to obtain success or to avoid failure
for ourselves, or for those nearest to us, is a question of the first
importance' (53).
Kidd regarded current proposals for an eight-hour working day,
graduated taxation, revision of the right to inherit wealth, and state
provision of education, as indicative of this emancipation. This was not
socialism, because equalising opportunities allowed working people to
compete more effectively and hence drew more people into the struggle
for existence (234, 238). This was why the democratisation of society
should be applauded rather than deplored, and why there was nothing to
fear from the emergent political power of the masses (10).
Despite this optimism, Kidd felt that Western civilisation had reached
an important evolutionary threshold because threats to future progress
would not come from rival races but from within the advanced nations as
a result of their own evolutionary dynamics. Humans brought to the
drama of evolution two attributes: reason and social organisation. Both
had evolved to the point where they were potentially antagonistic. The
progress of intellectual ability was an individualising process: the growth
of reason encouraged the cultivation of individual personality and the
expression of self-interest. The increase in social efficiency, however,
might entail the sacrifice of personal interests for the good of society as a
whole. Utilitarianism and other ethical systems which believed that
individual and collective interests could be spontaneously harmonised
were profoundly wrong, as was any attempt to secure a scientific,
naturalistic foundation for personal morality (80, 290).
This was why increasingly large numbers of working people were
attracted to socialism. The goal of socialism was 'the final suspension of
that personal struggle for existence which has been waged, not only from
the beginning of society, but, in one form or another, from the beginning
of life' (207-8). From the standpoint of rational self-interest, it was
irrational to sacrifice present personal well-being to the welfare of
unborn generations: in this sense, socialist doctrines were 'unanswer-
able' (209). The problem was that from the wider perspective of
evolution, the suspension of internal rivalry would be disastrous for the
nation, eventually resulting in the atrophy of the traits responsible for
social efficiency, and producing degeneration. Nobody worked hard,
achieved or innovated unless compelled to do so by circumstances. If,
then, a people restricted population increase and eliminated the stress of
competition and selection, 'they would indubitably receive short shrift
when confronted with the vigorous and aggressive life of societies where,
other things being equal, selection and the stress and rivalry of existence
were still continued' (210).
For Kidd, the contending doctrines of individualism and socialism
were equally unrealistic as responses to 'the complex rivalry of life'
(327). His solution was to point to the growth of altruism comple-
menting the expansion of self-interest and individualism, as manifested
in public welfare programmes, the widespread concern with injustice
and suffering, and the benign treatment accorded to the natives of India
and Egypt by the British. These activities were not attributable to the
development of enlightenment and intelligence, which were individu-
ating traits. Rather, they were consequential upon 'the immense fund of
altruistic feeling with which our Western societies have become
equipped . . . ' (165). This feeling was, in turn, a product of religion.
Kidd disagreed with the condemnation of religion as a mere ana-
chronism, a survival from more primitive and less rational stages of
evolution. He argued that all religions, from those of the most primitive
to those of the most advanced societies, furnished a rationale for socially
significant conduct by endowing the relevant actions with moral
approbation. 'A religion', maintained Kidd, 'is a form of belief providing
an ultra-rational sanction for that large class of conduct in the individual
where his interest and the interest of the social organism are antago-
nistic, and by which the former are rendered subordinate to the latter in
the general interests of the evolution which the race is undergoing'
(103). In this way religion made available something which could not be
established by reason - a 'super-rational' sanction for actions which
might require the sacrifice of personal to collective interests. Hence
religious sentiments afforded an essential complement to reason. They
would be selected by the pressure of competition because they gave an
advantage to nations possessing large numbers of people prepared to
subordinate the present interests of the individual to the future interests
of society. 'Natural selection seems, in short, to be steadily evolving in
the race that type of character upon which these forces act most readily
and efficiently; that is to say, it is evolving religious character in the first
instance, and intellectual character only as a secondary product in
association with it' (286).
Like Stephen and Huxley, Kidd denied the possibility of deriving
moral imperatives from the workings of evolution, even though the
cogency of his defence of religion depended upon its alleged foundations
in an inexorable growth of altruism in the West. As with Wallas and
other reformers, his writings reflect a tension between the ambition of
uncovering the laws of social change and the desire to promote
voluntarist political action. A similar tension dogs his reliance upon a
non-rational mechanism - religion - to underpin a rationalist position
that counselled both political intervention, and forbearance in not taking
this intervention beyond certain limits. Small wonder, then, that in his
later publications Kidd came to regard evolution as a purposive rather
than a random process and to believe that man, through reason and
ethics, could transcend his origins and place evolution on a new footing.
Indeed, by the end of his life, Kidd indicted Darwinism as one of the
forces responsible for threatening the breakdown of Western civilisa-
tion.50
The theories discussed above possess a number of common themes.
The first is the moral priority of collective over individual welfare. The
second is the interest in altruism and the difficulty of accommodating it
to strict selectionism. The third is the representation of evolutionary
dynamics - whether biological or social - as determinist and inexorable.
This last feature paves the way for another, the attempt to derive ethical
lessons from the putative course of social and moral evolution or even
50
Ibid., 116, 146, 342-3, 350-1.
directly from nature. The overt denial of the legitimacy of such
derivations usually constituted the prolegomena to the construction of a
moral ontology, as we saw with Huxley, Stephen and Kidd.
The interpretation of Darwinism by the American philosopher, John
Dewey, offers a sharp contrast to these theories. Though explicitly
interested in Darwinism,51 Dewey would probably not be regarded as a
Social Darwinist by most commentators. In my view he was, and even in
texts where his Darwinism was not particularly salient it provided a set
of crucial background assumptions. Since Dewey's understanding of
Darwinism differed in important respects from that of most of his
contemporaries, it is interesting to explore the moral and political
conclusions he derived from it.
Dewey proposed that 'the evolution of living and thinking beings out of
a state of things in which life and thought were not found is a fact which
must be recognised in any metaphysical inquiry into the irreducible traits
of the world. For evolution appears to be just one of those traits.'52
Dewey accepted the Darwinian account of evolution through selection of
adaptive variations in the struggle for existence, but he departed from
conventional representations of Darwinism in a number of ways.
First, following Peirce, Dewey perceived the law of natural selection
to be statistical in form and thus incapable of making statements about
individuals. Hence: 'Laws do not "govern" the activity of individuals.
They are a formulation of the frequency distributions of the behaviour of
large number [sic] of individuals engaged in interactions with one
another.'53 Second, nature was variable, changing, the site of accident
and the unforeseen. The implication of this was that:
It is the fate of a living creature ... that it cannot secure what belongs to it
without an adventure in a world that as a whole it does not own and to which it
has no native title. Whenever the organic impulse exceeds the limit of the body,
itfindsitself in a strange world and commits in some measure the fortune of the
self to external circumstance.54
This notion of the 'fortune of the self was a central feature of Dewey's
thinking about human existence. 'Man', he wrote, 'lives in an aleatory
world; his existence involves, to put it baldly, a gamble. The world is a
scene of risk; it is uncertain, unstable, uncannily unstable. Its dangers
are irregular, inconstant, not to be counted upon as to their times and
seasons. Although persistent, they are sporadic, episodic.'55
51
There is an illuminating analysis of Dewey's interest in Darwinism in David Sidorsky's
'Introduction' to John Dewey: The Essential Writings, xx-xxviii.
52 53
D e w e y , John Dewey: The Essential Writings, 109. Ibid., 143.
54
Ibid., 267.
55
D e w e y , Experience and Nature [1925] (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1971), 38.
Third, Dewey was adamant that morals must commence with the
recognition that humans were part of nature, thereby linking 'ethics with
physics and biology'.56 Plainly, Dewey believed that the study of nature
was a foundation for ethics. But because he perceived nature as a realm
of change and chance as well as uniformity and necessity, he concluded
that human nature was not fixed. In fact, human instincts were alterable
whereas social institutions and practices were invariably resistant to
change.57 What interested Dewey, then, was not the persistence of some
human essence through time, but the interactions between a changing
human nature on the one hand, and social values and practices on the
other.
Human existence - as with all organic life - took place within an
environment which could be favourable or unfavourable to life activities.
Humans were therefore obliged to struggle in order to enlist the support
of the environment and effect changes to it. 58 Any interactive equi-
librium between organism and environment was inclined to be short-
lived on account of the changes emanating from the latter. Furthermore,
these changes were:
so opposed in direction that we must choose. We must take theriskof casting in
our lot with one movement or the other. Nothing can eliminate all risk, all
adventure; the one thing doomed to failure is to try to keep even with the whole
environment at once - that is to say, to maintain the happy moment when all
things go our way.59
Knowledge played a fundamental role in this process by assisting
individuals to cope with the crises of life and to adapt to change. But for
knowledge to be instrumental required creative rather than routine
intelligence, an ability which Dewey insisted was available to all people
and 'not an aesthetic appreciation carried on by a refined class or a
capitalistic possession of a few learned specialists, whether men of
science or of philosophy'.60
Dewey was highly critical of laissez-faire individualism for identifying
liberty with the actions of the entrepreneur, and was also aware of the
ways in which Darwinism had been used to justify these and other
exploitative actions.61 He advocated instead 'humane liberalism', com-
mitted to radical reform of the prevailing social system and its inequal-
ities, though a reform which was achieved democratically and not
through coercion. This required the acceptance of two principles. The
first was that individuality is 'nothing fixed, given, ready-made', but an
achievement made possible by and through social institutions and
56
Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (London: Allen and Unwin, 1922), 12.
57 58 59
Ibid., 106-9. Dewey, Essential Writings, 72. Ibid., 73.
60 61
Ibid., 93. Ibid., 200; Dewey, Human Nature, 301.
62
interactions. The second was that of 'historic relativity', i.e. that the
content and meaning of individuality and freedom changed over time.
'Time signifies change' affirmed Dewey, and it was this feature of
human existence which the enemies of freedom negated. Dictatorships
and totalitarian states were 'ways of denying the realities of time and the
creativeness of the individual. Freedom of thought and of expression are
not mere rights to be claimed. They have their roots deep in the
existence of individuals as developing careers in time.' 63
Here Dewey utilised a distinctive conception of nature in order to
authorise his ethical and political vision. What is of interest is the
conception of nature itself, in which 'qualities and relations, individual-
ities and conformities, finalities and efficacies, contingencies and
necessities are inextricably bound together'. 64 This view, with its stress
on change, contingency and choice, represented an interpretation of
Darwinism which was unusual for its time and, as we shall see, still
contrasts sharply with the reductionism and determinism typical of
modern versions of Social Darwinism. It enabled Dewey to advocate
liberty, democracy and rational political action as practices that were in
tune with the realities of nature as well as pre-conditions for future
evolutionary progress.
The evolution of social solidarity

The idea that cooperation was at least as important as natural selection
in evolution - especially human evolution - appeared early in the history
of Social Darwinism. As early as 1880 the French anarchist Emile
Gautier published a tract entitled Le Darwinisme social in which he
argued that the struggle for existence diminished in importance when
human faculties and social institutions reached a certain level of
development. Mutual assistance and social solidarity assumed increasing
significance in human progress, and actually represented the genuine
content of Social Darwinism rather than a misplaced focus on
struggle.65
Proponents of this thesis (including Gautier) argued that Darwin
himself had recognised the importance of group solidarity in the
evolution of moral faculties and how the refinement of the latter reduced
the importance of the struggle for existence. This was also the opinion of
the Russian anarchist, Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921), whose Mutual Aid,
published in book form in 1902, but appearing as articles in English
62 63
Dewey, Essential Writings, 205. Ibid., 147.
64
Dewey, Experience and Nature, 340.
65
See Clark, Social Darwinism in France, 16-1.
during the early 1890s, was an impressive and influential example of this
genre. 66 As a naturalist Kropotkin was well aware of the severity of the
struggle of animals to survive in the harsh conditions imposed by nature,
but his own observations had failed to find evidence of any struggle
between animals of the same species. Furthermore, the struggle against
nature was so exhausting that he questioned whether this could act as an
impetus for progressive change. What he did find was the widespread
existence of mutual assistance and cooperation among the social
animals. From this he concluded not only that mutual aid was 'as much
a law of animal life as mutual struggle', but that the former was of more
importance than the latter for the 'maintenance and further development
of the species' (30-1). Kropotkin admitted that struggle was a fact of life
in which the fittest survived, but he denied that convincing evidence had
been adduced to support the actuality of intra-species competition, and
he emphasised instead the significance of mutual aid in eliminating
struggle and promoting progress.
'Don't compete! - competition is always injurious to the species, and you have
plenty of resources to avoid it!' That is the tendency of nature, not always realised
in full, but always present. That is the watchword which comes to us from the
bush, the forest, theriver,the ocean. 'Therefore combine - practice mutual aid!
That is the surest means for giving to each and to all the greatest safety, the best
guarantee of existence and progress, bodily, intellectual and moral5 (81-2,
original emphasis).
Kropotkin proposed an alternative model of nature in which mutual

aid was a biological law. 'Man is no exception in nature. He also is
subject to the great principle of Mutual Aid which grants the best
chances of survival to those who best support each other in the struggle
for life' (113). Evolution occurred through cooperation: intra-species
conflict - the form Darwin considered the most intensive - was denied
altogether. Kropotkin admitted that primitive tribesmen fought with
other tribes, and that military aggression was a feature of the modern
centralised state, but he depicted these as abnormal situations, the
importance of which should not be exaggerated. In any case, warfare
was largely confined to warriors and priests who massacred one another
while ordinary people got on with their daily lives (112). The main form
taken by the struggle for existence was between organisms and nature,
and this necessitated cooperation and solidarity.
Is this view of the world Darwinist? The continuity between human
beings and the social animals was stressed, as well as the universality of
natural laws and the reality of evolution. But the cause of the latter was
66
The edition used here was edited by P. Avrich (London: Allen Lane, 1972).
not natural selection. For Kropotkin, struggle was relegated to the wings
of evolution, responsible for exhaustion and waste rather than for
cumulative change. Mutual aid rather than struggle provided the
impetus for change and progress. True, the often adverse conditions
imposed by nature were an incentive for solidarity and cooperation, but
the battle of life had only a minor part in the drama of evolution.
Kropotkin was not oblivious to the pernicious influences of militarism,
exploitation, and unbridled individualism in modern societies, but
against these he drew attention to cooperatives, friendly societies and
trade unions in the towns, and the prevalence of village communities
among millions of European country folk. The reality of mutual
solidarity in the daily lives of ordinary people was unsurprising, 'because
this feeling has been nurtured by thousands of years of human social life
and hundreds of thousands of years of pre-human life in societies' (234).
The biological determinism in Kropotkin's analysis posed problems
for the coherence of his theory. Some social phenomena - those
involving solidarity - were derived from innate tendencies, while others
- war, exploitation, political oppression - were attributed to perverse
social conditions. But the outcome was hardly a synthesis of anarchism
and Social Darwinism. Many Social Darwinists recognised the signifi-
cance of group solidarity in social evolution, but they did so in order to
accentuate its function in the struggle for survival against other groups.
As an anarcho-communist Kropotkin rejected the notion of a 'cosmic
code' of inevitable inter-group competition, and in his effort to
demonstrate the reality of solidarity and mutualism he propounded a
world view that differed on crucial details from Social Darwinism.
Mutual aid was not, for him, a consequence of natural selection as it was
for the Darwinists, but an independent process constituting the principal
force behind evolutionary progress.
The appellation 'reform Darwinism' is equally problematic when
applied to the French solidarity movement of the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. This doctrine attempted to synthesise individ-
ualism and collectivism by a programme of legislation aimed at
ameliorating the condition of the urban proletariat while still respecting
the claims of private property and avoiding the implementation of state
socialism. Its most influential spokesman was the Radical deputy and
minister, Leon Bourgeois (1851-1925), whose book, Solidarite (1896)
achieved a remarkable degree of popularity and influence.67
67
L. Bourgeois, Solidarite (Paris: Armand Colin, 1896). On Bourgeois and solidarism, see
J. A. Scott, Republican Ideas and the Liberal Tradition in France, 1870-1914 (New York:
Octagon, 1966); J. E. S. Hayward, 'Solidarity: The Social History of an Idea in
Nineteenth Century France', International Review of Social History, 4(1959), 261-84;
Bourgeois asserted that morality must be grounded in truth, which in
turn was established by science. Economic and social phenomena, like
physical, chemical and biological phenomena, obeyed ineluctable causal
laws ascertainable through scientific inquiry. Biology showed that man
was the product of a continuing evolution. The struggle for existence,
undoubtedly a fact of life, coexisted with another biological law,
solidarity. Just as each person was composed of mutually interacting
elements, so was he or she inextricably linked with other members of
society, both spatially and temporally. Individuals were culturally bound
to their predecessors, and through specialisation and the division of
labour, to their contemporaries. 'The laws of the species - laws of
heredity, adaptation, selection, the laws of integration and disintegration
- are only diverse aspects of the same general law of reciprocal
dependence, that is to say, solidarity, of the elements of universal life'
(45).
Mutual reciprocity did not contradict, but complemented, the
struggle for existence. The latter was undoubtedly essential to evolu-
tionary progress, but if left unchecked it would lead to harmful
consequences for the social body as well as for the individual. The
components of the social organism had to be organised, as did the
multiple cells comprising each organism. This was achieved by force in
authoritarian regimes and by consent in regimes founded upon liberty.
Bourgeois argued that the brutal struggle for existence was the point of
departure for human evolution (in contrast to the peaceful state of
nature hypothesised by Rousseau), and that as mankind developed
intelligence and morality the idea of voluntary association gradually
became paramount. This paved the way for a pacific contractual social
system which replaced the former state of war. Bourgeois regarded
liberty - the opportunity for individuals to realise their full potential - as
the primary condition of this form of social organisation. But people
were not isolated beings and, accordingly, had to recognise a social debt,
the fulfilment of which enabled society to ameliorate inequalities which
arose, not from natural differences in aptitudes, but from adverse social
circumstances and injustices (114).
This thesis portrayed solidarity as less the complement of the struggle
for existence than its replacement as society evolved greater levels of
harmony and reciprocity. Hence Bourgeois and Kropotkin both pro-
posed models of social organisation which they claimed were validated
by principles of biological science but in which natural selection played a
minimal role. The biological models upon which they both drew - and
Hayward, 'The Official Social Philosophy of the French Third Republic: Leon
Bourgeois and Solidarism', International Review of Social History, 6(1961), 19-48.
there were a number of such models in contemporary French thought68
- depicted organisms as mutually harmonious systems, the multiple
parts of which were interdependent and equilibrated. While this perspec-
tive on organic structure was compatible with Darwinist accounts of
organic change, it could also be, and was, deployed as a counterweight
to the Darwinian stress on competition in nature.69 Rather than being
labelled as examples of 'reform Darwinism', then, the theories of
Kropotkin and Bourgeois should be seen as critiques of Social
Darwinism which perceived nature as a model for social relations but
drew upon alternative theories of nature and evolution. Nor was this
simply a case of exploiting the indeterminate and ambiguous features of
the Darwinian world view; for though these theorists tried to legitimate
their position by invoking the authority of Darwin, they in fact proposed
a totally different account of change in which natural selection was either
minimised or eradicated.
A better candidate for the designation of reform Darwinist would be
the Frenchman J.-L. de Lanessan (1843-1919), a theorist of French
republicanism and a politician - he was for many years a deputy to the
National Assembly and governor-general of Indo-China from 1891 to
1895. In 1881 Lanessan published a short tract on Darwinism which
showed a firm grasp of the theory of natural selection.70 Lanessan took
issue with Darwin, though, on the role of the struggle for existence
between the organism and its milieu, which he considered to play a
negligible role in selection. The most important forms of struggle were
between organisms and others of a different nature, and with conspe-
cifics. The first led to the emergence of cooperation and association
among animals, which often enabled weaker individuals to survive; the
second (along with sexual selection) did produce the survival of the
fittest and was the primary cause of the progressive development and
transmutation of species (45-6).
Lanessan then argued that the struggle for existence applied equally to
humans (66). As in the animal kingdom, the struggle between people
and their milieu did not make for progressive selection but its opposite,
since it was often the hardiest and ablest individuals who bore the brunt
of environmentally imposed hardships (68). The struggle against other
creatures motivated human association and cooperation, which in turn
stimulated intelligence. But the growth of both society and intelligence
had implications for the struggle for existence. Among animals, the
68
See W. Schneider, Quality and Quantity (Cambridge University Press, 1990), 2 8 - 3 2 .
69
In Germany the concept of the cell-state was used in this manner. See Weindling,
Darwinism and Social Darwinism in Germany.
70
J.-L. Lanessan, Etude sur la doctrine du Darwin (Paris: Octave D o i n , 1881).
struggle with conspecifics produced the survival of the fittest. Within
human societies, 'this struggle has created kings, nobles, priests,
exploiters of all kinds' and stifled the growth of intelligence through war
and poverty (78-9). Similarly, sexual selection did not make for progress
because the existence of inequalities of wealth encouraged women to sell
themselves to the richest men (who were often the weakest), and
ensured their maintenance in conditions of ignorance and servitude
(79).
Lanessan was highly critical of theorists who used Darwinism to
present social inequalities as reflections of the survival of the fittest. like
Kidd, he proposed the equalisation of rights, universal education and
the abolition of hereditary wealth, in order to make the struggle for
existence within society congruent with the 'true' nature of the struggle
for existence and sexual selection (80), themes which were to be
developed in his subsequent publications.71 In their attempt to harmo-
nise the struggle of conspecifics in society with its counterpart in nature,
Lanessan's publications represent a genuine effort to construct a reform
Darwinism, geared to the support of French republicanism.
Conclusion
This analysis of reform Darwinism has highlighted a number of contra-
dictory features that are important for an appreciation of the discursive
boundaries of Social Darwinism. These features are connected to the
goals pursued by the majority of socialists, anarchists and liberal
reformers, namely social harmony, individual fulfilment and the eradica-
tion of poverty and oppression. The logic of reformism involved
ascribing conflict and inequality to social conditions that could be
altered through appropriate policies. But if struggle and selection were
ineluctable laws of nature, then the relationship between the natural and
social orders could prove problematic. One response was to deny the
relevance of biology to an understanding of society, and assert the
methodological autonomy of the social sciences - the strategy adopted
by Marx and Durkheim.72 Another was to reinterpret the struggle for
71
See J.-L. Lanessan, La Luttepour êxistence et revolution des societes (Paris: Alcan, 1903);
Lanessan, La Concurrence sociale et les devoirs sociaux (Paris: Alcan, 1904).
72
Although, as argued in the introduction, Durkheim never fully emancipated his
sociology from biologically grounded assumptions. Even theorists who explicitly
denounced biological reductionism, therefore, sometimes succumbed to it. This is
noticeable in Anton Pannakoek's Marxism and Darwinism, tr. N . Weiser (Chicago:
Kerr, 1912; German edition, 1909). After claiming that Darwinism and Marxism were
separate sciences (35), the author went on to depict cooperation and altruism as laws
governing all social animals ( 3 6 - 4 2 ) .
existence in order to consign violent struggle to the evolutionary past
and portray market competition, or the conflict of ideas, as the social
analogues of the struggle for existence. This strategy was adopted by a
number of liberals and socialists, but the resultant theories were not
always coherent, often containing an ambivalent representation of
nature. Nature could appear both as a remorseless, impersonal process
of change and destruction and as a benign force - often personified as a
female, as in Bebel's image of nature as an instructress - which was
paradigmatic for the future organisation of society. One way out of this
dilemma - the one followed by Dewey - was to insist on the statistical
character of scientific laws and to stress the aleatory features of the
Darwinian view of nature, thereby opening up the possibility of a
rationally inspired democratic politics. This mode of Social Darwinist
theorising has not, however, found many disciples.
Another strategy consisted of elevating mutual aid to the status of a
natural law, and marginalising or denying the importance of the struggle
for existence. These theories, although invariably insisting upon their
Darwinian lineage, were actually opposed to Social Darwinism. They
amounted to an alternative interpretation, a different world view that
rejected the Darwinian explanatory focus on adaptation through
struggle. Biologically inspired theories of this ilk were influential. For
example, they helped substantiate a significant form of pacifism which
Crook has termed 'peace biology'. 73 Their existence attests to the
persisting importance of biological models in social and political
thought, but the model of nature they espoused was antithetical to that
contained in Social Darwinism.
73
Crook, Darwinism, War and History, which contains an extensive analysis of such
theories. Examples are W. Trotter, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War (London:
Fisher Unwin, 1916); J. Novicow, 'The Mechanism and Limits of Human Association:
The Foundations of a Sociology of Peace', tr. S. H. Otis, American Journal of Sociology,
23(1917), 289-349.
8 RaceSj nations and the struggle for existence
Introduction
Although several reform Darwinists were pacifists opposed to inter-
national armed conflict, most of them still believed that some form of
competition - usually economic - would continue to govern inter-state
relationships. What distinguishes the thinkers to be examined in this
chapter is that, first, they made conflict between nations and races the
central focus of their publications, and second, they regarded this conflict
as ultimately violent, carrying the threat of national or racial extermina-
tion. Given the salience of the notion of 'race' in these texts, it is
necessary to examine briefly some of its connotations.
Race was a widely used concept by the middle of the nineteenth
century. It could designate an organic sub-species or variety, as in the
sub-title of the Origin^ or a human group. In instances of the second
usage, it could be applied to humanity as a whole or to a combination of
nationalities (e.g. the 'European race'), or to an individual nation (e.g.
the 'English race'). Additionally, race was used to describe a group
characterised by distinctive physical (and, invariably, psychological)
traits, as in 'Celtic' 'Aryan' or 'Negroid' races. Such groups were often
hierarchically arranged according to a scale of physical, mental or moral
value. In some theories, those forming the subject of this chapter, the
'fact' that certain races were superior to others meant that relations
between races assumed vital importance to an understanding of history
and culture. In many cases, theorists tended to use the terms 'nation'
and 'race' as broadly interchangeable, or to regard nations as embodi-
ments of distinctive racial (i.e. physical and psychological) attributes.
For example, the Scots physician and anatomist, Robert Knox (1793-
1862), published a systematic treatise on race in 1850 entitled The Races
of Man.1 Knox, while sympathetic to the 'darker races' and critical of
1
This is the Robert Knox associated with the Burke and Hare bodysnatching scandal of
1828. For an account of the life and work of Knox, see H. Lonsdale, A Sketch of the Life
and Writings of Robert Knox the Anatomist (London: Macmillan, 1870).
184
Races, nations and the struggle for existence 185
colonialism, argued that racial inter-breeding led to the corruption and
collapse of civilisations.2 This theme was the central argument of the
Frenchman, Arthur de Gobineau (1816-82) in his four-volume Essay on
the Inequality of the Human Races (1853-5), in which he foretold the
future of humanity in terms of 'its waning and inevitable decline'
through miscegenation.3 The Aryans, of whom the Germanic peoples
were the last remnants, were creators of modern civilisation but had
become enfeebled through inter-breeding with inferior races and were
threatened by extinction. This thesis received its most comprehensive
elaboration by a Germanised Briton, Houston Stewart Chamberlain
(1855-1927) in his famous The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century
(1899). Chamberlain portrayed the history of the West as an incessant
conflict between the spiritual and culture-creating Aryans and the
mercenary and materialistic Jews. Western civilisation had declined,
although Chamberlain believed the situation could be retrieved by
decisive intervention, and came to regard Hitler as a potential saviour.4
None of these theorists drew upon Darwinism for their arguments.
The work of Knox preceded Darwinism, and de Gobineau was hostile to
Darwin, whom he accused of plagiarising his ideas.5 Chamberlain has
been associated with Social Darwinism, but although he was familiar
with the biological thought of his day, he repudiated natural selection
and embraced a vitalist conception of organic growth.6 The relevance of
these thinkers to an understanding of Social Darwinism lies in their
popularisations of the idea that racial struggle was fundamental to a
'scientific' understanding of history and culture. Their theories made
explicit something that was implicit in much racial thinking, i.e. that
race was an intrinsically hierarchical and evaluative term, mingling
phenomenological description with moral judgement. In this it was
similar to the concept of class: indeed, descriptions and judgements
were often interchanged between the two notions.7
2
See S. Collinson, 'Robert Knox Anatomy of Race', History Today, 40(1990), 44-9.
3
De Gobineau, Essay, in M. Biddiss, ed., Gobineau: Selected Political Writings (London:
Jonathan Cape, 1970), 175.
4
For an analysis of Chamberlain's ideas in The Foundations, see G. Field, Evangelist of
Race (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), chap. 5; R. Stackelberg, Idealism
Debased (Ohio: Kent University Press, 1981), Part III.
5
De Gobineau, foreword to second edition of Essay, Selected Political Writings, 232.
6
M. Burleigh and W. Wipperman charge Chamberlain with fusing Social Darwinism
with anti-Semitism in The Racial State (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 36. For an
analysis of Chamberlain's racial ideas which stresses their anti-Darwinian orientation,
see M. Woodroffe, 'Racial Theories of History and Politics: the Example of Houston
Stewart Chamberlain', in P. Kennedy and A. Nicholls, eds., Nationalist and Racist
Movements in Britain and Germany Before 1914 (London: Macmillan, 1981), 143-53.
7
D. Lorimer, Colour, Class and the Victorians (Leicester University Press, 1978), 60-2,
77,80-1.
In Darwinism it was possible to conceive groups as the units of
evolutionary change. In the light of the importance of both race and
nationalism in nineteenth-century social thought, it is understandable
why Darwinists very quickly showed interest in racial attributes and
inter-ethnic relationships. Both A. R. Wallace and Charles Loring Brace
produced evolutionary accounts of racial differences, while Haeckel,
Royer, Rolle and Bagehot made racial and/or national conflict an
important factor in social evolution. The theorists discussed below went
further than this in making national and racial struggles the primary
focus of their interpretations of socio-historical change.
Le Bon and the psychology of race

Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931) is best remembered for his studies on
crowd and racial psychology.8 Much less well known, but crucial to an
understanding of the intellectual underpinnings of his work, is his two-
volume UHomme et les societes, published in 1881.9 Here he explicitly
endorsed all the components of the Darwinian world view. He embraced
uniformitarianism and repudiated creationism, arguing for a condition
of constant flux in nature wrought by the accretion of imperceptible
changes leading to the increasing complexity of all phenomena (I, 1-11).
In the realm of organic nature this process of perfection was brought
about through the natural selection of favourable variations. Selection
itself stemmed from a struggle for existence deriving from the super-
fecundity of living beings (I, 124-5), a struggle that was at its most
intense between organisms belonging to the same species (I, 131). For
Le Bon, the source of variations was the acquisition of characters
through adaptation which were then transmitted to subsequent genera-
tions (I, 126-7). Natural selection ensured that inherited variations were
useful and was responsible for all modification, whether to form,
structure or character: 'It is the struggle for existence which has made
beings more and more divergent5 (I, 135).
This process was equally at work in human evolution, although less
actively so because social organisation tended to protect the weak and
allow them to procreate. Fortunately, such practices did not annul
natural selection so much as transform it: cIn all living beings, from
insect to man, the selection that results from the combat for existence
8
G. Le Bon, Psychologie des foules (Paris: Alcan, 1895); tr. The Crowd: A Study of the
Popular Mind (London: Fisher Unwin, 1896); Le Bon, Les Lois psychologiques de
revolution despeuples (Paris: Alcan, 1894).
9
G. Le Bon, L'Homme et les societes: leurs origines et lew histoire, 2 vols. (Paris: Rothschild,
1881).
will always remain the essential condition of progress. In human
societies, this struggle takes several names, notably that of competition;
but, beneath its diverse appellations, its results always remain the same,
that is to say, the triumph of the fittest and the elimination of the less
well-adapted' (I, 196-7).
Selection had formed the different races of mankind, which for Le
Bon represented distinct species distinguished by physical characteristics
and different mental traits and capabilities. He argued that whereas
crossings between superior races were usually beneficial, those between
an inferior and a superior race were disastrous, resulting in the
elimination of the latter. If miscegenation did not take place it was the
lower race that succumbed and was annihilated in the case of prolonged
contact between the two. To Le Bon, nature was aristocratic, and
mercilessly punished impure blood (I, 199-200).
It was because social evolution was subsumed under the same laws as
evolution in general that a science of society was possible. Given the
complexity of social reality this science could have a limited but still
useful impact on social evolution, much as the knowledge of the
physician had a small but nonetheless significant effect on the march of
illness (II, 24-5). Social science could also play an important role in
exploding various myths about former ages of gold and the noble savage
(I, 12, 17-18). Anthropology revealed the struggle for survival to be
more intense among men than among animals, with war representing
one of man's principal preoccupations: 'Equally among the savage and
the civilised man, the state of war against his fellows is the natural state,
and the struggle is all the more cruel, by the number of victims that it
brings about and the price that it exacts, when the people among whom
it rages have attained a higher degree of civilisation' (II, 88). All that
civilisation did was to shorten the length of wars on account of their
enormous destructiveness. Furthermore, armed conflict was not the
only guise in which the struggle for existence was manifested, and Le
Bon mentioned commercial and industrial competition as a particularly
acute form (II, 89). The sentiments of hostility and ferocity induced by
struggle - and for Le Bon, it was sentiments which were the primary
form of motivation among individuals and races - were fixed by heredity
to such an extent that civilisation had proved impotent against them. But
Le Bon was adamant that struggle and the miseries it occasioned were
the determinants of progress, and when struggle was relaxed progress
ceased and regression took place. 'The history of peoples', he wrote, 'is
in reality only a narrative of facts resulting from their efforts to surpass
their neighbours in military strength' (II, 95).
Le Bon was consequently perturbed by philanthropic efforts to curb
the effects of struggle, efforts which sowed the seeds of future racial
decadence by preventing the elimination of the unfit (II, 96). It was
always the inferior specimens in a society which bred prolifically and
threatened the quality of the race, for it was quality rather than mere
numbers which enabled a race to be successful (II, 105). Le Bon was
completely reductionist in his estimation of the relative roles of nature
and nurture in moulding racial and personal character: 'Energy, fore-
sight, perseverance, the taste for work, self control, initiative, the
sentiment of family are all qualities that heredity can give but which no
institution can create' (II, 137). It was for this reason that Le Bon
excoriated the efforts by women to achieve equality with men. Evolution
demonstrated the progressive differentiation of men and women
through time and no education could alter this (II, 156). He warned that
the day when women abandoned the 'inferior occupations' allotted them
by nature and engaged in masculine activities there would commence 'a
social revolution' that would destroy 'the sacred bonds of family'
(II, 159).
This argument highlights a notable feature of Le Bon's use of Social
Darwinism, one already encountered in other theorists. Throughout his
writings Le Bon constantly reiterated the point that nature was in
constant flux, and in human civilisation variability rather than fixity was
the norm. 10 Yet these statements were juxtaposed with others which
conveyed exactly the opposite impression, i.e. that certain aspects of
human nature, particularly those characters and sentiments which were
the major determinants of racial and sexual identities, were refractory to
change. Thus he proclaimed the existence of two tiers to the anatomical
and mental structures of any species - a small number of irreducible
elements around which were grouped secondary traits. The latter were
modifiable, the former much less so. 11 With human races, these
irreducible elements were those comprising 'character', such as the
sentiments of perseverance, energy, will, etc. Character governed the
history of a people, and it was the incompatibility of different racial
characters that brought about inter-racial conflicts. 12 Character was
resistant to change through education, but it could rapidly atrophy if
peace led to the death of the military virtues in favour of the pursuit of
wealth and an untrammelled egoism. 13 Thus Le Bon posited the
existence of a human nature which sometimes appeared resistant to
'artificial' change and had remained fixed for six millennia, and at other
times was portrayed as fragile, susceptible to precisely those cultural
transformations which were elsewhere dismissed as powerless against
10
For example, Le Bon, Les Lois psychologiques, 20; Le Bon, Psychologie desfoules, 73-4.
11 12 13
Le Bon, Us Lois psychologiques, 21. Ibid., 32, 34. Ibid., 152-4.
heredity and natural selection. This opportunism was undoubtedly
prompted by his desire to demonstrate that the policies proposed by
feminists and socialists were futile because unrealistic, or else harmful
because they promoted degeneracy. As a result, Le Bon sometimes
denied the possibility of any genuine moral transformations, bringing
him close to an implicit essentialism despite his express commitment to
the protocols of Darwinism:
we must recognise, as a matter of daily observation, that human laws have been
utterly powerless to modify the laws of nature, and that the latter continue to
determine the relations of one people with another. All theories of right and
justice are futile. International relations are today what they have been since the
beginning of the world ... Right and justice have never played any part in the
relations of nations of unequal strength.14
Or, more briefly put: 'History always turns in the same circle.'15
One other point about Le Bon's use of Social Darwinism deserves
mention, namely his presentation of evolution as a force acting for the
benefit of the species rather than the individual. Argued Le Bon: 'Nature
is neither cruel nor kind. She thinks only of the species, and remains
indifferent - formidably indifferent - to the individual.'16 The species -
or its human counterpart, the race - became the reference point against
which the progressive or the degenerative potential of change was to be
judged. The outcome was to derive harder, harsher consequences from
Social Darwinism. Darwin, Royer, Haeckel and Spencer had all warned
against the indiscriminate spread of charity and altruism but all had,
nevertheless, esteemed both to be important and desirable expressions
of the development of human character. Not so Le Bon, who unequi-
vocally repudiated such foolishness: 'The term solidarity signifies merely
association, and by no means charity or altruism. Charity is a noxious
and anti-social sentiment; altruism is an artificial and impotent senti-
ment.' 17 Unlike the first pioneers for whom Social Darwinism implied
moral perfection in the long run, Le Bon portrayed such perfection as
not only chimerical but, should anyone attempt to realise it, as
detrimental to the future of racial progress. Le Bon's theories, then,
mark an important development in Social Darwinism due to their
insistence on the permanence of hereditary traits and their advocacy of
public policies based upon recognition of this fact.
There are similarities between Le Bon's linkage of inevitable racial
conflict to a denial of moral progress with the theories of the Austrian
sociologist, Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838-1909). In his Outlines of
14
Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism (no tr.) (London: Fisher Unwin, 1899), 328-9.
15
Le Bon, Les Lois psychologiques, 165.
16 17
LeBon, Psychology of Socialism, 326. Ibid., 342.
Sociology (1885), 18 Gumplowicz presented races as the units of evolu-
tion, which equated with species denned by durable hereditary char-
acteristics (161, 177, 217). Motivated by economic self-interest, races
were engaged in ceaseless competition for resources, which generated
conflict and exploitation, the dynamics of evolution (205-6). 19 The state
was a coercive institution for the protection of the interests of a
dominant class. Hence even within a society, group conflict was
endemic: though it could be temporarily confined to peaceful competi-
tion by the state, the adversarial nature of group interests was such that
'each group that is able, tends to become exclusive like a caste, to form a
consanguineous circle. In short it becomes a race' (227). Racial war was,
therefore, ubiquitous, and the potential possessed by any group to
consolidate into a race ensured the continual formation of new races.
Gumplowicz concluded from this that moral progress was chimerical.
From the earliest forms of social organisation, the horde, to the nation-
states of the present, groups were motivated by 'blind natural law' rather
than by ethical considerations. 'Lying and deceit, breach of confidence
and betrayal is on every page of their history', exactly like the relations
between primitive hordes.
Indeed, it is generally recognised that states oppose each other like savage
hordes; that they follow the blind laws of nature; that no ethical law or moral
obligation, only the fear of the stronger, holds them in check; and that neither
right nor law, treaty nor league, can restrain the stronger from seeking its own
interests when the opportunity is offered (229).
Ethics constituted no more than a camouflage for group interests, and
right was defined to suit the strongest. In addition, since the individual
reflected the morality of the horde or state to which he or she belonged,
there could be no question of the progressive individuation regarded by
earlier Social Darwinists as an essential facet of progress. For the more
liberal among them, like Royer and Spencer, this involved the gradual
emancipation of the individual from collective constraints and his or her
self-realisation as an autonomous, rational being. No such evolution was
envisaged by Gumplowicz. Although his sociology assigned a certain
amount of importance to the development of structural complexity
within social systems, from the horde to the nation-state, this did not
entail a corresponding expansion of human freedom and autonomy.20
As with Le Bon, what we see in the sociology of Gumplowicz is not so
much a theory of evolution as one of social change, and a severely
18
L. Gumplowicz, Outlines of Sociology, tr. F. Moore (New York: Paine-Whitman, 1963).
19
See also Gumplowicz, Sociologie etpolitique (no tr.) (Paris: Giard et Briere, 1898), 157.
20
For further discussion of Gumplowicz's Social Darwinism, see my 'The Struggle for
Existence', 55-8.
constrained theory of change at that. Once the primeval horde has been
superseded, social and psychological transformations seem to be cyclic
in form, consisting of political growth, fragmentation and decline.
Gumplowicz warned his readers that a catastrophic annihilation was
quite conceivable for modern European states for, though they were no
longer menaced by barbarian tribes, the absence of any moral distinc-
tions between primitive and modern mentality meant that the instincts
of such tribes 'lie latent in the populace of European states' (304-5,
309). Thus Gumplowicz adhered to the Darwinist tenet that new species
(i.e. races) could be formed and existing ones become extinct through
conquest, inter-mixing and closure, but his theory amounted to a denial
that, in social terms, changes were cumulative and directional and hence
could lead to the creation of novel modes of social and political
organisation.21 This denial was made even more forcefully in my next
example of racial Social Darwinism.
The calibration of racial worth

The distinctive features of the race theories of Le Bon and Gumplowicz
- biological determinism, racial essentialism, group selection and the
implicit representation of evolution as preservation rather than change -
are even more pronounced in the writings of the Frenchman, Georges
Vacher de Lapouge (1854-1936). Lapouge, a former public prosecutor
turned librarian, has earned a reputation as an uncompromising theorist
of race, even to the extent of anticipating Nazism.22 The following
exegesis seeks to identify the main contours of what he designated as the
discipline of 'anthropo-sociology' and to relate it to the world view of
Social Darwinism.
Lapouge was convinced that Darwinism would revolutionise political
science. Rejecting the inheritance of acquired characters on the authority
of Weismann's experiments, Lapouge announced heredity and selection
to be the only forces at work in evolution, acting throughout nature with
the same universality and irresistibility as gravity. These forces operated
upon humans, who were part of nature. 'We must never forget that man
is not a being apart, but simply a primate.' Humans could be classified
21
It is perfectly possible for cyclic conceptions of change to coexist with linear
conceptions within Darwinism; indeed Gould has argued {An Urchin in the Storm, 165)
that both notions - time's arrow and time's cycle - are essential. But Gumplowicz
seems to deny, or at least seriously underplay, the idea of time's arrow.
22
According to Clark {Social Darwinism in France, 131), the Nazis reprinted Lapouge's
UAryen in 1939. Lapouge, in an interview given in 1933, apparently accused the Nazis
of distorting his theories, although J. Colombat {La Fin du monde civilise, Paris: Vrin,
1946) refers to him as 'Hitler's French master' ( 9 - 1 0 ) .
into races which were discrete biological units, species in the process of
formation. 'What enables the recognition of race is the presence of
physical, physiological and psychic characteristics which constitute the
type.' Races were created and maintained through the actions of heredity
and selection rather than culture and language, which made race a
'zoological' concept for Lapouge. 23
Although Lapouge did not consider himself to have been influenced
by de Gobineau, he dated the birth of anthropo-sociology from the
publication of the latter's Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races.24
Lapouge agreed with de Gobineau that: 'The psychology of race is the
fundamental factor in historical evolution .. ,' 25 Once there had been
pure races, but through inter-breeding these had been replaced by
races of varying degrees of purity. Such crossings were the cause of
decadence and decline. Lapouge invoked an anthropological analogue
to Gresham's law in economics, according to which good coin was
driven out of circulation by bad coin: when two races were mixed, the
inferior would eventually predominate over the superior. 26 In regions
where racial inter-breeding was long established, 'there is an infinity of
individuals who no longer belong to any race by dint of belonging to
several, and whose blood is contaminated in a definitive manner. In
other words, to the notion of race it is necessary to oppose that of the
individual outside of any race, the zoological pariah.'27
Racial differences were innate and ineradicable and therefore any
notion of the unification and integration of races was a mere pipe-
dream, contrary to the elementary laws of biology. 28 Throughout his
work, Lapouge portrayed heredity as an inexorable determinant of both
physique and character. The individual could not alter his physical
appearance, and nor could he efface 'from his soul the tendencies which
make him think and act as his ancestors thought and acted'. Education
was powerless to alter a person's character because traits such as
independence and initiative could not be taught but only acquired
through inheritance. The individual was constrained by the iron laws of
nature: 'The blood that he carries in his veins from birth he keeps all his
life. The individual is crushed by his race, he is nothing. The race, the
nation, are everything.'29 The psychology of the race dominated that of
the individual, and the idea of free will - of the individual as an
autonomous agent - was illusory. It was impossible for individuals to
23
Lapouge, Selections, 1, 11, 5, 8.
24
Lapouge, "The Fundamental Laws of Anthropo-sociology', tr. C. Closson, Journal of
Political Economy, 6 ( 1 8 9 8 ) , 56.
25 26 27
Lapouge, UAryen, 369. Lapouge, Selections, 67. Ibid., 7.
28 29
Lapouge, UAryen, 369. Ibid., 3 5 1 , 5 1 1 .
escape their racial heritage: the belief that inferior races were improvable
through contacts with more advanced races was contrary to the lessons
of science.30
According to Lapouge, useful variations of a physical or psychological
nature allowed some individuals to survive and reproduce while others
died out. 31 But because man was a social animal, the struggle for
existence became modified into a conflict between different groups 'in
which the individuals found themselves united against the common
enemy'. 32 This transformation was of momentous consequence for the
course of human evolution. 'The struggle of man against man through
war has not ceased, but it has acquired a social character .. ,' 3 3 As social
solidarity grew, natural selection diminished in importance and was
replaced by social selection, a form of struggle no less murderous than its
natural counterpart but one producing very different results. In fact,
social selection perverted evolution by eliminating the best individuals
and allowing inferior specimens to survive and propagate their kind.
This was how the great civilisations of antiquity had perished and a
similar fate now threatened modern Europe. 34
Lapouge argued that Europe was populated by three major racial
groups. The first was Homo Europaeus - tall, pale-skinned, blue-eyed
and long-skulled. Lapouge considered the 'cephalic index' afforded a
good measure of racial type, and Homo Europaeus was dolichocephalous,
with an index of 75 or less.35 This race had become popularly referred to
as 'Aryan', a term Lapouge found acceptable on condition that the
anthropo-sociologist bore in mind its zoological rather than linguistic
connotations. The second race was Homo Alpinus, smaller and darker
complexioned than the Aryan, with black hair, brown eyes and
brachycephalous heads (i.e. short skulls with an index of over 80). This
race was a product of inter-breeding with several others. The third race
was the Mediterranean type, long-headed but possessing the darker skin
and shorter stature of Alpinus. Lapouge was primarily concerned with
the first two races.
Psychological differences augmented the physical distinctions
between the Aryan and Alpinus. The former was a natural leader and
30 31
Ibid., 3 5 2 - 3 , 4 0 5 . Lapouge, Selections, 8 2 .
32
Lapouge, L'Aryen, 3 7 4 . Lapouge, Selections, 60.
34
Ibid., chap. 7 and 4 4 3 - 4 ; Lapouge, VAryen, 5 1 2 , 4 0 6 .
35
T h e cephalic index is obtained by dividing the width of the skull by its length and
multiplying the result by 100. However, anthropologists disagreed over the respective
virtues of dolichocephaly and brachycephaly, and many, contra Lapouge, were of the
opinion that brachycephaly was a sign of superiority. See Schneider, Quality and
Quantity, 2 5 1 ; Haller, Outcasts From Evolution, 3 8 . Havelock Ellis associated dolichoce-
phaly with degeneration in his Man and Woman, eighth edn (London: Heinemann,
1934), 186.
innovator, excelling in intellectual work, whether in science, letters or
the arts, as well as in the business world. This made the Aryan 'a great
promoter of progress', a natural conqueror, robust, intelligent, possessed
of boundless energy, though of a sad and cold disposition.36 In all these
respects, he contrasted sharply with the brachycephalous Alpinus;
Lapouge even considered the greater tendency of Aryans to ride bicycles
a mark of superiority.37 He speculated that Alpinus had originally 'lived
in forests and mountains in an almost simian state, and had been enticed
out of their lairs only to serve as slaves to the dolichocephals'.38 This had
generated an innate desire for a master: 'The instinct of servitude is so
anchored in the psychology of the brachycephal that immediately he is
free, he is compelled to seek a master who will guarantee his security.'
These psychological differences were reflected in a 'natural division of
labour' in which the Aryans occupied the most important social
positions while the brachycephals performed menial tasks and manual
labour.39
In spite of their natural inferiority - indeed, because of it - the
brachycephals were becoming the dominant race in Europe. Homo
Alpinus was seemingly indestructible: 'He is inert, he is mediocre, but he
multiplies.'40 Since the Middle Ages the brachycephals had increased at
the expense of the dolichocephals because the social milieu progressively
favoured servility and mediocrity, subverting the natural division of
labour throughout Europe. Social selection was destroying the most
eugenic families and leaving in its wake a racial debris incapable of
resisting the challenge of new conquerors.
Lapouge identified several forms of social selection. First, there was
political selection, functioning through civil wars, exile and persecution.
The French Revolution was an important instance of this, marking the
violent transfer of power from one race - the Aryans - to another,
Alpinus, who maintained this dominance through the device of democ-
racy.41 Lapouge regarded democracy as an unmitigated disaster in
France, where it failed to express French racial realities in the way that a
parliamentary system did in Britain and the USA (where the Aryans
were still numerous). Though weak and vacillating due to the mutual
paralysis of the executive and legislature, this regime continued to
oppress individuals left unprotected after first the absolute monarchy
and then the Revolution had destroyed the institutional life of France
and created a 'human dust' of atomised individuals. Yet the brachyce-
36 37
Lapouge, VAryen, 399, 151. Lapouge, 'The Fundamental Laws', 63.
38 39
Lapouge, VAryen, 236. Lapouge, Selections, 76; VAryen, 238.
40
Lapouge, VAryen, 481; see also Selections, 67.
41
Lapouge, Selections, 251; L 'Aryen, 464.
phal thrived in this environment: 'He is the perfect slave, the ideal serf,
the model subject, and in a republic like our own, the best-regarded
citizen, as he tolerates every abuse.'42
Modern warfare also had a deleterious selective impact. Among
primitives and barbarians, war was beneficial because it eliminated weak
individuals. With the advent of civilisation it became a veritable scourge,
ensuring that the bravest and strongest were exposed to death while the
lunatics, criminals and misfits were protected. War had been virtually
eliminated within societies, but at the international level it was as fierce
and relentless as ever, making the proposal for a United States of Europe
an empty Utopia. 'War is the essential and necessary mode of
international selection, and it appears to augment rather than diminish
in intensity.' The decline of the militaristic Aryan spelled disaster for
European nations in the forthcoming conflicts which, for Lapouge, were
unavoidable. 'The struggle of large nations is a natural necessity.'43
Religion exerted another adverse selective influence, especially Cath-
olicism, where celibacy among the priesthood reduced the ranks of the
most ardent, and hence usually better, individuals. Worse still was the
fact that Christianity encouraged moral conformity and intolerance,
which worked against the independently minded Aryans.44 Lapouge was
convinced that society had need of a shared system of values which
could act as a moral bond because selection had produced in man a
biological need to believe in such values which made them as necessary
as bread, but the religion he endorsed was Haeckel's monism rather
than Christianity.45
Closely linked to religion was moral selection, in which prudish norms
and prohibitions hindered reproductive activities and forced people to
wear too much clothing, which restricted the ability of the skin to
breathe and caused diseases like tuberculosis. Charitable endeavours
were equally regressive, 'protecting from the effects of selection those
elements which cannot and will not work, and multiplying them in an
artificial manner'.46 This allowed racial degeneration to become the
norm in modern societies 'where the incompetent, far from being
eliminated, can live at the expense of others and multiply the more so as
they are psychically closer to animality'. Humanitarian concern for the
criminal had also created a form of legal selection. Lapouge insisted that
the criminal should not be allowed to reproduce because all of his
42
Lapouge, UAryen, 2 3 3 ; also 3 7 6 - 8 , 3 8 1 .
43
Lapouge, Selections, 224; L'Aryen, 5 0 1 .
Lapouge, Selections, 2 6 4 - 6 , 2 8 1 .
45
Lapouge, 'Preface' to Haeckel, Le Monisme, 1, 8; L'Aryen, vi.
46
Lapouge, Selections, 3 1 2 - 1 7 , 318.
progeny would carry the germ of criminality. Imprisonment he decried
as both ineffectual and expensive: the most certain, selective and
economical penal sanction was the death penalty. 47
Finally, there existed a mode of economic selection which was helping
to destroy the Aryan who, while eminently suited to entrepreneurial and
even speculative activities, was disadvantaged by the untrammelled
egoism of the modern world. This favoured an aristocracy whose wealth
was based upon chance rather than upon merit, one which became
softened and corrupted by success, lazy and decadent.
All these forces, along with the emigration of the best Aryan stock to
the New World and the degenerative consequences of cross-breeding,
combined to reduce the number of dolichocephals in Europe, particu-
larly in France, Spain and Southern Germany. Hence Lapouge's
writings were punctuated with jeremiads prophesying the imminent
destruction of European civilisation. Europe was finished, and in the
forthcoming global confrontation he foresaw the triumph of Russia and
the implementation of a bureaucratic regime congenial to the brachy-
cephals, although it was just conceivable that victory could go to the
Aryan United States. 48 Sometimes Lapouge predicted the total eclipse
of civilisation in a tone which came close to the subsequent Nazi rhetoric
of apocalypse:
The final times will see men emancipated from all civilisation, returned to their
elementary liberty, ensconced in caves, borrowing their coats from the denizens
of the forest, begging their repast from wild boars and wolves. One will no longer
see any inequality among men, except one, the inequality between he who is on
the spit and he who turns it. Dies irael ['Day of wrath!']49
Lapouge did offer some hope of salvation if nations could harness the
immensely powerful forces of heredity to work in favour of their eugenic
elements. 'Systematic selection appears to be the only means possible to
escape from the coming mediocrity and the final fall.' 50 Public opinion
must be educated about the effects of racial mixing and of the urgent
need for eugenic policies. Polygamy, abortion and even incest he
approved as eugenically sound practices, and Lapouge suggested that
the provision of free alcohol to the worst social types might encourage
them to kill themselves off in their inevitable excesses. 51 His ideal was a
society in which the superior racial elements were in complete control
47 48
Ibid., 119, 321-4. Lapouge, UAryen, 492, 495, 502.
49
L a p o u g e , 'Dies irael La fin d u m o n d e civilise', Revue Europe (1923), cited in C o l o m b a t ,
La Fin du monde civilise, 219. Statements like this, c o m m o n t h r o u g h o u t L a p o u g e ' s
publications, caused h i m to b e c o m e associated with pessimistic a n d iconoclastic
versions of Social Darwinism. See C. Fages, ' L ' E v o l u t i o n d u darwinisme sociologique',
UHumanite nouvelle, 3 ( 1 8 9 9 ) , 3 0 , 3 2 - 4 , 3 6 - 7 .
50 51
L a p o u g e , Selections, 4 8 9 . Ibid., 4 8 6 .
and remained strictly segregated from the remainder of the population.
"The system of closed, specialised castes, artificial sub-species, is the last
word in evolution.'52
Though Lapouge was marginalised in his own country and played a
limited role in the French eugenics movement, it would be too simple
to explain this by reference to the sentiments outlined above. 53 First,
Lapouge's ideas were not qualitatively different from those of his
contemporaries, even if somewhat less tactfully presented. Second,
Lapouge did enjoy a considerable reputation in the wider international
eugenics movement, and even in France his status improved somewhat
with the development of a more racially oriented eugenics during the
1930s and 1940s. 54 Third, Lapouge's ideas on race were also unremark-
able by the standards of his time and were hence unlikely to have been
responsible for his lack of popularity among his countrymen. Lapouge
described the Jews as an ethnic group rather than a zoological race - one
founded upon religion and with a psychic identity forged over centuries
of selection. They were everywhere the same: intelligent, ruthless, gifted
money-makers, arrogant in success and servile in defeat, and congeni-
tally odious, as evinced by their history of persecution, which antedated
the birth of Christ by several centuries. In the leadership vacuum
created by the decline of the Aryans, the Jews would undoubtedly
become prominent, perhaps even to the extent of taking over Europe,
but they were unable to reproduce themselves sufficiently rapidly to
become a master race, and were likely to remain a powerful but detested
caste.55
Arguments of this nature would have been offensive to many French
citizens in the highly charged atmosphere surrounding the Dreyfus
case, but they were mild by comparison with the anti-Semitic rhetoric
of the radical, nationalistic right.56 Yet Lapouge does not appear to
have found an audience among these groups. The reason surely lies in
52
Ibid., 484.
53
For details of Lapouge's reception in France, see Clark, Social Darwinism in France,
143-54, 158; Clark, 'Le Darwinisme social en France', 197-8; W. Schneider, Quality
and Quantity, 61.
54
See Schneider, Quality and Quantity, 251. Schneider underlines the originality of
Lapouge's ideas on eugenics at their time of publication, 61. Lapouge was cited in
books on heredity, as well as by social theorists. See J. A. Thomson, Heredity (London:
Murray, 1908), 562, 593; Sumner Folkways, 42; T. Veblen, in M. Lerner, ed., The
Portable Veblen (New York: Viking Press, 1948), 215; C. Spiess, Imperialismes (Paris:
Eugene Figuiere, 1917); C. Closson, 'Social Selection', Journal of Political Economy,
4(1896), 4 4 9 - 6 6 .
55
Lapouge, UAryen, 4 6 5 - 8 , 4 7 4 .
56
See, for example, Campagne nationaliste, 1899—1901 (Paris: Imprimerie de la Cour
d'Appel, 1902) by Jules Soury (a Social Darwinist), which contains numerous
pejorative references to Jews, including fantasies about sticking them like pigs (91).
the overwhelming thrust of his publications, which was directed against
not only the political institutions of the Third Republic - dislike of
which he shared with the nationalist right - but against contemporary
French culture in general. Like de Gobineau, who also had few
French disciples, Lapouge located the cause of French decline and
decadence in the racial composition of the nation. His anthropo-
sociology was not focused upon the relationships between whites and
non-whites, which was the case with much of the literature on race,
but with relationships within the national community. His unflattering
description of the brachycephals, especially his derogatory assessments
of their character and capabilities, was aimed at the mass of the
French population. Even to those who repudiated the values and
institutions of republicanism, Lapouge must have appeared to have
relegated the vast majority of the French nation to the status of
permanent and irremediable worthlessness.
In effect, Lapouge went beyond a critique of the Third Republic to
challenge the entire heritage of the Enlightenment and the Revolution.
His assertion that the individual was 'crushed by his race' controverted
the universalist claim of autonomous, enlightened reason to chart the
course of human destiny. To the formula 'liberty, Equality and
Fraternity5 Lapouge opposed the slogan 'Determinism, Inequality,
Selection'. 57 He was unequivocal in his condemnation of democracy,
progress and pacifism. Science demonstrated the accidental, contingent
nature of life and was inimical to any ideal of progress. 58 The notion of
individual rights was ludicrous, for there could be no question of rights
against force; on the contrary, rights were created and maintained by
force. Finally, Lapouge poured scorn on the goal of fraternity: 'Let there
be fraternity, but woe to the vanquished! Life maintains itself only
through death.'59
Lapouge's ambition was to achieve a 'scientific explanation of the
historical development of civilisations by showing them to depend upon
the processes of biological evolution'. 60 In this he had a great deal in
common with Otto Ammon (1842-1915) in Germany. Both theorists
sought to quantify physical racial differences and to correlate these with
psychological traits, and both used their results to oppose those political
and social tendencies in their countries of which they disapproved. 61
Darwinism held out the hope of a genuine science of society and politics,
57 58
Lapouge, 'Preface' to Le Monisme, 2. Lapouge, Selections, 451; L'Aryen, ix.
59 60
Lapouge, L'Aryen, 512. Lapouge, 'The Fundamental Laws', 54.
61
See Ammon's critique of socialism in his Der Darwinismus Gegen die Sozialdemokratie
(Hamburg: Verlagstalt und Druckerei, 1891). For a discussion of Ammon, see Stark,
'Natural and Social Selection'; Bellomy,' "Social Darwinism" Revisited', 109-13.
and the task of anthropo-sociology was to communicate the importance
of race for an understanding of history and to measure and explain the
course of racial degeneration in Europe.
However, Lapouge's methodology, which, like that of Lombroso,
relied upon cranial measurements as indices of racial type, waned in
popularity during the twentieth century. The dubiousness of the attempt
to correlate intelligence and other mental attributes with the cephalic
index was apparent from Lapouge's own data. He alleged that the
dolichocephals made up the bulk of the intelligentsia and the high-status
professions, but his statistics actually showed the intellectual classes to
have a mean cephalic index that was higher than the average for the
population as a whole. The implications of this were evaded by invoking
the absence of large numbers of brachycephals in the populations
concerned.62
Lapouge was also unable to maintain a consistent explanation of
social and political phenomena by means of the biological reductionism
he espoused. The point of his work was to show that modern nations
were amalgams of different races, and the obvious inference to be
drawn from this was that nation-states were artificial units within which
racial conflicts were endemic. Many of Lapouge's strictures against the
racial pollution caused by the brachycephals, including his interpreta-
tion of the French Revolution, drew precisely this inference. But he also
argued on occasions that a nation was an immense family within a
certain geographical area, linked to its dead by traditions which would
in turn be bequeathed to its posterity. This implies a much more
harmonious (and traditionalist) conception of nationality stressing the
role of cultural bonds in cementing a people into a community.63 Yet
this perspective was contradicted by his critique of the idea of
naturalisation, which he labelled biological nonsense; hoping to turn a
foreigner into a national was akin to wanting to change a man into a
woman. 'Nations are as real as races, they are biological entities',
subject to a common selection which fused their various racial
components.64 But this thesis - that racial inter-breeding established
the basis for national identity - contradicts the repeated attacks on
racial crossings for causing the appearance of 'racial pariahs', people
pulled in different directions by plural hereditary forces, biologically
incoherent specimens doomed to extinction.65
62
Lapouge, 'The Fundamental Laws', 9 0 - 1 . Lapouge sometimes grouped mesocephals -
people with a cranial index of 7 5 - 9 - with dolichocephals in order to obtain a sufficient
contrast between the latter and brachycephals. See 'The Fundamental Laws', 8 2 - 3 .
63 64 65
Lapouge, L'Aryen, 367. Lapouge, Selections, 2 2 5 . Ibid., 161, 184.
There is a paradox at the centre of Lapouge's theory of social
selection, namely that biological forces, alleged to be inexorable causal
processes at work in human history, were implicitly acknowledged to be
powerless against countervailing social factors. Previous civilisations
were supposed to have declined due to race-mixing; modern civilisation
was, in addition, threatened by social dynamics which perverted the
course of 'natural evolution'. There is a great deal of intellectual
opportunism here. Phenomena were explained in either biological or
cultural terms depending on how they were evaluated. The psycho-
logical attributes of the Aryans which fitted them for mastery and
creativity, as well as the corresponding traits of the brachycephals which
rendered them suitable for servility and drudgery, were ascribed to
immutable biological laws. The factors responsible for the decline of the
Aryans and the numerical ascendancy of Alpinus, however, derived from
social processes which gave the latter an 'unfair' advantage, and should
therefore be checked.
This inconsistency of argument derived in part from the way in which
ideological considerations dominated the underlying world view, and
partly from the enterprise of trying to construct an account of culture
upon the presumed workings of nature. In the case of Lapouge, it is
ironic that the outcome of his efforts was a view of evolution in which
natural selection actually played very little part in bringing about change^
and instead functioned to preserve the dominance of the blue-eyed, long-
headed, bicycle-riding Aryan. In short, nature in his work provided less
a model of how social change actually took place than a normative
model of how society should be ordered. In this framework, the struggle
for existence was as potent a force as ever, but its consequences had little
to do with changing the physical and mental properties of races. Thus,
contrary to a constant emphasis on the ubiquity of change, Lapouge
adopted an essentialist position on race: for him, racial traits were, for all
intents and purposes, fixed. Transformation was possible, but only as
corruption and decadence.
The race problem in the South

In the USA Brace had yoked Darwinism to a theory proposing a
common origin for all races and attacking the enslavement of negroes in
the South. Later theorists experienced little difficulty in arguing the
opposite, i.e. that races were distinct species of unequal capabilities, and
that the stronger races eliminated the weaker in the struggle for survival.
In the context of the USA, this reasoning was often applied to post-
bellum black-white relations to argue that, severed from the protection
afforded by slavery, negroes were doomed to extinction in the struggle
for existence.66
The Race Problem in the South61 by Joseph Le Conte (1823-1901) is
representative of this style of argument. The author was a respected
geologist and president of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science when the book appeared in 1892. He began by stating
that the evolutionary theories of Darwin, and their extension by
Spencer, had revolutionised every department of thought, especially
sociology. He went on: 'The law determining the effects of contact of
species, races, varieties, etc. among animals may be summed up under
the formula, "The struggle for life and the survival of the fittest". It is
vain to deny that the same law is applicable to the races of man also'
(359). Inherited from the animal kingdom, the right of the strongest at
one time naturally entailed either slavery or extinction of the vanquished.
The difference between humans and animals resided in the reason of the
former, but the development of this varied according to the stage of
evolution attained by each race. The inevitable result of the two races
which differed widely in the 'grade of race evolution' coming into close
proximity 'will be, must be, ought to be, that the higher race will assume
control and determine the policy of the community' (359).
The character of the lower race determined the form of this
subordination. If, like the negro, the race was at an early stage of
evolution and hence plastic, docile and imitative, then slavery was
appropriate: if, like the redskin, the race had become more specialised
and so more rigid, then 'extermination is unavoidable' (360-1). Le
Conte contended that slavery was initially optimal for the negro, but by
the time of the Civil War he had evolved to a point where this institution
was no longer appropriate and some degree of freedom was essential.
The problem was that the negro's inferiority meant that his probable fate
was the second 'natural' outcome of racial competition - extinction
(362). If this conflicted with constitutional amendments, so much the
worse for the latter, since they were in conflict with the laws of nature,
which were the laws of God: 'There is a law of self-preservation for
communities as well as for individuals, and this law takes precedence
over all other laws. It is a higher law if you like' (364).
The differences between blacks and whites could not be eradicated
through education because although Le Conte was not of the opinion
that individual acquirements were totally refractory to inheritance, he
was certain that only a very small proportion of such modifications could
be passed on to future generations and thus took millennia to produce
66
Haller, Outcasts From Evolution, especially chap. 2.
67
Evolution Series no. 29: M a n and the State ( N e w York: Appleton and C o . , 1892).
any important effects. True, the higher the race, the more scope there
was for these effects, but Le Conte was adamant that heredity furnished
the greater part of every person's 'intellectual and moral capital' (366).
The negro was therefore constitutionally incapable of looking after
himself: 'The Negro race is still in childhood; it has not yet learned to
walk alone in the paths of civilisation.' This was why, in those parts of
the South where blacks predominated and white influences were
minimal, 'the Negroes are rapidly falling back into savagery' (367).
For Le Conte, races were distinctive species, and their sexual union
produced infertile offspring, which was contrary to nature. This was why
racial prejudice was not wholly pernicious: 'It is probably an instinct
necessary to preserve the blood purity of the higher race' (365). Inter-
mixture of varieties within the five or six 'primary races' was beneficial,
but the crossing of these races themselves was deleterious, producing
races (like mulattos) lacking the strength and endurance to compete
with other races. So faced with the struggle for survival, inferior races
had two options - extermination or mixture with other races. But since
the latter bred an even weaker race then extermination was inevitable
anyway as an outcome of'the pitiless law of organic evolution' (373).
Le Conte softened this harsh verdict somewhat by insisting that lower
races possessed valuable qualities that could be incorporated into a
'perfect humanity', and he envisaged a 'final civilisation' which seemingly
reflected the diverse traits of this humanity (375). When he returned to
the immediate problem of race relations in the South, however, this
idealism vanished. He insisted that blacks were unworthy of the vote and
should be disenfranchised through educational and property qualifica-
tions, which had the useful side-effect of disqualifying undesirable whites
as well (376-7). Racial differences reflected real differences in the
evolutionary advance of two races and should be maintained unless race
mixture could be shown to be both feasible and beneficial. Le Conte
asserted that it was not possible to speak with confidence on this matter
at the present time, belying the dogmatism of his own pronouncements
throughout the book on the evils of race mixture.
Le Conte's views on race were quite unremarkable for the period.
Sumner had argued that the South should be left to work out its racial
problems free from outside interference. He also maintained that the
experience of the South demonstrated that the negro was incapable of
exercising the vote. He concluded: 'The negro is unquestionably entitled
to good government, but giving him political rights has made it harder to
give him good government.'68 Similar views could be entertained even
68
Sumner, Collected Essays, 130.
by persons who did not believe that races were equivalent to species.
Thus the geologist Nathaniel Southgate Shaler (1841-1906) wrote that
humans belonged to a single species and races were 'mere varieties of
the same stock'.69 These varieties were nonetheless exposed to the
struggle for survival, and Shaler claimed that the frequency of Indian
and French place names in the United States was 'a startling suggestive-
ness of the incapacity of certain peoples to hold their places in the
struggle for existence'.70 As for the situation of blacks, Shaler insisted
that both sides in the Civil War had been motivated by honourable
considerations, and that while slavery was an evil, blacks had flourished
under its regimen and their masters had been humane. 71 Racial
prejudice he attacked as unwarranted in educated people; but he
asserted that it had once functioned to keep 'kinds' separate in order to
avoid race mixing, which Shaler deemed to be a cause of degeneracy,
despite his insistence that humans were one species.72
It must be stressed that one did not need to be a Social Darwinist in
order to adhere to this position on race. As Haller has argued, different
perceptions of the course of evolution had little impact on racist
doctrines.73 What Social Darwinism contributed to race theory was an
apparently scientific rationale for racial hierarchy and a mechanism - the
struggle for survival - for legitimating the predicted fate of blacks and
the actual fate of native Americans.
Imperialism
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the imperialist
policies pursued by the great powers were often perceived in terms of
racial conflict. This provided a context in which Social Darwinism could
be harnessed to the explanation and justification of imperialist policies,
and historians have indeed argued that this ideological linkage was an
intimate one.74 In fact there is a dearth of detailed investigations of the
role of Social Darwinism in imperialist thought and practice, a lacuna
particularly marked with regard to the soldiers, entrepreneurs and
administrators who were actively engaged in colonialism.
69
N . S. Shaler, The Citizen: A Study of the Individual and Government ( N e w York: Barnes,
1904), 13.
70 71 72
Ibid., 5 3 . Ibid., 60,318. Ibid., 2 3 4 - 5 , 3 1 9 - 2 0 .
73
Haller, Outcasts From Evolution, 210.
74
Williams, 'Social Darwinism,' 122; Young, 'Malthus and the Evolutionists', 1 3 7 - 8 ;
Moore, 'Varieties of Social Darwinism', 36; Jones, Social Darwinism, 1 4 9 - 5 3 ; J. Joll,
Europe After 1870 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983), 1 0 1 - 5 ; B. Semmel, Imperialism
and Social Reform (London: Allen and U n w i n , 1960); H. W. Koch, 'Social Darwinism
as a Factor in the " N e w Imperialism"', in Koch, ed., The Origins of the First World War,
second edn (London: Macmillan, 1984), 3 1 9 - 4 2 .
Two additional points need underlining. First, it is evident from some
of the figures already discussed that there was no single Social Darwinist
perspective on imperialism: to Woltmann's and Royer's endorsement
must be contrasted the hostility evinced by Sumner and Spencer.
Second, one could be an enthusiastic imperialist without being a Social
Darwinist. The German explorer and adventurer in East Africa, Carl
Peters, was convinced of the civilising mission of the Anglo-Saxons. By
opening up Africa, Europe would not only become enriched but would
realise a great duty, 'namely, to elevate a race from a lower plane, and to
draw it into the stream of the active development of mankind'. 75 On a
less elevated level, he was equally set on the aggrandisement of the
German Reich in the face of what he saw as the British ambition of
world hegemony.76 In neither cause did he resort to Social Darwinism;
when he lapsed into a philosophical register it was to stress the
importance of the will in overcoming obstacles and the need for stoical
acceptance of the mysterious workings of Providence.77
As with its associations with laissez-faire and racial conflict, then,
Social Darwinism's connections with imperialist ideology were complex,
and neither entailed the other. This being so, there were nevertheless
Social Darwinist rationalisations of imperialism. An excellent example is
furnished by the publications of the adventurer, hunter and busi-
nessman, Frederick Courtney Selous (1852-1917). In 1889, Selous
christened a mountain in South-East Africa Mount Darwin 'after that
illustrious Englishman whose far-reaching theories ... have revolution-
ised modern thought, and destroyed for ever many old beliefs that had
held men's minds in thrall for centuries'.78 Selous was deeply involved
in the annexation of what was to become Rhodesia, which entailed some
bloody confrontations with the warlike Matabele. In his description and
rationalisation of these conflicts, Selous drew heavily upon Social
Darwinism.
Selous defied his readers to judge his actions in the Matabele Wars
according to the dictates of conventional morality. He admitted to
shooting at fleeing blacks 'with as little compunction as though they
were a pack of wild dogs'.79 But he maintained that human beings,
75
Carl Peters, The Future of Africa (London: Waterlow, 1897), 15.
76
See Peters, England and the English (London: Hurst and Blacken, 1904), chap. 10.
Peters' efforts in East Africa were actually an embarrassment to the German
government which was lukewarm about colonial expansion in this area.
77
Peters, New Light on Dark Africa, tr. H. W. Dulken (London: Ward Locke, 1891), 9 1 .
78
F. C. Selous, Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa (London: Rowland, Ward,
1893), 286. For a discussion of Selous and his views o n empire, see K. Tidrick, Empire
and the English Character (London: Taurus, 1990), chap. 2.
79
Selous, Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia (London: Rowland, Ward, 1896), 64.
including the civilised inhabitants of Western Europe, were initially
descended from wild beasts and then from the equally savage peoples of
pre-historic times. Hence even with civilised persons it was not necessary
to scratch very deep 'in order to discover the savage ancestors from
whom they are descended'. 80 In the context of the Matabele Wars, the
horrors of the natural environment, the fear of insurrection and the
spectacle of massacred white women and children, were responsible for
awakening the 'slumbering fiend5 which lies latent within us all:
in the smooth and easy course of civilised existence it is possible for a man to live
a long life without ever becoming aware that somewhere deep down below the
polished surface of conventionality there exists in him an ineradicable leaven of
innate ferocity, which, although it may never show itself except under the most
exceptional circumstances, must and ever will be there - the cruel instinct which,
given sufficient provocation, prompts the meekest nature to kill his enemy - the
instinct which forms the connecting link between the nature of man and that of
the beast.81
As far as the indigenous peoples of south-east Africa were concerned,
Selous was convinced of their inferiority relative to the white colonisers.
The latter despised the blacks and regarded them as occupying a lower
scale of humanity. Empathy between the races was out of the question,
and Selous proclaimed it to be 'impossible for a European to understand
the workings of a native's mind'. 82 History showed that when a civilised
race tried to govern a savage race, the latter rebelled. The conquest of
the savage race was therefore a pre-requisite for the development of
civilisation, even though this undoubtedly involved bloodshed and
injustice against the primitive race.
Therefore Matabeleland is doomed by what seems a law of nature to be ruled by
the white man, and the black man must go, or conform to the white man's laws,
or die in resisting them. It seems a hard and cruel fate for the black man, but it is
a destiny which the broadest philanthropy cannot avert, whilst the British
colonist is but the irresponsible atom employed in carrying out a preordained
law - the law which has ruled upon this planet ever since, in the far-off misty
depths of time, organic life wasfirstevolved upon the earth - the inexorable law
which Darwin has aptly termed the 'Survival of the Fittest'.83
Here a Darwinist perspective on the animal origins of mankind and
the role of struggle in evolution is appealed to as a vindication of white
colonial policies in Africa. Selous made the love of hunting, adventure
and colonisation criteria of national fitness. When youths no longer
wished to leave the comfort of their homes to seek their fortunes in 'wild
80 81
Ibid., 193-4. Ibid.,\93.
82
Ibid., 25. See also Selous, Travel and Adventure, 9-10, 135.
83
Selous, Sunshine and Storm, 67.
and distant lands', 'then will the decadence of England have set in. As a
nation we are probably already past our prime; but that we still possess a
vast fund of vigour and energy there can be no doubt.' 84 Selous certainly
practised what he preached: he was killed in action against German
forces in Tanganyika in 1917.
The tribunal of the battlefield

The publications and the career of Selous offer graphic testimony to the
reality of violent conflict in the modern world. The intensification of
international disagreements during the opening years of the twentieth
century increased the likelihood of such conflict, establishing a climate
in which putative national interests could assume a high degree of
ethical saliency.85 Social Darwinism, with its stress on struggle, would
seem to furnish a ready-made rationale for warfare and the aggressive
assertion of national interests as expressions of a law of nature, and some
historians have, indeed, assigned it a contributory role in the outbreak of
World War I.86
In fact the situation was far more complex, as recent research has
demonstrated.87 As is apparent from the cases investigated in this book,
many Social Darwinists adopted an evolutionary interpretation of war.
Once an indispensable selective device, it was replaced by peaceful
modes of competition as evolution advanced, and actually became an
obstacle to additional progress. Other theorists approved of war between
races at different stages of evolution, but not between 'advanced' races,
where struggle assumed a non-violent form. Plainly, therefore, not all
Social Darwinists endorsed warfare as a social analogue of natural
selection.
Another complicating factor is the proliferation of alternative stand-
points from which warfare could be legitimated. A case in point is the
German historian and theorist of Machtpolitik, Heinrich von Treitschke
84
Selous, Travel and Adventure, 383-4.
85
D . Pick, War Machine: The Rationalisation of Slaughter in the Modern Age (London: Yale
University Press, 1993). For analyses of the significance of war and related matters,
such as conscription, in Britain and other European nations between 1900 and the
outbreak of World War I, see J. Gooch, 'Attitudes to War in Late Victorian and
Edwardian England', in B. Bond and J. Roy, eds., War and Society (London: Croom
Helm, 1975), 88-102; V. G. Kiernan, 'Conscription and Society in Europe before the
War of 1914-18', in M. R. D . Foot, ed., War and Society (London: Eleck, 1973),
141-58; Koch, 'Social Darwinism as a Factor in the "New Imperialism"'. For the role
of Social Darwinism in Anglo-American relations during this period, see S. Anderson,
War and Rapprochement (London: Associated University Press, 1981).
86
For example, F. Gilbert, The End of the European Era, 1890 to the Present, third edn
(London: Norton, 1984), 31-4.
87
Most notably that of Crook in his Darwinism, War and History.
(1834-96). Although Treitschke's aggressive doctrine of power politics
has been linked to Social Darwinism, 88 there is no connection between
the two, even if some isolated passages in his Politics*9 can give the
contrary impression. Thus Treitschke asserted: 'Brave peoples alone
have an existence, an evolution or a future; the weak and cowardly
perish, and perish justly. The grandeur of history lies in the perpetual
conflict of nations, and it is simply foolish to desire the suppression of
their rivalry. Mankind has ever found it to be so' (I, 21). When we
inquire into the reason for this struggle, we find that it stems from the
assertion of national interests in a world of competing states - cWar is
nothing but foreign policy expressed in terms of force' (II, 404). The
state exists as power precisely in order to assert itself against other
independent sovereign entities. Treitschke did not explain this by
reference to the need for resources or land. In fact, he eschewed any
materialist rationale for war, insisting instead that: 'The rational task of a
legally constituted people, conscious of a destiny, is to assert its rank in
the world's hierarchy and in its measure to participate in the great
civilising mission of mankind' (I, 22). This enabled Treitschke to extol
the 'moral majesty' of warfare, during which men 'overcome the natural
feelings of humanity' in order to slaughter their fellows and sacrifice
their own lives 'for the sake of patriotism; here we have the sublimity of
war' (II, 395-6).
These arguments demonstrate that nationalism and militarism could
be elevated to the rank of moral imperatives without any help from
Social Darwinism. Despite this, and notwithstanding the powerful
deployment of Darwinism by pacifists, it is important not to lose sight of
the fact that Social Darwinist rationalisations of warfare did exist and
were highly influential. These accounts were typically structured around
two themes: the centrality of struggle and group selection. This
discursive tactic allowed for the assertion of the moral supremacy of
group over individual welfare, a theme already firmly established in a
certain genre of Social Darwinist literature. Consequently, Social
Darwinist legitimations of warfare were invariably closely linked to
nationalism, which made the integrity of the nation-state and its interests
the supreme moral value to which all other interests and values were
subordinate.90
One of the most notorious examples of a Social Darwinist defence of
88
K. H. Metz, 'The Politics of Conflict: Heinrich von Treitschke and the Idea of
Realpolitik\ History of Political Thought, 3 ( 1 9 8 2 ) , 276.
89
Heinrich von Treitschke, Politics, 2 vols., tr. B. Dugdale and Torben de Bille (London:
Constable, 1916).
90
I. Berlin, Against the Current (Oxford University Press, 1981), 338.
international warfare was written by the German general, Friedrich von
Bernhardi. His Germany and the Next War (1912) 91 sold well and was
translated into several languages. In it Bernhardi deplored the opposi-
tion to warfare mounted by people who were devoted to personal
comfort at the expense of national values and interests. Such sentiments
were symptomatic of moral decay, of a turning against nature's laws and
the 'biological necessity' of war:
The struggle for existence is, in the life of Nature, the basis of all healthy
development. All existing things show themselves to be the result of contesting
forces. So in the life of man the struggle is not merely the destructive, but the
life-giving principle ... The law of the stronger holds good everywhere. Those
forms survive which are able to procure themselves the most favourable
conditions of life, and to assert themselves in the universal economy of Nature.
The weaker succumb. This struggle is regulated and restrained by the
unconscious sway of biological laws and by the interplay of opposite forces
(10-11).
Bernhardi maintained that all the laws of nature reduced to one: the law
of struggle. This had a dual aspect: intm-social, which occurred in every-
day life within a society, in the realm of science, thoughts and wishes as
well as that of actions; and super-social, consisting of violent clashes
between nations. Struggle and war were not identical therefore, since the
former could be peaceful, as in the case of intra-social conflict, where
laws and the state established limits and controls. But no power existed
capable of arbitrating the interactions among states, which inevitably
resulted in warfare (11-13).
Bernhardi, in orthodox Darwinian fashion, inferred the inevitability of
conflict from the pressure of population on resources. Healthy nations
had a tendency to expand their populations. Since the globe was now
almost entirely inhabited, this growth could be accommodated only
through conquest, emigration and colonisation. If the last two options
were foreclosed, as they were to Germany, then 'the instinct of self
preservation leads inevitably to war, and the conquest of foreign soil'
(15). To the pressures created by population growth as motives for war,
Bernhardi added the need for foreign markets as an outlet for German
goods, and the imperative of protecting the domestic market from
foreign imports. His conclusion was: 'The knowledge, therefore, that
war depends on biological laws leads to the conclusion that every
attempt to exclude it from international relations must be demonstrably
untenable. But it is not only a biological law, but a moral obligation,
and, as such, an indispensable factor in civilisation' (17).
91
Trans. A. H. Powles (London: Arnold, 1912). See Crook, Darwinism, War and History,
82-3.
The moral imperatives of the nation entailed the subordination of
individual rights to national duties (17-18, 41, 59), and meant that the
actions of the state could not be assessed in accordance with the
standards of personal morality. Bernhardi proclaimed that in the arena
of international relations: 'Might is at once the supreme right, and the
dispute as to what is right is decided by the arbitrament of war. War
gives a biologically just decision, since its decisions rest on the very
nature of things' (57).
There are strong echoes of Treitschke's doctrine of Machtpolitik in
these arguments, which has prompted some commentators to downplay
the general's Social Darwinism, relegating it to a marginal role in the
text, or seeing it as a mere gloss of 'disconnected catchwords'. 92 These
judgements underestimate both the coherence and the rhetorical
significance of Bernhardi's Darwinism. The world view was clearly
formulated and invoked at those points in his arguments where
Bernhardi went beyond Treitschke to argue that the interests of the
nation-state had to be understood within the context of biological
imperatives. The pressure of population on resources made struggle 'a
universal law of nature', a law which grounded the interactions among
states and which justified the subordination of the individual to the
nation. This materialist rationale for power politics and reason of state
would have been anathema to Treitschke.
There is another reason for taking Bernhardi's Social Darwinism
seriously, namely that his thesis that nations struggled for space and
resources resonated, and indeed may have been influenced by, the
Lebensraum theory of the zoologist-turned-geographer, Friedrich Ratzel
(1844-1904). Ratzel argued that all organisms were engaged in a Kampf
um Raum - a struggle for space - in which the strongest sought to expel
or eliminate the weakest. This struggle for Lebensraum (living space) was
extended to humans, and Ratzel made it clear that nations were
inevitably engaged in the struggle to expand their living space if they
wished to avoid decline.93 Thus Bernhardi's own use of Social
Darwinism was hardly eccentric but echoed an established tradition
among respectable academic thinkers in Germany.
Furthermore, very similar rationalisations of war were produced by
thinkers outside of Germany. 'God's Test by War' was published in an
2
For the first interpretation see Crook, Darwinism, War and History, 83, 117; for the
second, see Zmarlik, 'Social Darwinism in Germany', 455-6.
93
For analyses of Ratzel's theories and their relationship to Social Darwinism, see Smith,
Politics and the Sciences of Culture, 142-7, 219-30; Weikart, 'The Origins of Social
Darwinism in Germany', 485-6.
influential British journal in 1911 by Harold F. Wyatt.94 It opened with
the assertion that 'the biological law of competition still rules the
destinies of nations as of individual men'. The author then enquired of
England: 'Is the heart that once was hers still strong to dare and to
resolve and to endure? How shall we know? By the test. What test? That
which God has given for the trial of peoples - the test of war' (591-2).
According to Wyatt nations, which now constituted the main divisions
of the human race, were analogous to individual organisms. Every
healthy organism 'feels the same impulse to grow and to compete with
its rivals for increased means of subsistence' (595). Since nations were
part of nature, they too were subjected to the struggle for existence, with
victory going to the strongest and most efficient organism. Without
death the world would be rapidly overpopulated, and among humans
war was the 'scythe' that brought death. But it was also the 'condition of
human advance', something ignored by those who stigmatised warfare
as a relic from mankind's barbarous past:
Defeat in war is thefruitof naval and military inefficiency, and that inefficiency
is the inevitable sequel to moral decay. Victory in war is the method by which, in
the economy of God's providence, the sound nation supersedes the unsound,
because in our time such victory is the direct offspring of a higher efficiency, and
the higher efficiency is the logical outcome of the higher morale (595).
Unless human nature was radically transformed, the absence of
warfare would produce stagnation rather than progress 'because the
terrific punishment which war provides for human degeneracy would be
removed' (597). Wyatt was adamant that in war the morally righteous
win, so that 'victory is the crown of moral quality', and 'the "survival of
the fittest" means the survival of the ethically best'. War was the enemy
of sloth, apathy and decadence, and the test of a nation's fitness and
moral worth was decided before 'the Court of God, which is war' (599,
602). The author lambasted the Anglo-Saxons for the absence of the
'spirit of self-sacrifice' which he saw manifest in the refusal of their
women to bear children and their menfolk to bear arms, in contrast to
the Japanese and Germans (600).
Despite Wyatt's resort to religious metaphors and the language of sin
and retribution, Social Darwinism provided the intellectual scaffolding
for his argumentation. Societies were assimilated to the laws regulating
biological organisms, and struggle derived from superfecundity and was
made the motor of evolution and progress. This essay was not merely a
reflection of jingoistic fervour, therefore, but resonated a number of
94
H. F. Wyatt, 'God's Test by War', The Nineteenth Century and After, 69(1911),
591-606.
well-established themes in Social Darwinist discourse, both in Britain
and elsewhere.
The notion that, in the polity of nature, warfare acted as the ultimate
test of a nation's fitness was also articulated by the Frenchman, George
Valois (1876-1945). Valois pursued a veritable ideological pilgrimage
across the entire political spectrum, from anarchism through monar-
chism, to Fascism and finally socialism, a journey that finally ended in a
Nazi concentration camp. Throughout these peregrinations, Valois
sought the same goal: a united France, organised for the purpose of
industrial efficiency, and bound together by a moral consensus. While
he changed his mind about the optimal socio-political framework within
which this goal could be achieved, the view of the world and human
nature which underpinned it was first adumbrated in L'Homme qui vient>
published just prior to his joining the extreme nationalist and pro-
monarchist Action Franchise in 1906. 95
Valois was influenced by a recent study by a French biologist, Rene
Quinton, entitled L'Eau de mer, milieu organique (1904). Quinton
proposed that the earth had been slowly cooling since its formation. This
forced each organism to struggle to maintain the temperature of its
'internal milieu', i.e. the biochemical conditions of its physiological
existence. A contemporary commentator summarised Quinton's re-
search as a demonstration that life should not be seen as unstable and
ruled by caprice and accident, because the external adaptations of an
organism acted to preserve its internal milieu. 96 For Valois, Quinton's
book facilitated a reworking of Darwinism in which progress and
conservation could both be shown to be part of nature's law. Each
organism struggled incessantly to augment its protection against a
hostile environment. Among animals, this was achieved through organic
modifications; in humans, by work and the organisation of work.
Unfortunately, humans were, by nature, disinclined to labour.
Civilisation commenced when energetic individuals coerced their
fellows into organised efforts, meaning that the need for leadership and
authority was universal and perpetual: 'The domination of the man with
the whip is eternal' (27). Even after centuries of civilisation, human
nature had not changed: 'The beast of yore is still within us, ready at any
moment to lead us back to the forest' (14). The coercive and
95
G Valois, L'Homme qui vient: philosophie de Vautorite, second edn (Paris: Nouvelle
librairie Nationale, 1909). According to Y. Guchet, Georges Valois (Paris: Edition
Albatros, 1975), 4 4 - 5 , 2 0 5 , this text was the best known and most philosophical of
Valois' books, and he remained faithful to the world view sketched therein until at least
1930.
96
J. Weber, 'Les Theories biologiques de M . Rene Quinton', Revue de metaphysique et de
morale, 13(1905), 138.
organisational abilities of the man with the whip were constantly
required to prevent human nature from reasserting its primeval slothful-
ness. What motivated him was the struggle for survival. The very success
of the dominant individual was an incentive for others to take his place.
Thus the master had to be constantly vigilant: 'There is the fear of the
other aristocrat who had armed himself in order to take his slaves and
the wealth he accumulates in his house; there is the fear of the slave who
would like to take his place . . . ' (12-13). This worked to the benefit of
the species, for the aristocrat could only maintain his position of
dominance if he continued to perform the functions of discipline and
organisation.
The need for authority was eternal, but the forms of constraint,
domination and social coordination evolved over time. Valois believed
that with the emergence of industrial civilisation, the intra-social form of
the struggle for existence was transformed. In the modern world, the
industrialist and businessman, motivated by the spirit of struggle and
risk and subject to the selective pressures of economic competition,
complemented the activities of the warrior, while among ordinary people
poverty acted as a spur to effort and a punishment for degeneracy and
idleness (86). But this did not imply that war became dysfunctional
during the industrial era. On the contrary, it was still a 'law of the world'
(132), but one that now applied to nations rather than to individuals.
Industrial activities required domestic stability which was achieved
within the framework of the nation-state. But each nation was in a state
of nature vis-d-vis its neighbours, so that 'war between nations is a
fortunate necessity for civilisation5 (175). It was fortunate because
armed conflict or its threat prevented laziness and decadence and forced
each country to improve its industrial, and hence military, capacity, to
the full. Selection, which had formerly operated upon individuals, now
acted upon nations. Weak nations, like weak individuals, were inclined
to whine about justice and self-determination, but rights could only be
established by submission to the ultimate 'tribunal of the Field of Battle'
(181). Valois admonished nations to halt their clamour for peace and to
prepare for war if they wished to survive. Nature recognised only one
form of justice, 'the decline, the death of every living being which
abdicates, which renounces, effort' (188). He additionally proposed that
a victorious nation ought to replace the work-force of a defeated nation
with its own rather than attempt to incorporate the vanquished since this
was more beneficial to the species. The victors, by extending their own
brave and diligent race and eliminating weak, idle and lax races,
contributed to the creation of an ever higher humanity (194-5).
This text is an eclectic one and a number of influences are discernible,
especially Nietzsche, from whom Valois borrowed a number of expres-
sions and ideas. But the Darwinian world view is no mere gloss, for it
once again provided a set of background assumptions that were brought
to the fore when Valois required a scientific counter to liberal and
socialist celebrations of individual freedom, egalitarianism, emancipa-
tion from labour and peace. As with Bernhardi and Wyatt, group
selection through warfare, presented as a biological law, established the
rationale for the supremacy of the state and the nation over the
individual.
My final case study was written during World War II by Sir Arthur
Keith (1866-1955), a distinguished British anatomist and physical
anthropologist. Interestingly, in his Essays on Human Evolution91 Keith
confessed that until the war of 1914-18 he had subscribed to the view
that modern warfare was dysgenic, depriving a nation of its fittest
members and thus rendering it less capable of conducting the struggle
for existence. Thereafter he came to believe that war 'is part of the
machinery which has determined, and is now determining, the fate of
nations and of races' (129). In light of the use then being made of Social
Darwinism by Nazi theoreticians it is interesting to examine Keith's
arguments in some detail.
The foundation of Keith's theory was the premise that among social
animals struggle took place between relatively isolated groups, whether
of the same or dissimilar species. This required unity and cooperation
within the group but resistance to any amalgamation with other groups.
Thus intra-group solidarity was complemented by hostility and aggres-
sion towards other groups. Since man was a social animal, this held true
of the most basic form of association, the 'tribe', which was a specific
assortment of genetic material. In biological terms, a tribe was a success
if it managed to maintain its genetic integrity over time; if it failed to do
so by a slackening of parental and other social bonds, or lack of courage
and skill in defence, or by inter-breeding with neighbouring tribes, it was
an evolutionary failure (5).
In these conditions, tribesmen evolved a 'dual mentality' consisting of
two codes of conduct, the 'ethical' and the 'cosmicaP. The former was
oriented to the group and stressed altruism, cooperation and solidarity,
while the latter stressed antagonism and violence against other tribes and
inevitably entailed warfare. The pacifists and the militarists were there-
fore both correct in their assessment of human nature, but they each
concentrated on only one of its facets: the truth was that man was
97
Sir A. Keith, Essays on Human Evolution (London: Scientific Book Club). These essays
have no date of publication, but according to the author's testimony they were written
between 1942 and 1944, and published towards the end of 1944. See vi-vii, 92.
instinctually fitted for both peace and war. 'Human nature was fashioned
or evolved just to secure these two conditions - continuity through time
and separation in space. Hence the duality of man's nature - the good,
social, or virtuous traits serving intra-tribal economy; the evil, vicious, or
anti-social qualities serving the inter-tribal economy and the policy of
keeping its genes apart' (23).
The breaking up of tribal communities by the formation of city-states
and then nations had been a vital step in the progress of civilisation,
allowing the rule of law to replace that of custom, and nurturing
individual liberty and independence. But there were limits to this
process. First, the dual code was so deeply entrenched in human nature
'that it cannot be rooted out; by effort and education the individual may
control the cosmical side of his nature, but he cannot annihilate it'
(123). Second, 'nations are in the scheme of evolution, the lineal
successors of tribes' (146). As a consequence, individuals simply
transferred their allegiance from the tribe to the nation-state. 'Free
peoples value their liberties above all else save one thing: that one
exception is the integrity and independence of the tribe or nation of
which they form part...' (35). This explained the nature and the cause
of war: 'any threat of injury to the life or integrity of a nation, any attack
on its homeland or on its means of supply, calls forth the old defensive
mechanism which Nature has implanted for the protection and
perpetuation of her evolutionary units. War is indeed a factor, and a very
powerful one, in the evolution of mankind' (133).
Keith derived several moral and political inferences from this theory.
He apparently saw no possibility of social evolution beyond the modern
nation-state, and regarded universal brotherhood as an impossibility
because of the tribal foundations of human nature and the ineradicability
of the cosmic code. Christianity was doomed to failure because it sought
to apply the ethical code to the whole of humanity, hence 'its methods
are discordant with human nature, and are therefore anti-evolutionary.
Nationalism, on the other hand, is a growing force because it is in
harmony with human nature, and is therefore pro-evolutionary' (68).
People had to recognise the existence of the dual code within
themselves. Those who sought to regulate their lives according to only
one code - the ethical - would be prone to unhappiness, such as was the
case with conscientious objectors (195). Moreover, Keith did not regard
civilisation as a force capable of eliminating the cosmic ethos. On the
contrary, some of the most civilised modern states were also the most
ferocious, cruel and warlike, e.g. the Japanese, Western Europeans and
North Americans (38-9).
Keith acknowledged the dysgenic impact of modern warfare on a
nation's population but insisted that the effects of war had to be
measured in national rather than in individual terms. 'War, particularly
war as now waged, is the ultimate test, not only of armies, but also of
nations. The whole national fabric is tested' (193). War was a powerful
factor in national integration, producing a strengthening of the ethical
code and the bonds of fellowship and altruism even if the cosmic code of
hatred was also reinforced (106). But Keith's position was not without
its difficulties. Nazi Germany he presented as a nation that had
succumbed to tribalism, although he praised Hitler for understanding
the laws of evolution and applying them to the German people (8-11).
In fact Keith found it difficult to condemn Nazi Germany for its
belligerence since he described nationalism as the successor of tribalism,
and regarded nations as incipient species (140). He also celebrated the
rejuvenating effects of war on a nation's sense of identity and solidarity
and proposed that 'if mankind is to be vigorous in mind and progressive
in its spirit, its division into nations and races must be maintained'
(175). His paradoxical recipe for peace in Europe was 'each nation being
prepared for war and ready to give its blood and its treasure to maintain
peace' (206). Finally, although he praised the expansion of individual
freedom in countries such as Britain, he considered these liberties
dangerous in times of war when they should be abrogated in order to
achieve unity of action. He even suggested that periodic outbreaks of
war were required in order to prevent individualism from corroding
group solidarity: 'When individual selfishness eats into this capital of
altruism, then the pyramid of civilisation begins to crumble.' War, by
comparison may 'damage a civilisation, but cannot destroy it' (84, 113).
Keith's ideas were remarkably close to Hitler's pronouncements on
war and individualism (which are discussed in chapter 11), as well as
exhibiting continuity with those of Wyatt, Bernhardi and, earlier,
Lapouge and Gumplowicz. The linking of a hereditarian, group
selectionist version of Social Darwinism to positions in which national
interests assumed moral paramountcy, and ethnic characteristics were
virtually timeless, had taken place well before the end of the nineteenth
century and had been reinforced by the eugenics movements of the early
twentieth. The use of Social Darwinism to construct a moral celebration
of international and inter-racial war was not, therefore, a marginal or
perverse ideological activity, but rather an important instance of how the
world view could be adapted to the perceived moral and political
imperatives of the moment.
The eugenic conscience
Introduction
The story of the various national eugenics and racial hygiene movements
has been told many times, and it is not my intention to reproduce these
histories here. 1 My interest is in the relationship between these move-
ments and Social Darwinism. As I argued in the introduction, eugenics
and Social Darwinism should not be conflated for it was possible to
endorse one and not the other. Nevertheless, Darwin himself prefigured
the concerns of the eugenics movements. In his Descent Darwin signalled
his anxiety about the possibility of biological decline caused by social
practices that cushioned the unfit from the impact of natural selection.
Whereas among 'savages' mentally and physically defective individuals
were quickly eliminated, in civilised societies such persons were
sustained by various medical and charitable practices:
Thus the weak members of civilised society propagate their kind. No one who
has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be
highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or
care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but
excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his
worst animals to breed (205-6).
1
The most recent studies are: for Britain, G. Jones, Social Hygiene in Twentieth Century
Britain (London: Croom Helm, 1986); R. Soloway, Demography and Degeneration
(London: University of North Carolina Press, 1989); P. M. H. Mazumdar, Eugenics,
Human Genetics and Human Failures (London: Routledge, 1992); for Britain and the
USA, D. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986); the USA,
M. H. Haller, Eugenics (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1984); for
France, Schneider, Quality and Quantity; for Germany, Weindling, Health, Race and
German Politics. Material on France and Germany is also contained in M. Adams, ed.,
The Wellborn Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), which also includes
essays on Brazil and Russia. There is an excellent history of various attempts to
measure intelligence in S. J. Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1992). For investigations of other national eugenics movements, see M. Nash, 'Social
Eugenics and Nationalist Race Hygiene in Early Twentieth Century Spain', History of
European Ideas, 15(1992), 741-8; N. L. Stepan, 'Race, Gender and Nation in
Argentina: The Influence of Italian Eugenics', History of European Ideas, 15(1992),
749-56.
216
The eugenic conscience 217
In the closing pages of the book Darwin returned to this topic to suggest
that 'all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty
for their children', pointing out that 'if the prudent avoid marriage whilst
the reckless marry, the inferior members tend to supplant the better
members of society5. Darwin underlined the role played by natural
selection in human evolution, and claimed that man must remain
subject to a severe struggle for existence: 'Otherwise he would sink into
indolence, and the more girted men would not be more successful in the
battle of life than the less gifted. Hence our natural rate of increase,
though leading to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly
diminished by any means' (945).
There were a number of assumptions in these arguments which
reappeared in, and indeed structured, subsequent discourses on eu-
genics and racial hygiene. There was, first, the supposition that
'inferiority' and 'superiority' could be objectively ascertained. Second,
there was the assumption that the factors responsible for this distinction
were mainly due to heredity rather than to social conditions. Third,
there was a presumption of the appropriateness of the analogy between
stockbreeding and human reproduction - a presumption that was
widespread throughout Europe at the time.2 Finally, there was the
proposition that the beneficial action of natural selection had been
replaced by social mechanisms facilitating the propagation of inferior
specimens. There was a potential dilemma within this proposition,
however, because concern for the unfit derived from the strengthening
of social sentiments which themselves were the products of natural
selection. Natural forces were hence ambivalent in their social out-
comes.
These themes were central to the work of Darwin's cousin Francis
Galton (1822-1911). In 1883 Galton proposed the 'science' of eugenics
in the belief that it was objectively possible to recognise the undesirable
elements in a population and reduce their numbers through relevant
social controls - negative eugenics - while at the same time encouraging
the reproduction of the better elements - positive eugenics.3 These
suggestions were not initially influential, but by the early twentieth
2
On the importance of animal breeding in furnishing models for the breeding, control
and elimination of humans, see E. U. Da Cal, 'The Influence of Animal Breeding on
Political Racism', History of European Ideas, 15(1992), 717-25.
3
For a full elaboration of his ideas on the eve of the formation of eugenics movements
across the world, see F. Galton, 'Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope and Aims', American
Journal of Sociology, 10(1904), 1-25. For a discussion of Galton's work, see Kevles, In
the Name of Eugenics, chap. 1; Soloway, Demography and Degeneration, chaps. 2-6. For
Galton's influence on contemporary anthropology see D. Lorimer, 'Theoretical Racism
in Late Victorian Anthropology', Victorian Studies, 31(1988), 430.
century they acquired considerable currency as the various eugenics
movements urged government action to prevent national and racial
decline. The German Race Hygiene Society was founded in 1905,
followed by the Eugenics Education Society in England (1907), and the
French Eugenics Society (1912). A similar body was established in the
USA in 1910, and the First International Eugenics Congress was held in
London in 1912. The reasons for this transition from the laissez-faire
stance of Royer and Spencer to the demand for government action
typical of the eugenics and racial hygiene movements are complex, but
important to an understanding of the role of Social Darwinism in these
movements.
Perhaps the most direct impact was the discovery that after a period
of steady population increase the trend was reversed, with all Euro-
pean nations experiencing a sharp fall in birth-rates.4 Moreover, this
decline was not socially uniform but mainly confined to the middle and
upper classes, thus fuelling anxieties about the future quality of the
nation. Statistics also revealed increases in crime and prostitution, the
incidence of diseases like tuberculosis, and the numbers of feebleminded
persons. The worthless appeared to be thriving at the expense of the
worthy.
There were other factors at work as well. Historians have shown how
eugenics and social hygiene programmes in some countries served the
interests of the practitioners in the various branches of medicine and
related professions in their efforts to achieve professional status and
public recognition.5 Urbanisation and industrialisation created social
conditions in which ill-health, poverty and crime could thrive, providing
opportunities for experts of various descriptions to supply services to a
state apparatus increasingly concerned with monitoring and controlling
its subjects.6 The tensions brought about through class and ethnic
conflicts and the demands of organised labour and feminists helped
establish a climate in which these social conditions could become the
focus of political controversy. Reformers advocated programmes of
environmental engineering aimed at removing what they saw as the
social causes of crime, poverty and disease. But those who believed that
4
Soloway, Demography and Degeneration, xii.
5
Weindling, Race, Health and German Polities', Schneider, Quality and Quantity. Jones
does not regard these motives to have been significant in the formation of the British
social hygiene movement, though she believes they may have subsequently come to play
this role; Jones, Social Hygiene, 52. Although physicians played an important role in
British eugenics, the majority of the British medical profession appear to have been
opposed to eugenics. See D. Porter,' "Enemies of the Race": Biologism, Environment-
alism and Public Health in Edwardian England', Victorian Studies, 34(1991), 160-78.
6
See J. Donzelot, The Policing of Families (London: Hutchinson, 1980).
the environment exerted a negligible impact on the formation of
character and physique demanded policies which placed the emphasis
on heredity. Not that the two political agendas were mutually exclusive;
some reformers like Wallas were able to combine a commitment to
social change with a belief in the importance of eugenics. But the
increasingly hereditarian bias of eugenics and social medicine during the
course of the twentieth century encouraged the promotion of action
aimed at elevating the biological quality of the population rather than
restructuring the social system in ways that would redistribute opportu-
nities and rewards in favour of the disadvantaged.
Another factor was the concern of many intellectuals with something
mentioned in the above citation from Darwin's Descent - degeneration.
Fiction, medicine and social thought were replete with data, images and
explanations concerning the degenerative consequences of modernity.
Urbanisation and industrialisation produced a fascination with mental
and physical disease, with suicide and crime, prostitution and sexual
deviance. In some versions, degeneracy was vested with a wider
significance as the manifestation of a deep-seated malaise, endemic to
Western culture and morality.7 This was the thesis of the physician and
Jewish nationalist, Max Nordau (1849-1923), the pseudonym of Max
Simon Siidfeld. In his widely read Degeneration of 1892, 8 Nordau wrote
of 'a severe mental epidemic; a sort of black death of degeneracy and
hysteria . . . ' (537). Degeneracy was a pathological condition, a deviation
from normalcy that was hereditary and hence transmissible to descen-
dants. It was manifested in a number of physical stigmata - squint eyes,
imperfect ears, stunted growth - but above all in a series of mental
morbidities, such as hysteria, exaggerated egoism, pessimism, apathy,
impulsiveness, emotionalism, mysticism, and a complete absence of any
sense of right and wrong (18-22).
Although Nordau's text was important for popularising the notion of
degeneracy, it differed from later eugenics literature on two points. First,
the main target of his attacks was not the 'lower classes' as was so often
the case for eugenicists. For Nordau, the peasantry and the majority of
the working class and bourgeoisie were untainted by degeneracy, which
was confined the aristocracy and the urban intelligentsia - to the 'upper
ten thousand' (2). Second, Nordau did not advocate political inter-
vention as a remedy for degeneracy. The latter was a condition brought
7
Pick, Faces of Degeneration', Chamberlin and Gilman, eds., Degeneration.
8
Published in German as Die Entartung. The text I have used is the English translation of
the second German edition (London: Heinemann, 1895). For a more detailed account
of Nordau's views on degeneracy, see S. E. Aschheim, 'Max Nordau, Friedrich
Nietzsche and Degeneration*3 Journal of Contemporary History, 28(1993), 643-57.
about by the failure of the human organism to adapt to the enormous
changes in the conditions of life experienced during the past half century
or so. During this period, lives had been dramatically altered by steam,
electricity, the railways and newspapers. This new lifestyle incurred a
tremendous increase in 'organic expenditure', leading to nervous
exhaustion (39). It was, though, precisely through the agencies of
adaptation and the struggle for existence that the problem of degeneracy
would be eventually resolved, since degenerates were incapable of
adaptation (540). Their elimination was hastened if they were sur-
rounded by normal, healthy people, for in such a case the former 'have
to fight in the struggle for existence, and there is no leisure for them to
perish in a slow decay by their own incapacity for work' (540-1). Hence
Nordau was fairly optimistic about the future of civilisation. Normal
people would either adapt to the changing circumstances of civilisation
or else, if this proved too difficult, abandon the innovations responsible
for undue stress. As for the degenerates, their sterility and dysfunction-
ality doomed them to elimination: 'They can neither adapt themselves to
the conditions of Nature and civilisation, nor maintain themselves in the
struggle for existence against the healthy' (541).
Nordau's account of degeneracy, therefore, reproduced the optimism
of the early pioneers of Social Darwinism insofar as he believed that the
course of evolution was ultimately progressive.9 By the end of the
nineteenth century, however, Darwinian theory had itself been reinter-
preted in ways that made degeneracy an evolutionary possibility. This
was the overt thesis of the eminent British naturalist E. R. Lankester in
his Degeneration: A Chapter in Darwinism (1880).10 Warning his readers
against a complacent faith in the benignity of future evolution, Lankester
asserted that natural selection could have one of three possible outcomes
for an organism: the maintenance of a balance between it and its milieu;
organic development; or degeneration. The last of these outcomes he
defined as a gradual change in structure by means of which an organism
became adapted to a less varied and complex form of life (32). Its causes
- and human relevance - were clarified thus:
Any new set of conditions occurring to an animal which renders its food and
safety very easily attained, seem to lead as a rule to Degeneration; just as an
active healthy man sometimes degenerates when he becomes suddenly possessed
of a fortune; or as Rome degenerated when possessed of therichesof the ancient
9
Nordau retained this optimism in his later publications. Despite the carnage of World
War I, he maintained that war would eventually be eliminated through the taming of
the 'wolfish instincts' within humans. See Nordau, Morals and the Evolution of Man, tr.
M. A. Lewenz (London: Cassell, 1922), 183, 246.
10
London: Macmillan.
world. The habit of parasitism clearly acts upon animal organisation in this way
(33).
Indeed, the moral implications of this conception of degeneracy were
never very far beneath the surface of Lankester's arguments. He
reminded his readers that 'we are subject to the general laws of
evolution, and are as likely to degenerate as to progress' (60). Such a fate
had befallen civilisations in the past, and was possible once more due to
the prevalence of 'a contented life of material enjoyment accompanied
by ignorance and superstition' (61). He looked to science to enable
people to avoid this fate: 'The full and earnest cultivation of Science -
the Knowledge of Causes - is that to which we have to look for the
protection of our race - even of this English branch of it - from relapse
and degeneration' (62).
Lankester elevated degeneracy to the status of a natural process by
demonstrating how it could occur in nature as a consequence of
evolutionary dynamics. Two points are noteworthy about his presenta-
tion of this issue. The first has already been remarked upon: the moral
judgements implicit in the criteria proposed for deciding when an
organism was degenerating. The fact that degeneration could only be
inferred from the existence of these alleged criteria gave the theorist a
great deal of latitude for interpreting change and discriminating between
elaboration, stasis or decay. The second point concerns the prescribed
role of the scientist in detecting and remedying degeneracy. If the course
of evolution was such that pathological outcomes were not only possible
but probable, then the scientist, social scientist or physician, possessed
expertise relevant to diagnosis and cure. The ground was prepared for
intervention and redirection in social affairs on the basis of scientific
expertise in order to ensure that the course of evolution remained
wholesome. Lankester himself was to underline this point in subsequent
publications in which he insisted that only scientific knowledge of
heredity and breeding could avert the potentially disastrous conse-
quences of overpopulation.11 This was exactly the message of eugenics.
Eugenics was a convenient framework for thinking about these issues.
It brought together a configuration of phenomena - crime, mental and
physical illness, poverty, moral depravity, childcare, parenthood, the
structure and functions of the family, abortion, birth control, and the
respective powers and responsibilities of public and private agencies. It
allowed these problems to be addressed either within a cosmopolitan
perspective stressing concern for the future of the entire human species
11
E. Ray Lankester, The Kingdom of Man (London: Watts and Co., 1911), 32, 35, 40-1,
53.
or, much more commonly, within a context of national or racial
consciousness in which the survival of the community was deemed
paramount. This chapter examines samples of this reasoning within four
national contexts.
Eugenics in Britain
One of the earliest calls for eugenics policies in Britain was made by a
professor of physiology, John Berry Haycraft (1857-1922) in his
Darwinism and Race Progress.12 Haycraft represented a shift towards the
more exclusive hereditarianism heralded by Weismann's theories,
rejecting any significant role for environmental factors in racial improve-
ment in favour of selection acting through the death or non-reproduc-
tion of inferior specimens, falsely claiming that Darwin himself had
gradually come to favour selection over the inheritance of acquired
characters (28). He drew attention to differential fertility rates within
advanced societies and raised the spectre of the 'swamping' of the
capable by the incapable (150). But the main thrust of his work was to
highlight the beneficial effects of fatal diseases such as smallpox,
whooping cough, tuberculosis and leprosy, which were 'friends to
humanity' because they carried off the weaker members of society.
Modern medicine and social policies, however, were eradicating these
diseases, allowing large numbers of the unfit to survive and reproduce
(50-1). It being a law of nature that the world would be dominated by
the producers of the largest number of progeny, Haycraft insisted: 'Let
us be sure that in our own nation it shall not be the offspring of the
deteriorated ...' (153). This entailed replacing 'the selection of the
microbes by the selection of human forethought' (58).
Haycraft dissociated himself from any desire to deprive individuals of
the benefits of modern medicine, but he argued that there were
additional considerations to be borne in mind, including the ramifica-
tions of medical care for the health of the race. He took heart from what
he perceived to be a diminution in the 'clamorous appeals for personal
rights' in favour of a 'growing sense of obligation and a desire to further
the interests of others' (156).
Haycraft's recommendations were for the prevention of marriage and
reproduction among those with innate criminal tendencies, and among
the 'undeserving poor' who were capable of work and should therefore
be treated as criminals (98-102). Those suffering from hereditary
defects should be segregated - though well treated - because such
12
London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1895. A translation was published in Germany with a
foreword by Weismann. See Weindling, Healthy Race and German Politics, 97.
people 'are obviously unfit to perpetuate themselves, and in the best
interests of the human species, they should be prevented from so doing'
(109). He also opposed the prohibition, or restriction in the sale, of
alcohol. Though there was no evidence that alcoholism was hereditary,
it often accompanied a 'vicious temperament', which was. Excessive
alcoholic consumption was, accordingly, an excellent selective device,
one 'constantly thinning the ranks of those who are weak enough by
nature to give way to it, and leaving unharmed those with healthy tastes
and sound moral constitutions' (86).
Haycraft pointed out that in addition to the struggle for existence
between nations, making the need for a healthy nation an urgent
imperative, another struggle took place within societies for the posses-
sion of property and wealth, although this was based almost entirely on
brain-power. Success in this conflict encouraged idleness and deca-
dence, so Haycraft suggested that there was a need to equalise
conditions in order to increase competition, leading to the formation of
an aristocracy of talent recruited from all social classes (130). Although
this suggestion was left undeveloped, it was evidently not prompted by
any egalitarian sentiments, which Haycraft dismissed as 'ridiculous'. His
goal was a new class system based upon 'real organic differences',
although he warned his readers that this new elite, through its very
success in the struggle, would be likely to be selfish and devoid of
generosity (131-3). He side-stepped this issue by drawing attention to
an expansion in altruism, although he gave no clue as to the origins of
this trend. He concluded by insisting on the need to educate the masses
into an awareness of mankind's relationship to animals and to the
general laws of evolution, and on the need to prevent the marriage of the
unfit: 'If the community undertakes its own selection we can dispense
with the selective influence of the micro-organism of whooping-cough,
scarlet fever, or tubercle' (170).
Haycraft's text reproduced the four assumptions underpinning eu-
genics identified in Darwin's Descent. In addition, it drew upon the
premise of a struggle for existence between nations as justification for
the elevation of the rights of the nation over those of the individual in the
name of national survival. Another striking example of this type of
argument is afforded by the British idealist philosopher, Francis Herbert
Bradley (1846-1924). An admirer of Hegel, Bradley was opposed to
materialist and empiricist metaphysics. For him, ultimate reality - the
Absolute - was spiritual but, contra Hegel, could not be adequately
comprehended in thought but through feeling. 13 This idealist perspec-
13
See F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, second edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
tive hardly seems compatible with Social Darwinism, and yet in a
pungently argued essay on punishment, Bradley unflinchingly adopted a
Social Darwinist position.14
Bradley declared that while Darwinism was unlikely to lead to any
revolutionary conclusions as far as the ends of morality were concerned,
it could force a radical reassessment of the means of achieving these
ends, taking us beyond Christianity back to Hellenic principles (269-
70). The Chief Good was 'the welfare of the community realised in its
members'. Darwinism demonstrated that the survival and progress of
the race in the past was due to the struggle for existence among its
members and the natural selection of the fittest. Bradley insisted that it
was impossible to reinstate this state of affairs because no community
could tolerate an unchecked struggle in its midst. At the same time, in
terms of the Chief Good, it was equally the case that the principle of
natural selection could not be totally disregarded. 'We do not deny that
progress has been made largely by natural selection, and we must admit
that in this process the extinction of the worse varieties is essential. It is
clear again that with this struggle and this extinction the community
now interferes' (271). The unchecked competition of the past was
replaced by a 'competition of fertilities' in which the 'higher types' were
being outbred by the 'weaker and lower'.
In response to this development, Bradley argued that there was an
urgent need to divorce punishment from considerations of guilt and
justice. The latter was 'but a subordinate and inferior principle. It can
hear no appeal from the tribunal of the common welfare' (276). He
stipulated the right of a community to perform 'moral surgery' on its
membership if this was required for the good of the whole. 'Once admit
that life in this world is an end in itself, and the pure Christian doctrine
is at once uprooted. For, measured by that end and standard, individuals
have unequal worth, and the value of each individual is but relative, and
in no case infinite' (277). It was meaningless to appeal to the rights of
the individual, for 'over its members the right of the moral organism is
absolute' (278).
Bradley's aim in adumbrating these arguments was to highlight the
need for eugenics - one of the cardinal lessons of Darwinism. 'It
teaches, in a word, the necessity of constant selection. It insists that the
way to improve - the way even not to degenerate - is on the whole
unchanging. That way consists in the destruction of worse categories, or
1897). For a brief but accessible introduction to Bradley's metaphysics, see J. Passmore,
A Hundred Years of Philosophy, second edn. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), 60-71.
14
F. H. Bradley, 'Some Remarks on Punishment', International Journal of Ethics, 4(1894),
269-84.
at least in the hindrance of such varieties from reproduction' (280). To
do otherwise was to sustain the unfit at the expense of the fit. What was
required was 'social amputation' because wholesale confinement, even
mutilation, of the worse specimens was inadequate, burdening the
community with the maintenance of 'useless lives' and condemning the
members of this latter group to a cruel existence: capital punishment
was far kinder. Bradley left his readers in no doubt as to his feelings on
this matter:
I am oppressed by the ineffectual cruelty of our imprisonments. I am disgusted

at the inviolable sanctity of the noxious lunatic. The right of the individual to
spawn without restriction his diseased offspring on the community, the duty of
the state to rear wholesale and without limit an unselected progeny - such duties
andrightsare to my mind a sheer outrage on Providence (283-4).
Bradley took care to pay homage to traditional values which, he

avowed, were fully consistent with Darwinism, including mutual
assistance, benevolence, charity and mercy. Indeed, these virtues were
actually implied by Darwinism which taught that 'within the whole the
principle of competition has become subordinate. It has ceased to be
absolute, and is overruled less or more by the main principle of general
advantage.' Nor did it license individual self-seeking or tribal and
national selfishness. 'Regard for a whole beyond my social group',
purred Bradley, 'for humanity, indeed for all sentient beings, is certainly
not opposed to Darwinism.' What the latter doctrine demonstrated was
that ethical surgery was a true form of benevolence if unflinchingly
exercised for the common good, and not therefore vulnerable to the
criticisms of humanitarian opponents, whom Bradley found hypocritical:
'There is no one . . . so remorseless as the humanitarian, no one more
ruthless and more bloody than the sentimentalist, no one so pitiless as
the rider on Christian principles. And it is not a rational world where the
surgeon is charged with cruelty' (280).
These are chilling sentiments, emanating as they did from the pen of
an Oxford don with a considerable academic reputation. Moreover,
although the overt subject of Bradley's essay was the punishment of
criminals, his target was obviously much more extensive. He included
among the unfit who were to be denied the right to life lunatics, persons
with hereditary diseases, and the children of these groups. His tactic was
to take the national community as the unit of evolution and then to
assume the moral priority of this community in the struggle for
existence. I say 'assume' because Bradley offered no arguments to this
effect, but simply took the precedence of the whole over its parts for
granted. He then proposed that for the community to survive in the
struggle for existence it must find a substitute for natural selection which
could no longer be countenanced within its boundaries. The use of
euphemisms like 'moral/ethical surgery' and 'social amputation' created
the impression that the morally diseased could be scientifically identi-
fied. Their removal was intimated to be a clinical operation which,
though conducted principally in the interests of society as a whole,
would be a blessing to the individuals concerned. In this way, Bradley
mounted a challenge to a whole congeries of Christian and liberal
precepts relating to justice, individual liberties and moral agency.
These tasks assumed practical urgency during the Boer War in South
Africa between 1899 and 1902. Recruitment to the British army during
this conflict exposed the prevalence of low levels of health and education
among the urban working classes, provoking a great deal of speculation
about the causes of this situation, and its implications for 'national
efficiency'. National Life From the Standpoint of Science15 by Karl Pearson
(1857-1936), a British pioneer in the application of statistical techniques
to biological data, was an intervention in these debates - initially in the
form of a wartime lecture - which was intended to invest them with
some scientific content. It linked the perceived crisis in the vitality and
health of the nation to a Social Darwinist vision of human evolution and
a call for eugenic policies capable of reversing the trend in national
deterioration while it was still possible to do so.
Humans, maintained Pearson, were the products of an evolutionary
process generated by the struggle for existence in the form of warfare, as
well as 'the more silent, but none the less intense' peaceful competition
for markets, resources and commercial supremacy (13). The struggle
took place between herds, tribes or nations rather than between
individuals, and Pearson considered it imperative that people should be
aware that the 'continual progress of mankind, is the scarcely recognised
outcome of the bitter struggle of race with race, the result of man, like all
other life, being subject to the stern laws of the survival of the fitter, to
the victory of the physically and mentally better organised' (64).
Successful nations in this struggle were those effective in mobilising
the abilities of their most talented members and these abilities were, in
great part, hereditary. Education could modify an individual's behav-
iour, but such modifications could not be inherited by his or her
descendants. 'You cannot change the leopard's spots', proclaimed
Pearson, 'and you cannot change bad stock into good' (19), so that a
nation had to ensure the continual reproduction and 'dominant fertility'
15
Second edn (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1905). The lecture was originally
delivered in Newcastle in 1900.
of its 'better elements' or else it would destroy itself 'far more effectively
than its foes could ever hope to destroy it in the battlefield' (ix).
The data on army recruits demonstrated that Britain could no longer
rely upon the blind workings of natural selection to guarantee the
dominant fertility of its superior members. This was because a number
of social forces were removing or weakening the checks which 'the
unrestrained struggle for existence places on the fertility of the unfit',
while simultaneously contributing to the diminishing fecundity of the fit.
In the latter category, he hinted vaguely at 'love of ease, a mistaken sense
of duty, insidious new social habits' (viii). In the former he targeted
charitable endeavours and state welfare programmes which encouraged
the multiplication of the 'feckless and improvident', in addition to
criminals, lunatics and the chronically sick (29-30, 31). Elsewhere,
Pearson criticised minimum wage legislation, proposals for an eight-
hour working day, and the public provision of free medical advice for the
same reasons.16
Having described the world as an arena of struggle Pearson then
converted moral issues into questions of group survival. 'By moral
conduct... we mean that which tends to the welfare and progress of the
group of which we are members, and by immoral conduct the reverse'
(96-7). In this light, parenthood acquired new significance as a matter of
national importance, yet people persisted in falsely regarding it as a
realm of individual preference and choice. 'From the point of view of the
nation', insisted Pearson, 'we want to inculcate a feeling of shame in the
parents of a weakling, whether it be mentally or physically unfit' (28).
Equally at fault was the public's indulgent attitude to criminals. Crime
and 'health, sanity, conscientiousness and ability are inherited charac-
ters', but this was ignored by people who wanted to suspend the
principle of natural selection. 'A hundred years ago you hung a rogue if
you caught him. Nowadays you provide him with soup-kitchens and
night-shelters up and down the country, and leave him to propagate his
kind at will'(101).
The result of the failure to perceive these issues within the context of
national - as opposed to individual - welfare was a situation whereby the
less worthy elements in society multiplied while the stocks from which
the nation's leaders should be recruited, which Pearson estimated to be
about one half of one per cent of the population, married late and had
small families. Pearson drew a stark conclusion and, by implication,
16
Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, 34. At the same time, Pearson was supportive of many
feminist goals, and did not subscribe to the view that women were innately inferior to
men; see Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, 34; Soloway, Demography and Degeneration,
111-21.
offered his audience an equally stark choice: 'The problem is simple in
the extreme. We have two groups in the community - one parasitic on
the other. The latter thinks of tomorrow and is childless, the former
takes no thought and multiplies. It can only end as the case so often ends
- the parasite will kill its host, and so end the tale for both alike' (106).
Pearson hastened to add that recognition of these facts did not require
the hanging of rogues or the refusal of medical assistance to the
physically and mentally sick, only the prevention of the unfit from
reproducing themselves. His use of the expression 'parasite', however,
suggests a contemptuous and punitive attitude that is reflected in his
actual recommendations, which included sending criminals to a 'sub-
tropical climate', and the institutionalisation and strict surveillance of
paupers and the insane (105).
Pearson also attacked the dysgenic consequences of a social system
which allowed aristocrats to be recruited into important posts on the
basis of wealth rather than ability. Nevertheless, Pearson did not
propose any radical restructuring of the class system because he thought
that existing inequalities had a biological basis:
If we look upon society as an organic whole, we must assume that class
distinctions are not entirely illusory; that certain families pursue definite
occupations because they have a more or less specialised aptitude for them. In a
rough sort of way we may safely assume that the industrial classes are not on the
average as intelligent as the professional classes and that the distinction is not
entirely one of education.17
Pearson's position was that inequalities of health and education should
not be allowed to compromise the sense of national solidarity. Class
conflict was disruptive and impaired national efficiency: 'The true
statesman has to limit the internal struggle of the community in order to
make it stronger for the external struggle' (54). This struggle, involving
warfare and commercial competition with other nations and races, made
it imperative that the nation should achieve a strong sense of unity and
identity. Insisting that 'national spirit is not a thing to be ashamed of,
Pearson admonished his countrymen for their lack of patriotism. A
nation containing a large number of people imbued with fraternal regard
for the entire human species and devoid of the patriotic spirit would
experience serious difficulties in the struggle for survival (52-3).
Pearson's refusal to countenance a social explanation for the existence
and alleged proliferation of the 'unfit' was bound up with his attitudes to
class and racial inequalities, which he attributed to biological causes that
were refractory to modification through ameliorative social action. Thus
17
Pearson, The Groundwork of Eugenics (1912), 33. Cited in Jones, Social Darwinism, 114.
for him the black races were inherently and therefore permanently
inferior to whites, a situation which had been brought about by selective
forces and was hence unalterable by education. Racial inter-mixing was
deleterious for the 'good stock', and even the physical proximity of
differently endowed races was demoralising. Pearson recognised that to
many people this might appear a bleak representation of the human
condition, but struggle was a law of evolution, and 'intense suffering'
was the price of progress: 'This dependence of progress on the survival
of the fitter race, terribly black as it may seem to some of you, gives the
struggle for existence its redeeming features; it is the fiery crucible out of
which comes the finer metal' (26).
Since national survival was at stake in the struggle for existence it was
vital to reverse the counter-selective policies and actions that were
swelling the numbers of the unfit. Urgent action was needed if the
'parasites' were not to overwhelm the host and destroy it. These
included the indigent, criminals, the feebleminded and insane, vagrants,
prostitutes and 'weaklings'. Their various conditions were caused by
hereditary defects, and they had to be prevented from reproducing their
kind, given the obvious dysgenic consequences this would entail.
It has been suggested that among British eugenicists, Pearson, with
his strident nationalism and his endorsement of war, was something of a
maverick.18 Yet the reasoning, as well as the tone, of Pearson's text does
not differ in essentials from those of Bradley or Haycraft. Furthermore,
an examination of seemingly more moderate proposals reveals the same
features: the subordination of the individual to the nation-state in the
interests of national survival, and a call for the reduction of the unfit as a
substitute for the seemingly defunct culling action of natural selection.
These features are fully apparent in the publications of Darwin's son,
Major Leonard Darwin (1850-1943), who was president of the British
Eugenics Education Society from 1911 to 1928. Towards the end of his
period in office, Darwin produced a lengthy tome on eugenics, followed
by a scaled-down version for more popular consumption.19 In both he
presented a Darwinian view of man as an animal that had evolved
through natural selection and about whom much could be learned by
observing the breeding practices of farmers. As with livestock, superior
humans should be encouraged to reproduce as much as possible, the
18
For comparisons between Pearson's ideas and those of other British eugenicists, see
Searle, Eugenics and Politics in Britain, 1900-1914 (Leyden: Noordhoff International
Publishing, 1976), 36-9; Soloway, Demography and Degeneration, chap. 7. Pearson only
approved of war between civilised and inferior races. Struggle between the former took
the form of competition for markets, trade-routes and raw materials.
19
L. Darwin, The Need For Eugenic Reform (London: Murray, 1926), and What is
Eugenics? (London: Watts, 1928).
inferior encouraged to reproduce less. Eugenics demonstrated that good
breeding practices were crucial to the future welfare of the country:
'Eugenics calls upon us to include all future generations amongst our
neighbours . . . for whom we ought to be prepared to sacrifice our own
immediate interests.'20
Darwin surmised that it was folly to allow 'parents with bad natural
qualities' to reproduce at a faster rate than the better endowed. 21 In the
former category he included not only the mentally and physically
handicapped, but a large 'inferior class' living on low wages, comprising
'the stupid, the careless, the inefficient, the intractable, the idle, the
habitual drunkard, as well as those too feeble in body or in health to do a
good day's work'.22 Finally, for good measure he added manual
labourers, for whom parenthood had been made less onerous than it
should be by both public and private philanthropy.23
Similar anxieties are discernible in the eugenics writings of Julian
Huxley (1887-1975), a distinguished biologist and a grandson of T. H.
Huxley. In a series of essays entitled What Dare I Think?,24 Huxley
depicted heredity as a lottery, a throw of the genetic dice determining an
individual's biological constitution and physical and mental capabilities
(74). But he went on to draw attention to the doubling of the number of
morons and defectives in Britain during the previous quarter of a
century, which he attributed to improvements in public health, infant
welfare and preventive medicine. Huxley then evoked Social Darwinism
to highlight the counter-selective impact of these measures: 'By reducing
the rigour of natural selection, we are allowing an undue proportion of
unfit types to survive.' The only 'civilised' course of action was to
prevent mental defectives from having children, though whether this was
best achieved by prohibiting marriage, by segregation or by sterilisation,
he described as not 'our present concern'. What Huxley sought was 'a
general agreement that it is not in the interests of the present
community, the race of the future, or the children who might be born to
defectives, that defectives should beget offspring' (97, 98).
Huxley constructed a gloomy scenario. He was convinced that the
genetic changes taking place in the population were for the worse, and
believed alteration of the socio-economic system, though perhaps an
ultimate goal, could only be achieved slowly, during which time
degeneration would advance unchecked. These problems all stemmed
from the fact that society had deflected the workings of natural selection
and 'without attempting to put anything in its place, has allowed harm-
ful mutations to accumulate instead of weeding them out or prevented
20 21 22
L. Darwin, What is Eugenics?, 5-12, 24. Ibid., 19. Ibid., 57, 58.
23 24
Ibid., 63-4, 70-1. London: Chatto and Windus, 1932.
them from appearing, and in fine has neglected eugenic measures'
(115-16).
Huxley propounded a form of 'scientific humanism' in which
humanistic values and science could be harmonised. He did not want to
see science enthroned as a dictator to which every human value had to
be referred for approval. But he was equally opposed to the current
tendency to push certain values - for example, those pertaining to the
sanctity of life - to absolute limits. In such circumstances: 'The value of
human life becomes so absolute that it is murder to put away a deformed
monster at birth, and criminal to suggest euthanasia; and we push on
with our reduction of infant mortality until we save an excess of cripples
and defectives to breed from' (165). It was essential to realise that
humanity was implicated in a 'gigantic evolutionary experiment'.
Science could furnish 'impersonal guidance and efficient control' over
the workings of this process, and this was the responsibility and the
promise of eugenics. 'On its negative side it becomes racial preventive
medicine: on its positive side, racial hope' (119).
Although there are considerable differences in tone in the proposals of
Darwin and Huxley (who subsequently abandoned eugenics) on the one
hand, and Haycraft, Bradley and Pearson on the other, there are also a
number of striking continuities. In all of these thinkers there can be
discerned an elitism which attributed social hierarchies to differences in
biological worth; which subordinated the welfare of individuals to that of
the race or nation; and which, in the name of evolutionary science,
consigned large portions of their co-nationals to the realm of the
biologically worthless. In all of these examples, the need to improve the
race or nation - these concepts tended to be employed interchangeably -
against the pernicious actions of counter-selective practices was pro-
pounded as an evolutionary imperative. This need was invested with
added urgency by invoking the spectre of the struggle for existence in
which only the fittest, healthiest and socially efficient nations/races
would survive. Thus Huxley, during the 1920s, foresaw a time when
eugenics would become 'practical politics' and raise the quality of the
population 'by altering the proportion of good and bad stock, and if
possible eliminating the lowest strata in a genetically mixed popula-
tion'. 25 Genetics became an analytical tool for diagnosing the racial
health of the population, and Social Darwinism furnished the rationale
for eugenic intervention, while science legitimated the claim to expertise
in these matters.
Huxley, Essays of a Biologist (London: Chatto and Windus, 1928), 51.

Germany and the science of racial hygiene

In Germany, interest in questions of racial hygiene increased during the
last decade of the nineteenth century, and soon became salient among
biologists and anthropologists, as well as in the health professions. In
these early years it was a heterogeneous movement containing many
advocates of policies aimed at improving the quality of life for the
masses. After World War I there occurred a change of emphasis, with
hereditarian explanations of ill health, linked with a conception of race
as a biological entity, achieving prominence. The consequence was the
emergence of a phobia about racial decline and the need for appropriate
remedial policies. According to Weindling, the political disruption and
mass starvation and sickness which were rampant between 1919 and
1924 'broke down precepts of humanity and benevolence', and fears for
national survival encouraged widespread discussion among doctors and
lawyers about the role of euthanasia and other radical eugenic measures
in preventing the collapse of the German Volk.26
An example of this reaction is a text on the 'destruction of worthless
life' which appeared in 1920. The authors, Binding and Hoche, argued
that in current circumstances it was impossible to devote a large
measure of resources to 'living burdens', i.e. those who were 'mentally
dead'. The criteria by which such persons could be recognised were
extremely vague, leaving a great deal of discretion to the authorities.
Binding and Hoche cited 'the alien character of the mentally dead within
the context of human society, the lack of any productive achievements, a
condition of complete helplessness with the necessity of being looked
after by others . . . ' Eliminating these people was neither a crime nor an
immoral act, but one that would benefit the nation. The authors argued:
There was a time which we regard as barbaric, in which the elimination of those
who were born or became unviable was regarded as natural. Then came the
phase we are in now, in which finally the maintenance of any, even the most
worthless, existence was considered to be the highest moral duty; a new period
will come which, on the basis of a higher morality, will cease continually
implementing the demands of an exaggerated concept of humanity and an
exaggerated view of the value of human life at great cost.27
The arguments employed in this text were not qualitatively different
from those expressed by Haycraft, Lapouge, Bradley, Pearson or even
26
Weindling, Race, Health and Politics, 3 9 3 - 4 .
27
K. Binding and A. E. H o c h e , Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens: Ihr
Mass und Ihre Form (Leipzig: 1920). Extract in J. Noakes and G. Pridham, eds.,
Nazism, 1919-1945: A Documentary Reader, 3 vols. (University of Exeter, 1983-8), III,
1000-1.
Huxley. What the shock of defeat in Germany did was produce
circumstances in which these ideas could attain widespread currency,
something which never happened in Britain or France. 28 The concept of
racial hygiene enunciated by German theorists during the early years of
the century could thus acquire added plausibility and their proposals
could achieve the urgency of racial survival. An indication of what this
would entail is contained in an internal Nazi Party memorandum
circulated by a party official, Franz von Pfeiffer, in 1925. 'No pity is to
be shown to those who occupy the lower categories of the inferior
groups: cripples, epileptics, the blind, the insane, deaf and dumb,
children born in sanatoria for alcoholics or in care, orphans (= children
born out of wedlock), criminals, whores, the sexually disturbed, etc'
Such people constituted an immense waste of resources. Hence: 'This
bottom category means destruction and death. Weighted and found
wanting. Trees which do not bear fruit should be cut down and thrown
into the fire.'29 The Third Reich provided the opportunities for the
realisation of these proposals.
Chapter 11 will examine Nazi eugenic ideology in some detail. Here I
want to explore the academic rationalisation of eugenics which linked
genetics, eugenics and race prior to the Third Reich. A good example of
this is an influential textbook on heredity.30 Written by established
experts in their fields and often highly technical and mathematical, this
text cited Ammon's work in its bibliography of 'important and
comprehensive books'. Continuity with earlier race theories was
signalled even more clearly by its approval of de Gobineau's Essay, of
which the authors observed: 'Notwithstanding manifold errors, this is an
inspired book whose fundamental ideas remain incontrovertible. It
stands unrivalled as a pioneer book on the racial problem' (706).
In a section entitled 'Racial Differences in Mankind', Eugen Fischer
(1874-1967) rejected the cranial index as a measure of race while
remaining convinced of the reality of race (117). 'Technically speaking',
28
Although both countries had supporters of radical eugenic measures. In Britain,
Winston Churchill, when H o m e Secretary, tried in 1910 to convince the Prime
Minister, Asquith, and the Cabinet, of the need for forcible sterilisation and
incarceration of the feebleminded and insane. See C. Ponting, 'Churchill's Plan for
Racial Purity', The Guardian, 20 June 1992. In France, the defeat of 1940 paved the
way for a racially inspired eugenics under the Vichy regime. See Schneider, Quality and
Quantity, chap. 10.
29
Reading no. 62 in R. Griffin, ed., Fascism (Oxford University Press, 1995), 119.
30
Bauer, Fischer and Lenz, Human Heredity. Weindling describes this book as
'authoritative in linking genetics and medicine with racial hygiene', which 'established
the scientific status of the concept of a Nordic race'. First published in 1921, it went to
a revised fifth edition in 1940. See Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics, 4 7 3 ,
306.
he wrote, 'there is no such generalised being as "man"; there are only
men and women belonging to particular races or particular racial
crossings.' This was because 'in human heredity the innumerable
characters which differentiate individuals and groups (races) are tena-
ciously and inalterably transmitted from generation to generation . . . '
(209). This held true for psychology as for physiology: 'The various
races of men differ from one another to an extraordinary degree in
mental respects no less than in bodily' (181). Mental aptitudes were
inheritable, established 'once and for all', which meant that races varied
considerably in their capabilities (130, 181).
Fischer argued that humans were descended from an anthropoid
ancestry and their evolution had been, and still was, governed by natural
selection, although the rigour of this tended to diminish with the
advance of civilisation. The extinction of races could not be accounted
for by applying the metaphors of senescence: 'The races of man no more
grow old and die than do the races of lower animals or of plants. They
can only be eliminated by selection, thus dying an unnatural death'
(183). Nor was racial inter-crossing necessarily the cause of a race's
elimination. Such crossings could be deleterious, but they also gave rise
to new varieties and were a source of regeneration and development
(182). The answer he gave was one of a 'reverse selection' which altered
the racial composition of a people and deprived it of effective leadership,
thus making it a less functional biological unit. The author hinted darkly
that the present fate of Germany had precisely such an 'anthropological
cause' (183). 'We are coming to recognise more and more clearly', he
wrote, 'that racial factors, and especially hereditary mental endowments
. . . are among the most influential in determining the course of a
nation's history' (182).
These themes were extended in the contributions by Lenz, professor
of racial hygiene at the University of Munich. Like many of his
countrymen, Lenz was affected by an acute sense of crisis brought about
by Germany's defeat in the Great War. Faced with the contingency and
transience of human values and achievements he looked to race for
permanence and certainty.31
Lenz contended that the distinction between health and sickness
turned upon the adaptational capacity of an organism. However, he
made it clear that the significance of this distinction lay in its bearing
upon 'racial rather than individual survival' (216). 'Thus every adapta-
tion upon which we make the concepts of health and disease turn, is in
the last analysis directed towards the preservation not of the individual
31
Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics, 302-3.
but of the race. Individual-survival is only a means to the end of race-
survival' (216).
What did Lenz mean by race? In constructing a racial classification, he
disclaimed any intention of ranking races in a hierarchy because this
implied a standard of value other than race itself (696-7). But the entire
thrust of his analysis of racial differences was aimed at precisely the
creation of such a hierarchy, and then to draw out the implications of
this for the future of Germany. The criteria he adopted for this task were
psychological, on the grounds that the mental differences between races
were even more pronounced than bodily differences and equally rooted
in heredity to the extent that environmental influences, including
education, 'can do no more than help or hinder the flowering of
hereditary potentialities5. Lenz completely rejected the inheritance of
acquired characters and insisted on the need to abandon Lamarckian
prejudices in order to arrive at an accurate understanding of the genetic
determinants of race (565, 604, 607). Notwithstanding the scholarly
apparatus deployed by Lenz, his classification reproduced all the
standard racial prejudices and stereotypes found in the writings of de
Gobineau, Lapouge and Chamberlain.
At the bottom of his scale Lenz located 'primitive races', such as the
Veddahs and Australian Blackfellows, whom he described as feeble-
minded and 'closely akin to our simian forefathers' (628). The negro
races he considered more advanced than primitives, but lacking in
foresight and initiative, influenced by their senses, unintelligent and
displaying many of the mental traits of children (628-34). In his
description of the next level, Lenz succeeded in combining racial
stereotypes with shibboleths on gender. Mongoloids were hard-working
and frugal, but unimaginative. They related to Europeans in the same
way as women to men, 'for Mongols are receptive rather than creative;
and are at the same time frugal, contented, and patient' (634-9).
After describing a series of 'intermediary' races, Lenz reached the
summit of the hierarchy, the Nordic race, which created the Aryan
languages and civilisation (647-61). The Nordic possessed great
intelligence and creativity, enormous energy and a vivid imagination,
but was an individualist, devoid of a sense of community. 'The Nordic
finds it difficult to put himself in another's place. His instincts are
individualistic rather than social, his craving for independence makes
him resist being enrolled in a community.' Above all, the Nordic was
motivated by a will-to-power and proclivity for war, tempered by an
aristocratic capacity for self-restraint (658-9).
The implication that individualism was a vice mirrored the claim that
the individual was only a means to the end of racial survival. But from
whence did the threats to this survival derive? Lenz was far from explicit
on this point. One such threat obviously came from people afflicted with
hereditary diseases. But the physical and mental descriptions of the
Nordic race, and Lenz's concentration on the racial divisions within
Europe, were redolent with other implications. Some of these appeared
in his discussion of Jews. According to Lenz the Jews were not a unified
race, but their solidarity and closedness made them something of a
'mental' race. They possessed a great talent for economic activities, and
were capable of intellectual greatness, as shown by Einstein. Indeed,
Lenz went so far as to argue: 'Next to the Teutonic, the Jewish spirit is
the chief motive force of modern civilisation' (674). But these positive
assessments were interspersed with familiar negative stereotypes. Thus
Jews lived within other cultures, which they mimicked; they induced
other races to accept Jewish leadership; they were averse to physical
labour and inept at warfare. They were partially composed of the Near
Eastern race, 'which has been selected to excel, not so much in the
control and the exploitation of nature, as in the control and exploitation
of man' (644). Lenz maintained that whereas the Jew could not exist
without the Teuton, the latter would be perfectly capable of getting
along without the Jew (677). While such comments were not so overtly
disparaging as the more virulent anti-Semitic rhetoric of the period, they
relied upon a similar set of contrasts with the psychic disposition of the
Nordic race, against which they acted mainly as a negative counterpoint.
Thus Lenz, who maintained that racial mixing could be advantageous,
insisted that the reverse was true if the races were widely divergent and,
in spite of his acknowledgements of Jewish achievements, condemned
the crossing of Teutons and Jews (692-3).
For Lenz, the realities of racial and other hereditary differences
rendered idealistic dreams of equality biologically untenable: 'The
inequalities among human beings are mainly dependent upon the
hereditary equipment, and this cannot be transformed in any simple way
either by material or by spiritual influences. In the individual it cannot
be changed at all, and in the race it can only be changed by selection'
(698). This did not justify inaction on the part of a nation. To the
contrary, membership of a superior race should not lull one into a false
sense of security, because the 'biological heritage of the mind' is just as
perishable as that of the body. 'If we continue to squander that biological
heritage as we have been squandering it during the last few decades, it
will not be many generations before we cease to be the superiors of the
Mongols. Our ethnological studies must lead us, not to arrogance, but
to action - to eugenics' (698).
Lenz was convinced that the reason for the collapse of classical
civilisation was to be sought in the 'extermination of the creative racial
elements' responsible for their achievements (696). His views contain
the same mixture of elitism and biological reductionism that occur in the
writings of the British eugenicists and Lapouge and, as we shall see, the
American Stoddard. Moreover, selection and struggle were implied to
be forces of preservation rather than change. A politics geared towards
guarding the forces of nature against subversive social practices was
offered as the only hope for the future. The consequences of this politics
were to be fully realised under the Third Reich.
Richet and human selection

French scientists were, as already noted, relatively unreceptive to
Darwinism. This was reflected in the eugenics and social hygiene
movements in France, which tended to retain a marked environmentalist
as opposed to hereditarian orientation. The thinker I am about to
discuss was not typical of French eugenicists because he was convinced
that heredity dominated all aspects of social life. But Charles Richet
(1850-1935) was an influential figure. Professor of physiology at the
University of Paris and winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology in 1913,
Richet became a vice president of the French Eugenics Society after the
Great War, and Schneider maintains that his status assisted the
popularisation of his eugenic ideas among the French public.32 The text
in which these ideas were systematically presented was Selection humaine,
an influential book published in 1919 but written some time earlier in
1912.33
In Selection humaine Richet asserted that man was no exception to
nature's laws, one of which was the pursuit of happiness, a universal
proclivity not confined to man and the cause of progress. But this
pursuit was made difficult by another law, the struggle for existence:
'life is a ceaseless struggle against the sundry hostile forces which
besiege us from all sides and at every instant. These forces are colossal,
innumerable, indefatigable, inexorable' (3-4). They derived from
climatic conditions; organic needs which condemned us to labour; from
our vices and from parasites which caused disease. The struggle against
these enemies was led by science, which improved with the advancement
of human intelligence. This made paramount the improvement of man -
the science-creating tool - or rather, the improvement of his mind.
However, here, according to Richet, we encountered widespread
32
Schneider, Quality and Quantity, 110.
33
C . Richet, La Selection humaine (Paris: Alcan, 1919). See Schneider, Quality and
Quantity, 109-10.
indifference: 'Nothing is more extraordinary that our lack of concern for
human selection' (15). Man was prepared to improve everything -
livestock, flowers and vegetables - except himself. Living matter was
plastic, and through judicious and patient selection it was capable of
taking on multiple forms, just like the clay in the hands of a potter (25).
But humanity remained oblivious to the need for applying the selective
practices of the stockbreeder and horticulturalist to itself.
What rendered this need imperative was the perversion of natural and
sexual selection in civilised conditions. In savage societies the eternal
combat against a pitiless nature ensured the survival of the strongest.
But with civilisation came altruism, conscience and notions of rights,
with the result that the sick and insane were nurtured and recidivist
criminals tolerated (17). Marriage was no longer entered into with the
future of the race in mind, but was governed by chance or cupidity.
'Thus civilisation, which has perverted natural selection, has perverted
sexual selection even more' (19). Individually, people were able to
improve their situation through increased standards of living and
education, while collectively, progress was not simply at a standstill, for
the race was menaced by decline. Selection was distorted by social
institutions while civilisation threatened to bring about 'the degradation
of the species' (22).
Richet was convinced that heredity was a dominant influence in
human existence. Not only did it determine physical traits like hair
colour, height, beauty, strength and health, but it also governed
character and intelligence. The latter was particularly important,
because intelligence distinguished man from the animals and facilitated
continued evolutionary progress. But Richet, in keeping with the general
tenor of French eugenics at the time, did not relegate environmental
factors to a non-existent or even minor role (39). He obviously endorsed
the inheritance of acquired characters, claiming improvements to the
body and the mind through better conditions and education would be
inherited by the next generation (178, 188), and arguing that women
needed to be encouraged to develop their intellectual potential during
adulthood by allowing them opportunities to work and think (40, 194).
Nor did he believe that the current occupants of important social
positions reflected a natural distribution of intelligence, since many of
them owed their status to birth rather than ability. In fact, social
inequality he castigated as one of the worst perversions of civilisation
because it ensured the progeny of a millionaire would be victors in the
struggle for life no matter how stupid, lazy and weak they were (21).
Nonetheless, in his espousal of the policies necessary to restore selective
processes to social life, Richet adopted a biologically reductionist stance.
This is evident in Richet's analysis of race. Initially he gave the
impression that he was concerned with the happiness of the entire
human species, claiming that selection was capable of securing a more
noble and brilliant future for the whole of humanity (ii-iii), in which he
included not just the existing generations but their future descendants
(2-3). These universalist sentiments are misleading though, for Richet
effectively confined the notion of humanity to the white races only,
stating baldly: 'I do not at all believe in the equality of the human races'
(58). Using skin colour as the criterion of racial difference, he proposed
a hierarchy of races based upon intelligence as the most distinctively
human attribute. He then produced an extremely disparaging assess-
ment of blacks whom he presented as close to monkeys in terms of their
skull and brain measurements, possessing an infantile intelligence, and
having contributed absolutely nothing to the sciences, the arts, or to
social and political institutions (67-72). His conclusion was stark: 'The
black race is an inferior race' (70). As for the 'yellow' races, they were
capable of advanced civilisation, but were imitative rather than creative,
and their thought showed no evidence of progress (73-7).
The essential principle Richet derived from his classification of races
was the absolute necessity of preventing any mixing of the superior white
races with the black or brown races (58). The deleterious consequences
of miscegenation for the superior race was an incontestable biological
fact; while the occasional sexual liaison between whites and inferior
races was admissible, marriage was not (91). Hence 'the first principle of
human selection is strictly to forbid the union of whites with the women
of another race, yellow or black' (84). The inhabitants of the great cities
in Europe were a pretty unedifying spectacle, but they had potential for
improvement, a potential that would be irremediably lost if they became
a population of mulattos (85-6).
The next selectionist principle was aimed at individuals within the
nations of the white races. Richet thought Europeans consisted of a
number of white races (including Semites), and nations were commu-
nities in which these different races were fused together by such factors
as history, language, religion and tradition (80). Once these commu-
nities were safeguarded against pollution by inter-mixing with non-
whites, the next task was to purge them of inferior specimens. Here
physical and mental normality were the yardsticks, and all those who
were abnormal must be 'pitilessly rejected' (161). This criterion was
both 'simple and precise' and encompassed the defective, the deformed,
criminals, maniacs and imbeciles (161-2). Richet conceded that his
proposals would be branded by some as monstrous, but he was adamant
that: 'Our task must be to fortify Nature's disdain for the weak . . . '
(165). He advocated the killing of newly born infants with hereditary
defects. In this stage they were incapable of thought and hence could not
suffer, and if they could think, they would be grateful for being spared a
lifetime of suffering (168). As for those who exhibited these defects after
birth, Richet believed castration to be the rational solution, though in
the current state of public opinion the next best policy was prohibition of
marriage. In this category Richet included people suffering from
tuberculosis, rickets, syphilis and epilepsy; individuals who were too
short or too weak; criminals; and people unable to read, write or count
(176).
Richet dismissed philanthropic or humanitarian counter-arguments as
simply irrelevant to the future welfare of the race: 'What do criminals,
deaf-mutes, hydrocephalics, rachitics and epileptics matter to us? Shall
we allow our human race to be perverted by these tainted seeds? I too
am philanthropic, but my philanthropy leads me to hope for a human
race that is noble and strong. What do the lazy, the ignorant, the stupid
and the puny matter to me?' (207).
These arguments reveal the close kinship between Richet's selection-
ism and the eugenics of Pearson, Lapouge and the German advocates of
racial hygiene, a kinship that extended to the world view within which
these proposals were embedded. Richet depicted a cosmos governed by
the laws of adaptation, heredity and natural selection, though these laws
had been obstructed or distorted by social institutions and practices.
Elevating the good of the 'race' above any considerations of individual
rights or welfare, he justified the rigid separation of races and radical
programmes of negative eugenics in order to ensure continued evo-
lution. The most important difference between Richet and the other
Social Darwinist supporters of eugenics was to be found in his concept
of struggle. He did not list population pressures as one of its causes, and
neither did he regard war as one of its forms, at least among civilised
nations. He was a vociferous critic of militarism, wanting the resources
hitherto devoted to warfare to be used for the promotion of science, the
goal of which was to replace international conflict with union (5), while
perceiving peaceful competition within societies to be essential to
progress. Paradoxically, given his description of inequality as a per-
version of natural selection, he argued that liberty and equality were
incompatible values. We must, he insisted, reject socialism and
egalitarianism because any form of collectivism suppressed individual
effort. liberty was therefore essential, and Richet proposed anarchism as
the ideal system - a stateless federation of families and communes (94-
9). 'For the grandeur of future humanity', he wrote, 'individualist
societies are necessary which, by means of an inexorable struggle for life,
reward effort and vigorously punish laziness' (105). The object of these
societies was not the creation of some aristocratic elite but the
improvement of the race as a whole to establish a 'universal aristocracy'
(112). These sentiments seem to distance Richet from the authoritar-
ianism of Pearson, Lapouge and the German racial hygienists. This is
misleading, for Richet recognised that this ideal had to be compromised
for the sake of racial improvement. In fact, the state would prohibit
inter-racial marriage, forbid the marriage of other categories of person,
supervise the elimination of unfit new-born infants, and castrate and
sterilise adult degenerates. To the objection that these policies were
tyrannical, Richet replied that all policies aimed at social preservation
were inevitably tyrannical, including sending children to school and
paying taxes (90). In any case, Richet was convinced that eugenics
accorded with nature's rules, restoring the selectionism that had been
blunted by civilisation.
Before leaving France it is interesting to note the similarity between
the ideas of Richet and those of another Nobel Prize winner, Alexis
Carrel (1873-1944). Carrel lived and worked for many years in the
USA, researching cell tissue cultivation at the Rockefeller Institute for
Medical Research. In 1941, in Vichy France, Carrel established the
Fondation pour l'Etude des Problemes Humaines, the goal of which was
to study measures for the improvement of the French population. 34 In
1935 he made his views on eugenics public in Man the Unknown,35 a
book which sold well in the USA and France.
Carrel was a thorough-going Social Darwinist who deplored the fact
that natural selection no longer played its former role of conserving and
improving the race (20). He rejected the inheritance of acquired
characters, but pointed out that the germ-plasm was not immune to
environmental influences in the form of disease, alimentary factors and
other items, which meant that it was often difficult to ascertain the
respective roles of environment and heredity in producing defects in a
population (263, 268). Eugenics, accordingly, though essential, had its
limits: cIt has no magic power, and is not capable, when unaided, of
greatly improving the individual' (254). Nonetheless, eugenics was
'indispensable for the perpetuation of the strong. A great race must
propagate its best elements' (299). This entailed, among other things,
euthanasia by gassing of dangerous criminals and the criminally insane;
whipping and temporary hospitalisation for petty criminals (318-9); the
refraining from marriage by people suffering from hereditary defects
34
For details of Carrel's career and work at the Fondation, see Schneider, Quality and
Quantity, 2 7 2 - 8 0 .
35
London: Harper, 1935.
(300); and the suppression of 'all forms of the proletariat' (302), with
factory work performed by conscription and people living in small
communities so as to avoid the debilitating influences of city life (315).
Carrel was fully aware that these proposals ran counter to the moral
prescriptions of human rights, democracy and humanitarianism, all of
which he condemned as disastrous because illusory. 'The feebleminded
and the man of genius should not be equal before the law' (271).
Democracy had promoted the interests of the weak at the expense of the
strong (272). This situation must be reversed, and modern society
should 'organise itself with reference to the normal individual. Philoso-
phical systems and sentimental prejudices must give way before such a
necessity. The development of human personality is the ultimate
purpose of civilisation' (319). In the light of these sentiments it is small
wonder that Carrel found the authoritarian and racist atmosphere of the
Vichy regime congenial.
The USA
Eugenics took hold in the USA more so than in any European nation
excepting Nazi Germany, which expressed great interest in American
policies and practices.36 The state of Indiana enacted the first sterilisa-
tion law in 1907; by 1933 twenty-nine other states had followed suit,
although three states had by then repealed their acts. 37 At this time,
officially over 16,000 people had been sterilised, many involuntarily.
Furthermore, recent research has shown that these practices did not
disappear with the discrediting of eugenics after revelations of Nazi
excesses, but continued until well after the conclusion of World War II
into the 1970s.38 On this evidence some scholars have surmised that the
real magnitude of enforced sterilisation in the USA between 1907 and
1974 involved hundreds of thousands of victims.39 Despite the consider-
able amount of research devoted to American eugenics, the success of
36
T h e connections between Nazi and U S eugenics are documented in S. Kuhl, The Nazi
Connection ( N e w York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
37
Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, 100; Report of the Departmental Committee on
Sterilisation, C m d . 4 4 8 5 (London: H M S O , 1933), 3 5 , 1 0 9 - 1 2 .
38
According to the Channel Four T V documentary of 17 February 1994, 'The
Lynchburg Story', involuntary sterilisations of inmates of an institution in Lynchburg,
Virginia, continued until 1972. In all, some 8,300 people were sterilised, primarily
young, white vagrants, paupers, petty criminals and the 'feebleminded'. T h e rationale
for this policy was the prevention of racial deterioration and the promotion of national
success in the struggle for existence.
39
For an analysis of eugenics in the U S A which estimates sterilisations in hundreds of
thousands, see A. Chase, The Legacy of Malthus ( N e w York: Knopf, 1980). For an
overview of the evidence see A. Cockburn, 'Social Cleansing', New Statesman and
Society, 5 August 1994, 1 6 - 1 8 .
these policies in a nation which prides itself on its tradition of
individualism and personal freedom still requires an adequate explana-
tion. As with other eugenics movements discussed in this chapter, my
concern is not with American eugenics per se but with the interaction
between eugenic ideas and Social Darwinism. The treatment is selective
but aims to convey the flavour of this interaction.
One of the earliest supporters of eugenics has already been encoun-
tered in an earlier chapter, the feminist and radical Victoria Woodhull.
By the time she published her eugenicist views Woodhull was residing in
England and had tempered much of her earlier radicalism. But her
writings of the early 1890s anticipated most of the themes propounded
by later eugenicists. Woodhull demanded that artificial laws should be
predicated upon the laws of nature, and called for a new religion based
upon scientific truths.40 Insisting that criminality, feeblemindedness and
pauperism were hereditary and incurable, she argued that the current
growth of these phenomena was contrary to the survival of the fittest.41
It was imperative, therefore, that nations refrain from breeding from the
unfit and instead encourage the breeding of the fit, which she heralded
as the 'first principle of the breeder's art'. There was no reason why
societies could not be organised so as to assign prominence to this
principle. This entailed a new creed that would 'make a religion of the
procreative principle'.42 But it also required governmental policies
aimed at preventing the birth of unfit people. 'A humanitarian govern-
ment', opined Woodhull, 'would stigmatise the marriages of the unfit as
crimes; it would legislate to prevent the birth of the criminal rather than
legislate to punish him after he is born.' 43 False ideas of liberty which
permitted the procreation of the unfit imposed a heavy burden on the
provident who had to support them. 'And it is these false ideas of liberty
which makes the struggle for existence so terrible.' 44 Moreover,
Woodhull did not confine the label of unfit to the urban underclass, but
gave it an additional racial signification. Thus, in contrast to her youthful
support for the enfranchisement of blacks, she asked rhetorically:
'Eventually, if America is owned and governed by negroes, would it be
the survival of the fittest?'45
40
Victoria C. Woodhull, Humanitarian Government (London: no pub., 1890), 25, 29.
41
Ibid., 30; Woodhull, The Rapid Multiplication of the Unfit (London/New York: no pub.,
1891), 18.
42
Woodhull, Rapid Multiplication, 38, 39.
43 44
Woodhull, Humanitarian Government, 49. Ibid., 55.
45
Woodhull, Rapid Multiplication, 18-19. For Woodhull's earlier support of black (and
female) suffrage, see her Origin, Tendencies and Principles of Government, 38-40c. In
1872 Woodhull had nominated herself the presidential candidate of her Equal Rights
Party and asked the black leader Frederick Douglas to stand as her running mate.
Douglas ignored the request - wisely as it happened, since Woodhull spent the election
Woodhull did not develop her eugenic proposals in any detail and her
writings did not sustain a consistently hereditarian position since she
sometimes attributed indigence, alcoholism, crime and illness to
environmental conditions. But her eugenic publications were a remark-
able anticipation, both in substance and tone, of later eugenicists such as
D. Colin Wells (1858-1911). In a provocative conference paper entitled
'Social Darwinism',46 Wells advocated the application of Darwinian
evolutionary theory 'to the investigation of the manner in which social
institutions and doctrines influence the competition, elimination,
survival of individuals and groups of individuals' (697). He postulated
that natural selection had been superseded by social selection, and that
'society is the sieve by which human beings are sifted ...' (698). This
prompted the question of what kind of persons were favoured by the
selective actions of modern industrial societies. Wells' response was
gloomy but predictable, namely that modern conditions reversed the
action of natural selection and favoured the multiplication of the unfit.
He then linked this claim to an attack on contemporary political and
social developments. Trade unionism, socialism, heavy taxation, urbani-
sation and higher education for women were all implicated in facilitating
the postponement of marriage and small families among the worthier
sections of society coupled with the survival and procreation of the
'incapable and weak' (702). Thus while Wells possessed a more
sophisticated knowledge of Darwinian theory that Woodhull, and was
conversant with current (particularly European) theoretical develop-
ments, his paper displayed essentially the same concerns: the substitu-
tion of social for natural selection and a concomitant multiplication of
the unfit.
The continuity of these themes in eugenic discourses is illustrated by
The Revolt Against Civilisation by Lothrop Stoddard (b. 1883), a text
which was popular in Britain and the USA and which appeared in
German translation.47 Stoddard's theme was the racial impoverishment
that he deemed to be endemic to modern civilisation. Civilisation was
the consequence of 'the creative urge of superior germ-plasm. Civilisa-
tion is thus fundamentally conditioned by race' (2). The progress from
animality through savagery and barbarism to civilisation was an uneven
one, with many races confined to the earlier phases of evolution. Only
superior races reached civilisation, and within them it was the actions of
in jail on an adultery charge. See G. Blodgett, 'Victoria Woodhull', Notable American
Women 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1971),
III, 654.
46
Published in The American Journal of Sociology, 12(1907), 6 9 5 - 7 0 8 .
47
L o n d o n : C h a p m a n and Hall, 1922. T h e G e r m a n edition was published in 1925. See
Weindling, Healthy Race and German Politics, 3 1 1 .
an elite which caused advancement. Elite qualities were hereditary -
Stoddard completely rejected the inheritance of acquired characters -
and were developed through natural selection. Unfortunately, with
civilisation natural selection was substituted by social selection allowing
the weak and degenerate to thrive and reproduce. Hence 'instead of
dying at the base and growing at the top, civilised society was dying at
the top and spreading out below' (18).
Stoddard enumerated several types of inferior person. There were
savages and barbarians, people who were arrested at early evolutionary
phases and therefore congenitally incapable of achieving civilisation.
Then there were true 'degenerates' - the insane and neurotic - and
finally the 'border-liners', consisting of those with 'neither the wit nor
the moral fibre to meet the sterner demands of high, complex civilisa-
tions'. Collectively, these inferior specimens constituted the 'Under-
Men', 'the vast army of the unadaptable and incapable' (21). They
represented a reservoir of potential discontent; inimical to the demands
of civilised existence, they were a threat to social order and had to be
controlled (23). Failure to do so would result in revolution.
Invoking an 'iron law of inequality', Stoddard insisted that the IQ
tests performed by the US Army on 1.7 million servicemen during
World War I demonstrated conclusively that intelligence was hereditary
(52). The declining birth-rates in the upper echelons of American
society, accompanied by the high rate of reproduction among the lower,
meant that 'intelligence is today being steadily bred out of the American
population' (64, original emphasis). The Under-Man was on the
increase while the racially valuable elements responsible for civilisation
were declining. Since the Under-Man was unconvertible to the demands
of civilisation Stoddard concluded - in terms reminiscent of those used
by Lombroso - that 'we have among us a rebel army - the vast host of
the unadaptable, the incapable, the envious, the discontented, filled with
instinctive hatred of civilisation and progress, and ready on the instant to
rise in revolt' (80-1). The world was in fact a vast battleground - the war
against chaos (202-3).
Faced with this problem, Stoddard ruled out any possibility of
returning to natural selection. The solution was to be found in eugenics,
which was 'an improved social selection based upon natural law ...' (86,
original emphasis). Social rebels - by which he apparently meant
Bolsheviks - should be 'hunted down and extirpated' (215). As for
degenerates, Stoddard was a firm advocate of negative eugenics on the
grounds that: 'Race cleansing is the obvious starting-point for race
betterment' (226). He proposed that habitual paupers should be
prevented from having children, while the insane and feebleminded
should be institutionalised or sterilised and birth control encouraged
among other inferior groups. This entailed the emergence of new social
ideals through the development of the 'eugenic conscience', which
would also 'impel the well-endowed to raise larger families, prefer
children to luxuries' and think more of duties than of rights (236).
Stoddard was unquestionably a hardliner on eugenic issues. He met
German eugenicists such as Lenz and Fischer as well as Nazi politicians
like Himmler, and continued to enthuse over Nazi eugenic and racial
measures into the 1940s. 48 It would be wrong, however, to dismiss him
as a marginal figure in American eugenics. The racist and elitist
perspectives which grounded Stoddart's eugenic proposals were
common to all the American and European examples considered in this
chapter. Equally common was the Social Darwinism which was
employed to explain the proliferation of the unfit through the suspension
or obstruction of natural selection. The continuity of these themes in the
overwhelming majority of eugenicist arguments is attested by the
appearance, in 1949, of a biology textbook by Garrett Hardin (b.
1915). 49 In the final chapter of this text, Hardin reported data which
purported to show that the birth-rate was negatively correlated with
educational attainment. Since higher education signified high IQ, and
the latter was partly due to heredity, then Hardin concluded that under
present social arrangements 'there will be a slow but continuous downward
trend in the average intelligence' (612, original emphasis). 50
Hardin's response to this trend was more nuanced than that of
Stoddard. Nevertheless, he argued: 'It is difficult, on rational grounds,
to object to the sterilisation of the feebleminded' (613). Similarly, he
proposed that only full knowledge of their public responsibilities - the
'eugenic conscience'? - would encourage high IQ individuals to have
more children (615). People needed to be aware of the selective
consequences of their actions: 'When one saves a starving man, one may
thereby help him to breed more children' (619). Hardin's conclusion
was that 'the logic of our situation is clear. Either there must be a
relatively painless weeding out before birth or a more painful and
wasteful elimination of individuals after birth' (618). The language may
have been more sophisticated than Stoddard's, but the concerns of both
he and Hardin were similar, as were their diagnoses and recommenda-
48
Kiihl, The Nazi Connection, 53, 59-63.
49
Biology: Its Human Implications (San Francisco: Freeman and Co., 1949).
50
There is a clear continuity in American concern with what is currently referred to as the
'dumbing down' of the population, exhibited in the writings of Wells, Stoddard and
Hardin and its most recent advocates, Murray and Hernnstein. See C. Murray and
R. J. Hernnstein, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (New
York: Free Press, 1994).
tions. In this they were part of an international tradition of eugenicist
thinking which typically drew upon Darwinian premisses for its
support.51
Conclusion
Soloway's verdict on British eugenics as a biological way of thinking
about socio-economic, political and cultural change, has a wider
relevance.52 The biology in question was invariably Darwinian, with its
stress on inheritance, selection and survival of the fittest. In eugenics
discourses the unit of concern became the race, a term which could still
be used in a number of senses, even by the same theorist, but which
increasingly tended to be conceived as a biological entity whose defining
traits were resistant to cultural forces. The fusion of eugenics, racial
theories and Social Darwinism, therefore, produced a graphic picture in
which racial survival in a world of incessant conflict was predicated upon
the maintenance of a healthy population purged of those elements which
threatened its integrity. Given the increasing tendency of Social
Darwinists to present collectivities rather than individuals as the agents
of adaptation and survival and thus to assign moral priority to the group,
these developments provided a powerful rationale for policies aimed at
the elimination of racially undesirable elements.
The fit between eugenics and Social Darwinism was a coherent one
because most proponents divorced natural selection from cultural
processes. Darwin, it will be recalled, derived altruism - and hence
charitable institutions and policies - from social and moral sentiments
that developed through natural selection, resulting in ambivalence
towards the maintenance of the unfit. Subsequent eugenicists invariably
depicted a rupture between nature and culture: natural selection had
been replaced by selective forces which were social in origin and which
usually acted contrary to the former. Eugenic policies were, in contrast,
social practices modelled upon the workings of nature.
Yet the effect of this device was, as we saw with Lapouge, to break the
continuity between nature and culture which was central to Social
51
The vitality of eugenics is evidenced by its continuing relevance in the modern era.
China embarked upon a eugenics programme in 1995 as part of its policy of birth
control. See Linda Jakobson, 'China Brings in Tough Law to Stamp Out Birth
Defects', Guardian, 6 June 1995. In the West, welfare cutbacks in Britain and the U S A ,
coupled with advances in genetic engineering, have aroused interest in the 'new
eugenics'. See Cockburn, 'Social Cleansing', and D . King, 'The State of Eugenics',
New Statesman and Society, 25 August 1995. Though the context of these policies
differs from pre-World War II, it would be interesting to examine their relationship to
Social Darwinism.
52
Soloway, Demography and Degeneration, xviii.
Darwinist thought. Cultural practices arose which were not only
inexplicable on Darwinist principles but which overrode the supposedly
ineluctable laws of nature. Thus eugenics was harmonised with Social
Darwinism by depicting nature as a model rather than a threat, with
social practices and values portrayed as the source of pathology. But the
virulence of the latter was such that nature itself seemed threatened
unless bolstered by social intervention.
10 Social Darwinism, nature and sexual
difference
Introduction
Sexual - like racial - characteristics have visible manifestations capable
of being ordered and classified, read as symbols for other differences,
and assigned values. Concern with such characteristics, both physical
and mental, and with their meaning, have a long pedigree in Western
thought. What invested this concern with particular urgency from the
mid-nineteenth century on was the interface of two processes: political
agitation for female emancipation and a reinterpretation of nature.
The growth of movements throughout Europe and the USA dedicated
to the extension of civil and political rights to women created an intense
interest in what became known, both to sympathisers and opponents, as
the 'Woman Question'.1 These movements challenged prevailing
notions of the appropriate division of labour between the sexes and in so
doing raised issues about the respective 'nature' of men and women and
the extent to which these natures were biologically or culturally
determined. Feminism, therefore, posed a comprehensive and dis-
turbing challenge in ways not matched by class or even racial issues. As
Cynthia Eagle Russett has argued, it not only encompassed education,
occupation and legal issues, but intruded into such intimate areas as
personal and matrimonial relationships.2
The debate was complicated by the fact that while nature often acted
as a court of appeal for the protagonists, the understanding of nature
was itself undergoing a transformation. There was a long-standing
tendency - general if not universal - to personify nature as a female, as at
once both a physical and spiritual presence, nurturing, caring and erotic.
But this imagery, as much a conception of femininity as of nature, had
been undergoing revision even prior to the publication of the Origin.
The palaeontological record had disclosed the impermanence of species,
1
For the development of women's emancipation movements, see R. J. Evans, The
Feminists (London: Croom Helm, 1977).
2
C. E. Russett, Sexual Science (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 10.
249
revealing a fossilised chronicle of elimination and extinction.3 This was
accompanied by a shift in the image of woman/nature, evident in
Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' (1850). Here nature was still represented as
a female, but one 'red in tooth and claw', not a nurse but a monstrous
and impersonal agent of death which even destroyed her own depen-
dants. Hence this reassessment of nature was mediated through a
revaluation of femininity in which woman was conceived as a much
more threatening and subversive figure.4
Yet this symbolisation of nature was nuanced, with the angel of death
imagery sometimes juxtaposed with a more nurturing and optimistic
representation, as is evident in Tennyson's great poem, where the red in
tooth and claw portrait of nature in stanzas LIV-LVI contrasts with the
more optimistic imagery of stanza CXVIII.5 This dualism and the
tension it reflects were reproduced within Darwinism itself, as I have
frequently argued. It also resonated an additional set of images
surrounding the notion of womanhood and the revisions to this notion
occasioned by women's fight for emancipation. It is for this reason,
perhaps, that the ambivalent status of nature as both model and threat is
particularly pronounced in Social Darwinist discourses on women.
Modern feminist historiography has tended to depict Social Darwin-
ism (and nineteenth-century science in general) as broadly supportive of
patriarchal values and as reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes.6
Even feminist appropriations of Social Darwinism are perceived as
succumbing to these stereotypes in that their promotion of women's
causes was premissed on notions of distinctive but complementary
sexual difference.7 These interpretations are surely correct; evolutionary
science was enlisted in the cause of patriarchy. But this is not the whole
story and I shall argue that Social Darwinism could be, and was, turned
against patriarchy and conventional Victorian views on gender. More-
over, some of the most innovative and influential efforts in this direction
were made by women themselves. In arguing thus I am developing a
point made some years ago by Rosaleen Love, namely that women
Bowler, The Invention of Progress, 167-8.

J. E. Adams, 'Woman Red in Tooth and Claw: Nature and the Feminine in Tennyson
and Darwin', Victorian Studies, 33(1989), 7-27.
I am grateful to Gail Cunningham for drawing my attention to this contrast.
Russett, Sexual Science, J. Conway, * Stereotypes of Femininity in a Theory of Sexual
Evolution', Victorian Studies, 14(1970-1), 47-62; F. Alaya, 'Victorian Science and the
"Genius" of Woman', Journal of the History of Ideas, 38(1977), 261-80; R. Jann,
'Darwin and the Anthropologists: Sexual Selection and Its Discontents', Victorian
Studies, 37(1994), 287-306.
See Alaya's discussion of Olive Schreiner and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 'Victorian
Science', 277-8.
Social Darwinism, nature and sexual difference 251
exhibited great ingenuity in manipulating 'scientific' theories of gender
for their own purposes.8
The evolution of sexual characteristics

In the Descent, Darwin argued that as a consequence of natural and
sexual selection the sexes had evolved distinctive but complementary
mental and physical traits. Man was not only physically larger than
woman, but also 'more courageous, pugnacious and energetic', and
psychologically more competitive, ambitious and selfish. 'Woman seems
to differ from man in mental disposition, chiefly in her greater
tenderness and less selfishness', and had retained the faculties of 'lower
races' for intuition, rapid perception and imitation (847, 857). As to
intellectual differences, Darwin asserted that the 'chief distinction in the
intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man's attaining to a
higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman - whether
requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the
senses and hands' (858).
However, although women were innately inferior to men in matters of
physical strength and intellectual prowess they possessed a number of
psychological proclivities which endowed them with moral ascendancy,
complementing, completing and refining the aggressive and egoistic
traits of men. Darwin, like Huxley, was in favour of the extension and
improvement of the education of females, but both men were convinced
that because of their biologically determined disadvantages women
could not compete with men on equal terms in the same spheres.9 The
true domain of woman, the one for which she had been shaped by
nature, was the domestic one, as wife and mother, nurturer and carer.
Nature had, therefore, in the evolution of women, produced beings
capable of offsetting, to an extent at least, the ravages of the struggle for
existence, of counteracting the seemingly harsh regimen to which all life
was subjected.
This representation of sexual difference in which males were aggres-
sive, egoistic and rational and females, though physically and intellec-
tually inferior, possessed a moral supremacy on account of their altruism
and maternal functions, was widely accepted long before Darwinism.
For Darwin these differences were natural because they had evolved
8
R. Love, 'Darwinism and Feminism: The "Woman Question" in the Life and Work of
Olive Schreiner and Charlotte Perkins Gilman', in Oldroyd and Langham, Wider
Domain, 127.
9
For a detailed analysis of Darwin's and Huxley's views on women, see Richards,
'Darwin and the Descent of Woman'; Russett, Sexual Science, chap. 3.
from pre-human organisms through the forces of natural and sexual
selection. Spencer proposed a somewhat different rationale derived from
the principle of the conservation of force, namely that women used up so
much energy in the performance of their procreative and childraising
functions that little remained for mental development. This was why
women remained at a less advanced evolutionary stage than men, an
argument also adopted by Ferri.10 Indeed, the recapitulation thesis was
widely used to rationalise female inferiority.11 But these arguments did
not entail a uniform political position. Thus Spencer employed the
'evidence' for male superiority to argue against female suffrage, while
both Ferri and Lombroso - the latter being one of the most assiduous
documenters of women's inferiority - supported the extension of
political rights to women.12
An influential variation on this theme was presented in the widely read
The Evolution of Sex, published in 1889 by two Scottish biologists,
Patrick Geddes (who had studied under Huxley) and J. Arthur
Thomson.13 The authors argued that maleness involved the dissipation
of energy, femaleness the conservation of energy. Thus male cells were
the source of variation in evolutionary dynamics, while female cells
maintained continuity and stability. Cell metabolism, therefore, pro-
vided the foundation for the energetic male and the altruistic, passive
female. For Geddes and Thomson a more cooperative society could be
envisioned in the future if female altruism was given expression, but this
necessitated retention of the sex differences produced through evolution,
which would be threatened if women assumed masculine roles.
The rediscovery of Mendel's laws and advances in the study of
genetics did nothing to dispel these stereotypes. In the 1920s the
German racial hygienist Lenz proclaimed the existence of 'essential
differences' between the sexes which were the outcome of evolutionary
specialisation and hence 'natural and normal'. 'Men', wrote Lenz, 'are
specially selected for the control of nature, for success in war and the
chase and in the winning of women, whereas women are specially
selected as breeders and rearers of children and as persons who are
successful in attracting the male . . . ' As a result of these selective forces
men were more egoistic and materialistic than women, who were
altruistic and capable of empathy with others. Lenz also had no doubt
about the respective abilities of the sexes: ' "Great women" endowed
10
Ferri, Socialism and Positive Science, 9—11.
11
For numerous examples, see Russett, Sexual Science, chap. 2.
12
See M. Gibson, 'On the Insensitivity of Women: Science and the Woman Question in
Liberal Italy', Journal of Women's History, 2(1990), 11-41.
13
There is a detailed account of the contents of this text in Conway, 'Stereotypes of
Femininity', 49-57.
with "greatness" in the sense of outstanding creative faculty are practi-
cally unknown.'14
The 'fact' that the division of functions between the sexes had arisen
through evolution rather than through human agency could be directed
against advocates of sexual equality and greater female participation in
civic and economic affairs. In Britain, Darwin's son Leonard attacked
the efforts by women to secure employment in 'male' occupations on the
grounds that such objectives had 'blinded the eyes of some of them to
the fact that women's special duties stand out as amongst the noblest
and most important of all human duties'. The duties in question were,
of course, those of the bearing and socialising of children.15 Similar
views were held by the French scientist, Alexis Carrel, who castigated
feminists for their ignorance of the differences between the two sexes in
proposing that they should receive the same education and assume the
same social responsibilities. Women differed from men in their cellular
construction, a fact which must be accepted as biologically ineluctable.
Carrel concluded that it was absurd to educate boys and girls along
similar lines and turn women against maternity, since: 'Between the two
sexes there are irrevocable differences. And it is imperative to take them
into account in constructing the civilised world.'16
Such claims savour of male prejudice and a vested interest in the
maintenance of patriarchal relations, but these models of sexual
difference were deeply ingrained in Western thought and were capable
of structuring the thought of women as well as men, and of theories of
female equality as well as inequality. Two examples are illustrative of
this claim. The first consists of Cesare Lombroso's daughter Gina who,
after a distinguished career in criminal anthropology and medicine,
wrote The Soul of Woman11 in defence of what she regarded as the true
mission of women. Having supported the movement for female
emancipation for many years, Gina Lombroso claimed that she had
come to realise that this movement confused women by dividing them
between the pursuit of worldly success and the cravings of their
innermost natures. 'Woman', she proclaimed, 'sways like a pendulum
between her interests, as reflected today in the woman's rights move-
ment, and her passions, represented by her altruistic, alterocentrist and
maternal instinct, love' (18).
The natures of the sexes had been welded by evolution and heredity.
Whereas men were egocentric, motivated by power and success, women
were alterocentric, instinctively orientated to the welfare of others. Gina
14
Lenz, 'The Inheritance of Intellectual Gifts', 597-8, 599.
15 16
L. Darwin, What is Eugenics?, 77. Carrel, Man the Unknown, 92.
17
No tr. (London: Jonathan Cape, 1924).
Lombroso inferred from this that women's nature provided them with
an inherent sense of justice and furnished a model for social relation-
ships in general:
Woman does not need laws, nor even education or religion, to respect the lives
and property of others, or to have pity on the fallen, the weak and the sick, to feel
gratitude, love and respect for her father and mother; nor does she need laws to
remain chaste and pure. Her passions coincide with the object of all law and
order, that is, with general well-being. Woman alone can dare erect her passion
into a standard, to consider her heart a legal code (22).
Attempts to give women the same education as men were unnatural.
'Woman is born to be a mother. Logic, abstract ideas, deductive
arguments would not help her to bring up her children' (150). Whereas
the pursuit of philosophy and the social and natural sciences helped to
clarify a man's mind, they served only cto dull the minds of woman'
(155). Thus, concluded Lombroso: 'It is hindering things and confusing
the whole issue to say that we are the equals of man.' Women suffered
because men were ignorant of the ways in which the sexes differed (97).
The fact that Gina Lombroso, who had achieved success in a male-
dominated world, could reassert the altruistic/egoistic dualism as
exemplifying sexual difference surely attests to the powerful hold
exercised by this dualism. This claim is reinforced by my second
example, the English philosopher, J. S. Mill. In his The Subjection of
Women (1869) Mill rejected the thesis that nature predetermined the
position of a particular group of people in a social hierarchy, asking 'was
there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who
possessed it?' (229). Females had been socially conditioned to display
certain characteristics and adopt certain roles. There was no convincing
evidence of any innate intellectual inferiority of women, and when given
the relevant opportunities they revealed themselves to be just as capable
as men in all spheres of mental and occupational activity. Femininity
was culturally, not biologically determined, so much so that it was
impossible to know what the actual 'nature' of woman was - 'what is
now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing - the
result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in
others' (238). 18
Mill was uncompromising in his condemnation of the family as the
site of male domination and a school for inculcating the continued
subjection of women. Moral progress could take place only when this
18
Darwin was critical of Mill's insistence that moral feelings were acquired rather than
innate, and had responded to the Subjection of Women by avowing that Mill 'could learn
some things' from biology. Darwin, Descent, 149-50; Desmond and Moore, Darwin,
572.
'most fundamental of the social relations' was transformed into one of
equality between husband and wife (311). But Mill still regarded
marriage and the family as vital institutions and this partly because he
saw them as frameworks within which distinctively female qualities
could be exercised, despite his denial of such qualities. Thus he was
dismissive of the stereotypes which portrayed men as selfish and women
as altruistic, intellectually inferior to men, but morally superior and
hence naturally suited to the roles of wife and mother. He described this
as a 'silly depreciation of the intellectual, and silly panegyric on the
moral, nature of women' (293). Yet only a few pages after this statement
he wrote approvingly of the genuine moral influence of women in
'softening' the aggressive temperament of males and maintained that in
matters of sentiment, spirit and generosity, women's standard is higher
than that of men, 'in the quality of justice, somewhat lower' (302).
Nature was smuggled into Mill's analysis to reproduce the very
stereotypes his arguments sought to refute.
If this model of sex differences could emerge in the discourse of an
opponent of sexual stereotyping like Mill, or be explicitly endorsed by a
woman of the calibre of Gina Lombroso, then it must have been deeply
rooted in the culture of the period. Small wonder, then, that it was also
manifest in the writings of Social Darwinists who supported feminism.
In Britain, for example, Ritchie rejected the proposition that sexual
equality violated any evolutionary law of increasing specialisation and
was highly sceptical of the claim that women possessed smaller brains
than men. He reasoned that if men on the average displayed more ability
than women, then 'this must be due to the way in which the two sexes
are respectively treated'.19 He attacked the 'patriarchal family' as a
source of female subordination and proposed the extension of political
and civil liberties to women. He launched a blistering critique of
Comte's idealisation of the feminine psyche - symbolised by Comte's
notion of the 'Divine Woman' - which he described as 'one of the worst
enemies that women have to contend with in their struggle towards
recognition as complete and responsible persons'. 20 Yet in responding
to Spencer's allegation that allowing women to vote was tantamount to
introducing family ethics into affairs of state, Ritchie approvingly agreed
that this 'would mean the moralisation of politics'. 21 Despite his critique
of the model of femininity as altruistic and moral, then, Ritchie
apparently subscribed to a version of this model himself.
This paradox is equally apparent in the work of the British sexologist
and physician, Havelock Ellis, who was both a supporter of women's
19 20 21
Ritchie, Darwinism and Politics,firstedn, 83. Ibid., 87. Ibid., 89.
rights and a convinced Darwinist. Ellis undertook a detailed examina-
tion of the scientific evidence on sexual difference in his Man and
Woman, first published in 1894 and going to eight editions by 1934.22
Ellis opposed the prevalent belief in masculine superiority but at the
same time took issue with the feminist credo of sexual equality. His
conviction was: 'The more comprehensive our investigation the more
certainly we find that we cannot speak of inferiority or superiority, but
that the sexes are perfectly poised in complete equivalence' (v). Ellis
carefully reviewed the data on sexual differences in cranial capacity,
brain size and intellectual ability, and concluded that these gave no
grounds for belief in female inferiority (203, 221, 405). What the
available anthropological, physiological and psychological evidence indi-
cated was that men were 'more variable' than women. He remarked,
apropos this evidence: 'The progressive and divergent energies of men
call out and satisfy the twin instincts of women to accept and follow a
leader, and to expend tenderness on a reckless and erring child, instincts
often intermingled in delicious confusion' (440). Ellis argued that men
and women had evolved separate but complementary spheres of activity.
For the former this sphere consisted of the cultivation of the arts,
industry and exploration; for women, it was the bearing and raising of
children and domestic activities. From innumerable civilisations, races
and historical epochs, the data confirmed the universality of these
separate domains: 'Woman breeds and tends; man provides; it remains
so even when the spheres tend to overlap' (448). This prompted Ellis to
caution his readers about the dangers attendant upon the efforts of
women to cross the 'natural' boundaries, arguing that: 'When women
enter the same fields as men, on the same level and to the same degree,
their organic constitution usually unfits them to achieve the same
success, or they only achieve it at a greater cost' (447). Despite his denial
of any grounds for believing in the innate inequality of the sexes, then,
Ellis still reproduced the popular conception of womanhood in terms of
its maternal and domestic functions accompanied by the model of the
male as adventurer and breadwinner.
In fairness to Ellis, he was fully cognisant of the ways in which alleged
sexual differences had been used to legitimate the subjugation of women
and how the existing sexual division of labour had been excessively
restrictive for both sexes (450, 457). He accepted, notwithstanding his
own reservations, that modern social conditions rendered it inevitable
that women should enter into competition with men for the same roles
and occupations, and he admitted that where this had occurred, women
22
I have used the eighth revised edition (London: Heinemann, 1934).
had acquitted themselves well, sometimes with distinction (448). He
additionally made it quite clear that the natural spheres of men and
women furnished no justification for social conservatism or the
introduction of artificial barriers to sexual equality. Ultimately, the
respective fitness of men and women for various social tasks could only
be decided by experiments, and even here, the changing contexts of
such experiments entailed that nothing in this area could ever be
definitively resolved. As in all things, nature was the final tribunal for
deciding the legitimacy of social innovations: 'When such experiment is
successful, so much the better for the race; when it is unsuccessful, the
minority who have broken natural law alone suffer. An exaggerated
anxiety lest natural law be overthrown is misplaced' (459). Here nature
was invested with the status of arbitrating among social practices and
innovations, success being equated with conformity to nature's ways.23
This strategy had been adopted earlier in Bebel's Woman in the Past,
Present and Future. According to Bebel: 'Woman was the first human
being that tasted bondage. Woman was a slave before the slave existed'
(7). In the earliest stage of human evolution - the primitive horde - the
sexes were equal, both physically and mentally, as was still apparent from
the situation found in some contemporary 'savage races'. But because
women were liable to pregnancy and childbirth they were periodically
dependent on males for support and protection and it was this
dependency which became transformed into permanent subordination.
The current mental and physical inferiority of women, therefore, was the
product of social causes - exploitation and oppression - and would be
remedied by a socialist socio-political system. Where women had obtain-
ed the requisite opportunities, their achievements ranked with those of
men. Restricted occupational roles and an education that trivialised the
mind were responsible for the seemingly low number of female achievers.
Economic, political and educational equality would, within a generation,
eradicate these differences between the sexes (120-9).
These were powerful arguments, and the portrait of an original sexual
equality becoming subverted by social processes would assume paradig-
matic status in socialist and feminist circles. But Bebel at times fell back
upon a more biologically reductive model of sexual difference. For
example, he described motherhood as 'natural' and a service to the
community, despite having earlier attacked the view that the family and
home were the natural milieux for women (112, 145). On several
occasions he posited the existence of innate dispositions in both sexes
23
Ellis adopted a similar position on modern war, which he saw as contrary to nature.
Nature was a 'Great Mother' that acted 'as the exalting and civilising element in the
world's life': Ellis, Morals, Manners and Men (London: Watts, 1939), 124.
and of desires that were 'deeply implanted in human nature' (150, 190,
223). We have already encountered, in chapter 7, Bebel's thesis that
bourgeois society induced people to go against their true natures and
overstep natural sexual boundaries (122). Social conditions were
responsible for a contradiction between people as 'natural' and sexual
beings on the one hand and their membership of society on the other,
thereby creating social and psychological pathologies. Socialism repre-
sented a return to nature, a release of natural proclivities from the
bondage to which they had been enthralled by a perverse social order.
Thus while Bebel's text did not reproduce the altruistic/egoistic model
as such, it nevertheless implied the existence of original natures in both
men and women and that each sex had 'a proper purpose'. Biological
determinism was reinscribed into Bebel's otherwise cultural explanation
of the emergence of sexual difference.
Bebel's theory posited an original primitive equality between the
sexes: in the USA, the sociologist Lester Frank Ward produced an
equally paradigmatic version in which females were initially superior to
males. In his Pure Sociology he maintained that 'while female superiority
is a perfectly natural condition, male development requires explanation'
(323). His reasoning was that in nature, sexual selection ensured the
maintenance of quality in a species. Males were driven to fecundate
indiscriminately, but unlimited variations were potentially dangerous.
They were held in check by female choice of mates: female discrimina-
tion preserved hereditary qualities (325). This was why females were the
dominant sex in the animal kingdom, and were still so in primitive
hordes. The transition from gynaecocracy to androcracy occurred when
men discovered their roles in procreation and then used their superior
strength to control the economic functions of women. According to
Ward: 'The man saw that he was the master creature, that woman was
smaller, weaker, less shrewd and cunning than he, and at the same time
could be made to contribute to his pleasure and his wants, and he
proceeded to appropriate her accordingly' (345).
A similar thesis of an originary female superiority was advanced by
another eminent American sociologist, William Isaac Thomas (1863-
1947). Thomas declared that in primitive communities women were the
core of society, running the household and both economically creative
and independent. The transition to male dominance occurred with the
rise of settled agriculture, when men deployed their capacity for
organised action to the purpose of usurping the economic functions of
women. The result was the distortion of female nature.24 Like racial
24
W. I Thomas, 'The Adventitious Character of Woman', American Journal of Sociology,
12(1906-7), 32-44.
differences, therefore, sexual differences owed more to culture than to
nature. This was particularly the case in the realm of science and
intellectual activity in general. 'The world of modern intellectual life is
in reality a white man's world. Few women and perhaps no blacks have
ever entered this world in the fullest sense . . . ' Thomas urged greater
equality of opportunity in order to realise the unexplored talents of
women and blacks, concluding: 'Certain it is that no civilisation can
remain the highest if another civilisation adds to the intelligence of its
men the intelligence of its women.' 25
In these types of argument Social Darwinism provided an emancipa-
tory framework within which the position of women could be diagnosed.
Far from legitimating male domination, Social Darwinism in these
theories allowed for either the evolution of distinct but complementary
sexual characteristics or for social explanations of patriarchy as a
perversion of an originary sexual equality or even female superiority.
This is not to deny the continuation of sexual stereotypes in these
theories or to ignore the contradictions which could occur in explana-
tions that shifted between the social and the biological. What is
significant is that Social Darwinism was highly serviceable in the cause
of women's liberation.
But what of women themselves? So far in this chapter the voices
urging a change in the position of females have been male. Yet women
also adapted Darwinism to their cause in ways which were often radical
and innovative. Some, it is true, were dismissive of Darwinism, such as
the English feminist and follower of Mill, Frances Power Cobbe. 26
Others undoubtedly saw in Darwinism a liberating potential. The
remainder of this chapter will focus on some notable, albeit largely
neglected, examples.
Sexual selection and sexual equality

A major contribution to the feminist appropriation of Social Darwinism
occurs in the pioneering efforts of Clemence Royer who, even prior to
her translation of Darwin, had argued for female equality in her Intro-
duction a laphilosophie desfemmes, published in 1859.27 Later, in a contri-
bution to a debate on the reasons for the declining French birth-rate, she
25
T h o m a s , ' T h e M i n d of W o m a n a n d the L o w e r R a c e s ' , American Journal of Sociology,
12(1906-7), 469.
26
F r a n c e s P o w e r C o b b e , Darwinism in Morals and Other Essays ( L o n d o n : Williams a n d
N o r g a t e , 1872). D a r w i n r e s p o n d e d tartly to C o b b e ' s criticisms in the s e c o n d edition of
the Descent, 152. F o r an analysis of C o b b e ' s feminism, see B . C a i n e , Victorian Feminists
(Oxford University Press, 1992), c h a p . 4.
27
See Harvey, 'Strangers to E a c h O t h e r ' , 3 2 2 , n o t e 5.
argued that women's upbringings kept them ignorant of the realities of
pregnancy and maternity and their resulting fears and disappointments
led them to avoid both. She also accused the Catholic Church of
exacerbating this situation with its prudish attitudes towards sex.28 As
for male dominance, we have already encountered Royer's thesis that
this was contrary to the natural course of evolution. Social conditions
prevented women from realising their true potential by confining them
to a limited set of roles and artificially encouraging certain traits. But
Royer also believed that the sexual and maternal drives were natural
components of woman's nature and that it was the weakening of these
drives which was responsible for the decline in France's birth-rate. In
fact, her analysis of the condition of women was couched in terms of
natural proclivities that were thwarted by the conventions of patriarch-
alism; removal of the latter would facilitate the efflorescence of female
genius, of which Royer apparently regarded herself as an exemplar.29 As
I argued in chapter 6, Royer was inconsistent in the explanatory roles
she assigned to biology and society in her treatment of social divisions;
but she deserves recognition for her attempt to provide an evolutionary
account of male domination and for highlighting the blighting con-
sequences of patriarchy for the lives of women.
This merging of theoretical interests, political goals and subjective
experience was crucial to the work of the three theorists considered
below.30 It is apparent in Eliza Burt Gamble's preface to The Evolution of
Woman (1894).31 Here Gamble recorded her personal conviction that
females were not inferior to males, a conviction confirmed by her
subsequent reading of Darwin's Descent, despite the latter's misinterpre-
tation of his data (v-viii). After accurately describing the roles of natural
and sexual selection in evolution, Gamble emphasised a crucial feature
of sexual selection, namely female choice of mating partner, something
which Darwin ignored when considering human evolution.
Sexual selection, we are told, resembles artificial selection, save that the female
takes the place of the human breeder. In other words, she represents the
intelligent factor or cause in the operations involved. If this be true, if it is
through her will, or through some agency or tendency latent in her constitution
28
Royer, ' L a Natalite', suppressed p a p e r to the Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris, July
1874. F o r details of this paper, a n d an analysis of its c o n t e n t s , see Harvey, 'Strangers to
E a c h O t h e r ' , 1 6 0 - 1 , 3 2 2 , n o t e 2.
29
Harvey, 'Strangers to E a c h O t h e r ' , 160, 165.
30
T h i s merging has already b e e n signalled by Rosaleen Love in her study of G i l m a n a n d
Schreiner, ' D a r w i n i s m a n d F e m i n i s m ' , 120.
31
E. B. Gamble, The Evolution of Woman: An Enquiry into the Dogma of Her Inferiority to
Man (New York/London: Putnam's Sons, 1894). I have been unable to ascertain any
details of Gamble's career and background.
that Sexual Selection comes into play, then she is the primary cause of the very
characters through which man's superiority over woman has been gained. As a
stream may not rise higher than its source, or as the creature may not surpass its
creator in excellence, it is difficult to understand the process by which man,
through Sexual Selection, has become superior to woman (29).
Gamble's alternative account of sexual difference maintained that
natural selection evolved the maternal instinct in females which then,
through sexual selection, became the foundation of parental bonding
and all the social sentiments among humans (62). This was brought
about through female choice of mates which not only selected for these
qualities, but which also produced the distinctively male attributes of
energy, perseverance and courage - to which Gamble contrasted the
feminine traits of perception, intuition and endurance (65). This choice
was still exercised in primitive tribes where the independence of women
had often been misconstrued as evidence of promiscuity by ethnogra-
phers (91-8).
Gamble insisted that primitive tribal structures were democratic and
solidaristic, with land held in common and descent reckoned through
women, who enjoyed high status and autonomy (109-21). Male
domination occurred with the emergence of wife-capture and the
development of private property in land (140). Marriage then became
based upon 'the power of a man over a woman and her offspring' (166),
and women were reduced to the status of a possession. Since then,
women had been subjected to the vilest slavery in which they had been
systematically denied opportunities to develop their talents and were
exposed to an 'excessive and useless maternity' (52), a position from
which they were beginning to emerge although there was still a great
deal to be done (347-8).
Gamble's treatise made novel use of sexual selection for the purpose
of underlining the injustice of female subordination. For her, nature
provided a model for the organisation of social relations and sexual
selection based upon female mate selection should be once again
allowed full expression. Gamble contended that the 'unnatural' condi-
tion of women illustrated how the survival of the fittest did not
necessarily produce success for the best endowed (73). Indeed, she
suggested that the restoration of sexual selection could even produce the
elimination of the struggle for existence. She contemplated a future
social condition in which 'man will no longer struggle with man for
place or power, and that the bounties of the earth will no longer be
hoarded by the few, while the many are suffering for the necessities of
life; for are we not all members of one family, and dependent for all that
we have on the same beneficent parent - Nature?' (78). In this imagery,
nature is benevolent and women its true representatives and guardians.
Yet the above passage also suggests a tension already encountered in
other theorists, for natural selection is also one of nature's laws, and
Gamble's comments indicate an ambivalence towards the struggle for
existence and its social consequences. The dark side of nature is still
present in Gamble's reinterpretation of sexual selection, just as it was for
Darwin.
This dark side was also evident in the work of Charlotte Perkins
Gilman (1860-1935), the American novelist, poet and social theorist.
Gilman was a feminist and a socialist, an avid reader of popular science,
and influenced by the sociology of Ward. The interests converged in her
Women and Economics (1898), a biting attack on the subordinate status
of contemporary women which achieved a very wide readership, having
been reprinted seven times by the early 1920s and translated into seven
languages.32 In this text Gilman argued that in primitive times both
women and men were agile, independent and strong, qualities evolved
through natural selection. The male was larger and more ferocious
because he fought with other males for the right to mate; females
selected the victors. At a certain point in time, the male realised that it
was easier to fight a small female than a large male, and so enslaved the
female, depriving her of her independence. From then on women,
confined to narrow domestic functions, were excluded from the direct
action of natural selection. Instead, they developed only the faculties of
sexual attraction required to secure a mate and ensure being fed.
Fortunately, this situation was not irremediable due to the action of
heredity. 'Heredity has no Sallic Law' (58). Each girl inherited some of
her father's abilities: hence 'the daughter of the soldier and the sailor, of
the artist, the inventor, the great merchant, has inherited in body and
brain her share of his development in each generation, and so stayed
somewhat human for all her femininity' (59).
When Gilman wrote: 'There are other purposes before us besides
mere maintenance and reproduction' (55), she did so in painful personal
awareness of the psychic costs to women caused by their imprisonment
in these roles, an awareness used to harrowing effect in her fiction.33
The argument about the relationship between natural and sexual
selection, however, was developed in her The Man-Made World,
published in 1911.34 Here Gilman proposed that there were sexual traits
32
Love, ' D a r w i n i s m a n d F e m i n i s m ' , n o t e 4, 128. T h e text u s e d here is the extract in
Hollinger and Capper, American Intellectual Tradition, II, 5 5 - 6 0 .
33
C . P . G i l m a n , The Yellow Wallpaper [1892] ( L o n d o n : Virago, 1983).
34
C. P. Gilman, The Man-Made World Or Our Androcentric Culture (London: Fisher
Unwin, 1911).
specific to males and females, but there were also common traits
deriving from a shared humanity: 'Woman's natural work as a female is
that of the mother; man's natural work as a male is that of the father.
Every handicraft, every profession, every science, every art, all govern-
ment, education, religion, the whole living world of human achievement
- all this is human' (27).
Gilman's thesis was that the original relations between the sexes were
matriarchal, due to the principle of female mate selection. This was
subverted by the enslavement of women and their conversion into
possessions, with the concomitant usurpation of their economic activ-
ities and the conversion of the family into a patriarchal institution (36-
40). As a result, in a history both made and recorded by men, specifically
male attributes had become identified with human nature per se (20, 24).
The human species thus represented an aberration in the natural
order for, according to Gilman, it was the only one where the male
selected females and where the female was dependent for her livelihood
on the male (64-5). The outcome was a situation in which females were
excluded from the action of natural selection, while males escaped the
effects of sexual selection. 'Nothing was required of woman by natural
selection save such capacity as should please her master; nothing was
required of the man by sexual selection save power to take by force, or
buy, a woman' (56). The impact on the race could not fail to be
deleterious. 'Nature did not intend him [the male] to select; he is not
good at it. Neither was the female intended to compete - she is not good
at it' (34-5). By 'compete' Gilman was not referring to the struggle for
existence within a certain milieu but to the exercise of what she saw as
peculiarly male impulses to fight and destroy (117). Whereas women
originally organised for gathering and maternal activities, men organised
for hunting and, later, for warfare (186). Hence warfare was not a
human but a male process for eliminating the unfit, whereas by contrast:
'The female process is to select the fit; her elimination is negative and
painless.' Gilman continued: 'Greater than either is the human process,
to developfitness'(190, original emphasis).
This equation of warfare with masculinity points to a contradiction in
Gilman's analysis. She argued that a number of contemporary evils were
the product of the exclusive action of male traits. Thus punishment was
androcentric, based on the principle of if hit, hit back harder; for
Gilman, apart from the odd pervert, criminals were made rather than
born, hence punishment was archaic (205, 210-12). Similarly, laissez-
faire and economic competition reflected the spirit of the predatory
male. Thus economic development was hindered 'by this artificially
maintained "struggle for existence", this constant endeavour to elim-
inate what, from a masculine standard, is "unfit"' (251). Gilman
insisted that life consisted of growth and combat belonged to lower
levels of existence (228). But this raised the issue of how, if at all, natural
selection operated in ideal modern social circumstances. In Woman and
Economics Gilman extolled the action of natural selection when it acted
upon both sexes 'with inexorable and beneficial effect' to develop the
species (56). In the later text, she tended to equate the forces of natural
selection with maleness, which then obstructed the development of the
'human instinct of mutual service' (246). Industry, on the other hand,
portrayed as a human sphere in the clarification of male, female and
human nature cited earlier, became attributed to women, later to be
perverted by the male spirit of competitiveness (242).
These oscillations suggest that Gilman, like many radicals and
reformers, was unhappy with the idea of natural selection continuing to
hold sway in culturally advanced societies based upon equality and
mutual cooperation. Nonetheless, her ideal did not require a complete
abandoning of evolutionary laws because she believed that sexual
equality would augment the action of sexual selection in species
development. Equality would restore the primacy of female choice and
men who were not selected for fatherhood would not be eliminated but
would still be able to pursue full human lives (256).
Gamble and Gilman were creative in their adaptation of sexual
selection for the feminist cause, and pioneering to the extent that only
fairly recently has sexual selection been assigned prominence in Social
Darwinism. Their strategy consisted in constructing biologically evolved
sexual natures which were then stultified or perverted by social
processes. In both instances, though, the remedies sought were social
and political, and the normative standards, while still set by nature,
reflected a nature seemingly shorn of the pernicious effects of natural
selection. Thus Gilman became an opponent of eugenics - the attempt
to pattern social upon natural selection - which she castigated as a
'primal process of promoting evolution through the paternity of the
conquering male . . . ' (250).35 Her hostility to eugenics may have been
well founded, for it has been suggested that the adoption of eugenics by
the women's movements in Germany gradually led to a weakening
(though not a total renunciation) of their radical emancipatory pro-
grammes.36 Yet my last example, though Swedish rather than German,
shows that some women found it possible to unite Social Darwinism
and eugenics with feminism, socialism and pacifism.
35
See also G i l m a n ' s ' R e s p o n s e to Wells' "Social D a r w i n i s m " ' , The American Journal of
Sociology, 1 2 ( 1 9 0 6 - 7 ) , 7 1 3 - 1 4 .
36
See R. J. E v a n s , Rethinking German History ( L o n d o n : H a r p e r C o l l i n s , 1987), 2 2 6 - 9 .
Key and the evolution of love

The Swedish educationalist Ellen Karolina Sofia Key (1849-1926), who
achieved extensive acclaim for her The Century of the Child (1909), also
published widely on the Woman Question. In her view, life entailed
movement, which in turn implied diversity and transmutation, although
this latter process could be either progressive or regressive. Among
humans, sexual reproduction was the means through which hereditary
traits were transmitted, which made sex of the utmost importance to
human evolution.37
Sexual love was not unique to humans and could be found among
animals. Like all instincts and behaviour patterns it had evolved over
time and, in keeping with the general trends of evolution, had shown
increasing individuation from its primitive manifestations.38 Unfortu-
nately, social and legal conventions had not kept pace with the
development of love, and the stifling institution of monogamous
marriage actually interfered with the individuating dynamics of sexual
evolution. Key proclaimed that both the choice of sexual partners and
the rearing of children should be based upon a union motivated by
mutual love, and the propriety of the partnership should be judged by
the capacity of the couple to assume parental responsibility rather than
by outmoded ideas about the legality of the relationship. By the same
token, divorce should be the prerogative of either one of the partners,
which involved an equality of rights between the two sexes.39 In this
way, children would be born into and from relationships inspired by love
which, other things being equal, 'produces the best children'. These
offspring would themselves inherit 'a greater power to love' because of
this affective milieu. Such an arrangement was infinitely more respon-
sible than the present system, which encouraged the raising of children
in loveless unions and even sanctioned childless marriages. For Key,
love must become once again what it formerly was 'when nations looked
upon life with reverence: Religion'.40
Key justified these calls for changes in legal and moral conventions by
an appeal to their eugenic consequences. 'All other problems must be
regarded from this one point of view: the elevation of the species', and
we 'must strive for the elevation of the human race'. 41 Since the goal was
species perfection, sexual practices had to be evaluated in relation to
37
Ellen Key, Love and Ethics (no tr.) ( L o n d o n : P u t n a m ' s , 1912), 2 7 - 8 .
38
Key, Love and Marriage, tr. A. Chater ( L o n d o n : P u t n a m ' s , 1911), 6 2 , 157, 158.
39
Key, Love and Ethics, 2 2 - 3 .
40
Key, Love and Marriage, 157; Key, Love and Ethics, 2 8 , 27, 2 3 .
41
Key, Love and Ethics, 13, 18.
this. For Key: 'The development of the race gains when the lives less
worthy to survive are not reproduced in offspring . . . ' Immature and
degenerate couples must be discouraged from procreating, which
entailed both partners in a prospective union submitting to a medical
examination in order to ascertain 'whether they are capable of fulfilling
their duty to the race'.42
Key denied that this duty to the race entailed the sacrifice of the
happiness of individuals on the altar of race ennoblement. On the
contrary, the sensible selection of sexual partners was consistent with the
individuating processes of evolution as well as with the dictates of racial
hygiene.43 Evolution was a matter of chance and change in which the
future was indeterminate. This necessitated recognition of the incalcul-
ability of future outcomes and a realisation 'that life is not a hard and
fast fact, but a growth with undivined possibilities, that it leads us and all
other creatures along mysterious paths . . . ' Consequent on the develop-
ment of individuality there arose a corresponding need for freedom in
order to facilitate experiments, variations and changes, rather than blind
obedience to authority, which would smother innovation and adapta-
tion. 'The important thing, therefore, is to harmonise our concepts of
right with nature, after we have learned to know nature by thorough
investigation.'44
These arguments reveal Key to have made use of certain components
of Social Darwinism - universal laws, evolution and heredity. This
leaves the struggle for existence as the selective mechanism, and though
this notion can be found in her writings on love and marriage, it was
certainly not a salient feature of their argumentation. It is to her wartime
defence of pacifism that we must turn to find a clarification of her
position on struggle. Here she opposed war precisely because in its
modern guise it failed to result in the survival of the fittest, and she
chided those who wrongly equated modern warfare with the Darwinian
struggle for existence.45 Techniques of indiscriminate mass slaughter
left women with the choice of either forgoing motherhood altogether or
else mating with inadequate men who had been rejected for military
service. 'War causes a contra-selection, that is, it furthers the survival of
the defective.' Wars would only make sense as selective devices for
raising national standards if they 'were fought by the degenerates of the
nations .
The dysgenic consequences of modern warfare in no sense implied
42 43
Key, Love and Marriage, 4 3 - 4 , 141. Ibid., 143; Key, Love and Ethics, 9, 18.
44
Key, Love and Ethics, 14, 56.
45
Key, War, Peace and the Future, tr. H . N o r b e r g ( L o n d o n : P u t n a m ' s , 1916), 4 4 , 8 7 .
46
Ibid., 88-9, 85.
the elimination of the struggle for existence in human relations. For
Key, this struggle had to take a form consonant with the levels of
evolution attained by civilised nations, which meant that conflicts must
be restricted to those permitted within the framework of the law. She
mentioned public debate and argument and electoral contests as modes
of selection which were appropriate to advanced societies. 'Strife and
competition will not, therefore, be done away with.'47 She gave no
reason for this belief though, and it is hard to avoid the impression that
Key had difficulty in reconciling her pacifism with the notion of natural
selection. Indeed, the term played a relatively small role in her discourse
relative to the other elements of the Darwinist world view. She was also
unable to make use of a tactic available to liberals like Spencer, i.e.
substituting industrial competition for warfare as civilisation progressed,
because she was a socialist as well as a pacifist and therefore found
industrial competition uncongenial as a selective device.
What Key certainly upheld was the need to harness the social
counterparts of natural selection to the interests of the race through
eugenic measures. The medical examination of prospective marriage
partners was not the only way in which she envisaged racial improve-
ment taking place. Key had great faith in the power of education to
moderate the action of inherited traits, a faith that set her apart from
current trends in neo-Darwinism. She believed education was especially
necessary to eliminate atavistic instincts and passions which threatened
to impede progress. For Key there was no fixed human essence or
nature: the characteristics exhibited by humans were primarily governed
by their level of physiological and mental development. The modern age
was not compelled to accept passively the legacy of former evolutionary
stages. On the contrary, the species must be prepared to 'reject what
hinders and select what assists its struggle for the strengthening of its
position as humanity and its elevation to superhumanity'.48
Education's potential for altering hereditary dispositions made all
brutal and exploitative practices unacceptable to Key. Whether these
involved warfare, or the domination of women by men or of one class by
another, they could no longer be justified by appeals to inexpungable
features of human nature. 'What are culture and civilisation if not the
taming of the blind forces within us as well as in nature?'49 Women
could play a major role in this educative process, and Key articulated a
conception of a gender-based division of labour which, on her own
admission, earned her the label of 'reactionary' from many contem-
porary feminists. She perceived 'motherhood' to be the true vocation of
47 48
Ibid., 130. Key, Love and Marriage, 53.
49
Key, War, Peace and the Future, 4.
women, not through the mass production of children, but as a full-time
educational activity devoted to the improvement of the quality of
childhood and, ultimately therefore, of humanity as a whole.50 Key was
scornful of the 'amaternals', those 'fanatics' in the women's movement
who believed that equality of rights entailed the performance of identical
functions, or that equality between the sexes necessitated the sameness
of the sexes.51 She accused advocates of the 'third sex' of ignoring an
important dimension of the women's struggle, namely its focus upon
'erotic, religious and social emancipation'.52 Key did not underestimate
the importance of the fight for equal political and legal status with men
or deny the need to remove obstacles to women's employment in the
many professions and careers still closed to them. She insisted that
women 'must have free choice of work' as a right and also for the sake of
improved social efficiency, and opposed restriction on female employ-
ment because 'the right to limit the choice of work the law does not
possess; nature assumes that right herself... ' 53 But for Key the worth of
a married woman could not be measured simply by her ability to earn a
living. Raising children was a full-time occupation and women could not
be expected to perform this task and at the same time compete with men
in holding down a full-time job. Furthermore, the evolution of
increasing specialisation had produced females who, for millennia, had
specialised in the production and rearing of children. To remain in
harmony with the direction of evolution, this role should be enhanced in
order that 'woman in an ever more perfect manner shall fulfil what has
hitherto been her most exalted task: the bearing and rearing of the new
generation'.54
Key was convinced that women had a natural propensity for educa-
tional roles due to their innate capacity for sympathy, which developed
out of the reciprocity inherent in the bond between mother and child.
This relationship constituted a primal form of the 'law of mutual help'
and was, accordingly, 'the root of altruism'. There was, therefore, a
happy congruence between a woman's biological evolution and her
social position: 'The very fact that woman's primitive instinct coincided
with her greatest cultural office has been an essential factor in the
harmony of her being.'55 But the importance of this cultural office had
yet to be fully appreciated; society must recognise motherhood as a
fundamental state service, rewarded by some form of state payment.56
50
Ibid., 161, 182-4.
51
Key, The Woman Movement, tr. M . B . Borthwick (London: P u t n a m ' s , 1912), 181.
52 53
Key, Love and Marriage, 70. Key, Woman Movement, 182.
54
Key, Woman Movement, 187, original emphasis.
55
Key, Woman Movement, 186, 197, original emphases.
56
Key, War, Peace and the Future, 182-3.
Key's eugenic proposals at times had an ominous ring, although in
fairness her notion of race, though vague, was invariably applied to
humanity as a whole rather than to a particular ethnic group. It is
possible to interpret her thesis as legitimating stereotypes of male and
female sexuality to justify confining women to procreative and maternal
functions. On the other hand, the radicalism of her critique of marriage
and her ideas on love should not be overlooked and was certainly not
lost on her contemporaries.57 Similarly, her proposals for state-funded
maternity benefits were prophetic. However, what is particularly striking
about Key's ideas in the context of this study is the methodological
inconsistency they exhibit over the role of education. She proposed an
evolutionary basis to motherhood, with its roots in instinctual feelings
and primal bonds, insisting that to ignore these latter sentiments was to
go against the specialised functions for which women had been equipped
by nature. Yet in different contexts she celebrated the transformative
power of education with respect to deep-seated instincts - for instance,
those giving rise to war and exploitation. A tension is apparent in Key's
writings between her desire to enlist the hereditarian and selective
features of Darwinism in the twin causes of social explanation and social
reform, and the need to interpret certain facets of human behaviour as
'unnatural' and capable of modification by cultural processes. Nature
vacillates between something to be emulated and something to be
conquered in Key's discourse, just as in so much Social Darwinist
thinking.
Conclusion
The literature scrutinised in this chapter shows that Social Darwinism
was certainly enlisted in the defence of patriarchy, but that this was not
its exclusive function. The world view was also used in the service of
feminism and some of its most notable adaptations were by women
writers. Their theories were not devoid of tensions and aporia, but I
have argued that these were similar to those encountered in much Social
Darwinist thought, particularly if of a radical orientation. The evidence
suggests that at least some women experienced Darwinism as an
enlightening and emancipatory intellectual current containing the
potential for alternative - i.e. gynaecocentric - evolutionary histories.
The radicalism displayed in the attacks by Gamble, Gilman and Key
on monogamy and marriage, and in their gynaecocentrism, is apparent
57
See, for example, E. Faguet, Le Feminisme (Paris: Societe Francaise d'lmprimerie et de
Librairie, 1910). The chapter entitled 'L'Anarchie morale' contains an attack on Key's
views on these topics.
even within the framework of Darwinism. This can be illustrated by

comparing their work with that of the Finnish sociologist, Edward
Alexander Westermarck (1862-1939). In 1891 Westermarck published
The History of Human Marriage,5* 2L highly influential Darwinian account
of the evolution of marriage and incest prohibitions. His thesis was that
marriage - 'a more or less durable connection between male and female'
(19) - had its origins in the animal kingdom, was particularly strong in
primate species and, contrary to the stereotype of primitive promiscuity,
much in evidence among savages. This bonding was instinctual and had
been spread by natural selection. In contrast to Gilman and Gamble,
Westermarck emphasised the importance of paternal care as a primal
factor in consolidating marriage ties:
when the father helps to protect the offspring, the species is better able to subsist
in the struggle for existence than it would be if this obligation entirely devolved
on the mother. Paternal affection and the instinct which causes male and female
to form somewhat durable alliances, are thus useful mental dispositions which,
in all probability, have been acquired through 'the survival of the fittest' (20-1).
Westermarck also equivocated over the relationship between natural
and sexual selection, acknowledging the possibility of conflict between
them, but in the end entirely subordinating the latter to the former
(252). He did not, therefore, accord female choice the powerful selective
effects ascribed to it by Gilman. Westermarck concluded his treatise
with these words: 'The history of human marriage is the history of a
relation in which women have been gradually triumphing over the
passions, the prejudices, and the selfish interests of men' (550). But he
had earlier suggested that the cause of this process was to be found in
the development of altruism among men (361), and he saw monogamy
as the culmination of evolution rather than, as for Gilman and Key, an
obstacle to further evolutionary advances.
This chapter commenced with the observations that nature had often
been personified as female and that the mid-nineteenth century
witnessed a transformation in the images of both the natural and the
feminine. It is interesting to note that Gilman, Gamble and Key did not
overtly personify nature as female. This could well reflect one of the
consequences of Darwinian biology (and natural science in general), i.e.
the depersonalisation of nature as its laws became known and popu-
larised. At the same time, all three writers hinted at a transcendence of
the more brutal features of natural law through the agency of natural
proclivities and sentiments that were deemed to be specifically female.
58
London/New York: Macmillan. This book went tofiveeditions by 1921, and expanded
to three volumes.
Positing an evolutionary foundation for sexual difference these theorists
then looked to one of the sexes as the seedbed of future change - change
which was sometimes presented as a development, perhaps even
transformation, of the laws governing evolution itself.
This strategy is clearly exemplified in another female writer, the poet
Mathilde Blind (1841-96). Blind's family were Germans exiled to
England after the abortive insurrection of 1848, and her poetry often
reflects a radical political persuasion. She was also influenced by
Darwinism, which is clearly in evidence in her The Ascent of Man
(1889).59 Here she graphically described the struggle for existence as a
relentless slaughter - 'A dreadful war, where might is right, / Where still
the strongest slay and win, / Where weakness is the only sin' (12-13).
Humanity was forged through this process, and the struggle for life was
continued by man against man. However, Blind found the manner in
which this struggle was culturally represented (to the benefit of the rich
and powerful) hypocritical. 'Better far for the plain, carnivorous fashion/
Which is practiced in the lion's den' (104). At times, a powerful feeling
of meaninglessness and despair pervaded the poem, for example, 'Life is
but a momentary blunder / In the cycle of the Universe' (105). Yet Blind
finished on an optimistic note, proclaiming the triumph of God and
Love from man's martyrdom. The explanation for this transcendence of
blind struggle and carnage was vague, but hinted that it would appear
through the agency of women:
O redeem mefrommy tiger rages,
Reptile greed, and foul hyaena lust;
With the hero's deeds, the thoughts of sages,
Sow andfructifythe passive dust;
Drop in dew and healing love of woman
On the bloodstained hands of hungry strife,
Till there breakfrompassion of the Human
Morning - glory of transformed life (109).
Blind's poem reproduces two themes highlighted in the analysis of
female Social Darwinists. First there is the ambivalence over nature -
the model/threat dualism which is so prevalent in Social Darwinist
discourses. Second, though nature as a whole is not accorded a female
persona, those features of nature through which salvation is possible are
invested with features designated as feminine. The nurturing/caring
model of womanhood is still retained as natural, even if no longer typical
of nature in its entirety.
59
M. Blind, The Ascent of Man (London: Chatto and Windus, 1889). The 1899 reissue of
this poem had a foreword by A. R. Wallace. (I am grateful to Christine Pullen for
drawing my attention to this poem.)
11 Nazism, Fascism and Social Darwinism
Introduction
There is an enormous scholarly literature on Nazism and Fascism, one
that is marked by controversy over how the two movements are to be
defined, over their origins, sources of support, ideologies and signifi-
cance. The genocidal policies of the Nazi regime in Germany from
1933 to 1945, culminating in the Holocaust against the Jews, raise
additional issues concerning the causes of such actions and the roots of
anti-Semitic and racial thinking and policies in German, and more
generally, European, culture and history. It has also inclined some
commentators to question the extent to which Fascism and Nazism can
be considered as members of the same ideological and political family,
and to suggest that the latter may be a distinctive and unique
phenomenon.1
One point on which scholars do seem to have reached a consensus
relates to the role of Social Darwinism in both Nazi and Fascist ideology.
Social Darwinist ideas are cited as underpinning Nazi policies on war,
eugenics and race,2 and providing a rationale for the emphasis on
struggle and conflict found in Italian and French Fascism.3 Yet there is
to date no detailed analysis of the nature and function of Social
Darwinism within Nazism and Fascism, or of whether the two ideologies
1
For an overview of the pros and cons of this latter debate, see I. Kershaw, The Nazi
Dictatorships second edn (London: Edward Arnold, 1989), chap. 2.
2
For examples, see Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, 74, 129, 146; J. Noakes and
G. Pridham, eds., Nazism 1919-1945, III, 610-11, 617-8; H. Krausnick and M.
Broszat, Anatomy of the SS State, tr. D. Long and M. Jackson (London: Granada,
1970), 27-35; Burleigh and Wipperman, The Racial State, 28-33; H. Dicks, Licensed
Mass Murder (London: Heinemann, 1972), 112, 267.
3
See A. Lyttleton, Italian Fascisms From Pareto to Gentile (London: Jonathan Cape,
1973), 32; Z. Sternhell, 'Fascist Ideology', in W. Laqueur, ed., Fascism: A Reader's
Guide (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), 334-5; Sternhell, M droite ni gauche (Paris:
Editions du Seuil, 1983), 47, 141; P. Milza, Les Fascismes (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale,
1985), 51-2; R. Eatwell, Fascism: A History (London: Chatto and Windus, 1995), 26,
166.
272
Nazism, Fascism and Social Darwinism 273
exhibited any significant differences in these respects. The purpose of
this chapter is to make a start at filling this lacuna by conducting such an
investigation. For the sake of convenience I will deal with German
Nazism and Italian Fascism separately, and then conclude by making
some general comparative observations. Given the sheer volume and
complexity of the material under consideration, I must emphasise the
provisional nature of this enterprise and the tentativeness of the
conclusions, although the latter do indicate some fruitful lines of further
inquiry. I will also be confining the analysis to the period up to 1945,
since an investigation of the development of these ideologies after World
War II is beyond the scope of this study.
The foundations of the Nazi world view

In analysing Nazi ideology I shall initially concentrate on the writings
and speeches of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). The danger of so doing is
that Nazi ideology can become exclusively identified with one man to
the neglect of the other contributors to Nazi discourse, creating the
impression that National Socialism was a monolithic and unified
doctrine. On the contrary, Nazism was the work of many contributors
and like any other creed exhibited variations in the emphasis given to its
various components, as well as contradictory positions on some issues.4
My reason for focusing upon Hitler is largely one of convenience, i.e.
the need to limit the field of inquiry in order to conduct a detailed
analysis of the structure and content of a number of texts. Moreover,
there can be little doubt about the importance of Hitler's ideas for an
understanding of Nazism in the light of the centrality of the dictator
within the movement, particularly after the seizure of power in 1933.
The Nazi regime itself became suffused with Hitler's rhetoric on matters
of both domestic and foreign policy soon after this point, as will become
evident in the following section, so Hitler's ideas are an excellent guide
to the ideology and practice of Nazism in general.
One of the most significant texts for an understanding of Hitler's
world view is a book written in 1928 but only published after the war as
Hitler's Secret Book. Here Hitler announced: 'History itself is the
presentation of the course of a people's struggle for existence. I
deliberately use the phrase "struggle for existence" here because in truth
that struggle for daily bread, equally in peace and war, is an eternal
Material from Nazi ideologues other than Hitler has been published in B. Lane and
L. Rupp, eds., Nazi Ideology Before 1933: A Documentation (Manchester University
Press, 1978); Griffin, ed., Fascism, Readings 60-89.
battle against thousands upon thousands of resistances just as life itself is
an eternal struggle against death.'5
According to Hitler, the twin dynamics of life were hunger and love,
the first of which promoted self-preservation, the second the preserva-
tion of the species. However, the space in which these instinctive drives
had to be satisfied was limited - here Hitler was undoubtedly endorsing
a version of the earlier Lebensraum theories - with the result that
organisms were compelled to struggle for space and resources. It is out
of this struggle that evolution occurred through the survival of the fittest.
'From the invisible confusion of the organisms there finally emerged
formations, clans, tribes, peoples, states. The description of their origins
and their passing away is but the representation of an eternal struggle for
existence.'6
Among the lowest organic beings, self-preservation was confined to
survival of the individual. With increasing development the focus was
transferred to spouse and offspring, and among the highest creatures, to
the 'entire species'. Men, therefore, acted in accordance with the instinct
of self-preservation when they sacrificed themselves for their people.7 By
'people' and 'species', Hitler meant 'race'. In Mein Kampf he wrote:
'The racial question gives the key not only to world history, but to all
human culture.'8 Race was not a matter of language or historical
continuity, but of blood. Since nature did not reserve the use of the soil
to particular nations and races, the acquisition of space and resources
could only be decided by conflict. Nature established no political
boundaries, but rather conferred 'the master's right on her favourite
child, the strongest in courage and industry'.9 This was an unalterable
law: 'Providence has endowed living creatures with a limitless fecundity;
but she has not put in their reach, without the need for effort on their
part, all the food they need. All that is very right and proper, for it is the
struggle for existence that produces the selection of the fittest.' 10 It was
through the survival of the fittest that nature contrived the elimination of
the weak and the improvement of the race:
Those whom she permits to survive the inclemency of existence are a thousand-
fold tested, hardened, and well adapted to procreate in turn, in order that the
process of thorough-going selection may begin againfromthe beginning. By thus
brutally proceeding against the individual and immediately calling him back to
5
A. Hitler, Hitler's Secret Book, tr. S. Attanasio (New York: Grove Press, 1961), 5.
6 7
Ibid.,1. Ibid., 5.
8
Hitler, Mein Kampf, tr. R. Manheim (London: Hutchinson, 1974), 308.
9
Ibid., 123.
10
Hitler, Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944, tr. N. Cameron and R. Stevens (Oxford
University Press, 1988), 134.
herself as soon as he shows himself unequal to the storm of life, she keeps the race
and species strong, in fact, raises them to the highest accomplishments.1 x
To abolish this struggle would deprive men of 'the highest driving power
for their development'.12 Struggle determined the worth of both
individuals and races by establishing a hierarchy according to their
capabilities for preservation and development, and for Hitler the task of
National Socialism was to ensure that society mirrored this principle of
nature:
the folkish philosophy finds the importance of mankind in its basic racial
elements. In the state it sees on principle only a means to an end and construes
its end as the preservation of the racial existence of man. Thus, it by no means
believes in the equality of the races, but along with their differences it recognises
their higher or lesser value and feels itself obligated, through this knowledge, to
promote the victory of the better and stronger, and demand the subordination of
the inferior and weaker in accordance with the eternal will that dominates this
universe. Thus, in principle, it preserves the basic aristocratic idea of Nature and
believes in the validity of this law down to the last individual. It sees not only the
different value of the races, but also the different value of individuals.13
One of nature's rules which Hitler thought it vital to observe was the
deleterious effects of race mixing. Nature, he proclaimed, 'has little love
for bastards', as evinced by the punishment in the form of decadence
and defeat inflicted on races which violated this rule. 'Eternal Nature
inexorably avenges the infringement of her commands.' 14 The mixing of
the blood of higher with lower races must therefore be resisted at all
costs, for: 'The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker
.. .' 15 Anything which represented a racial danger must be resisted, 'for
in a bastardised and niggerised world all the concepts of the humanly
beautiful and sublime, as well as all ideas of an idealised future of our
humanity, would be lost forever'.16
Needless to say, it was the Aryan, Nordic or Germanic race - Hitler
employed these terms interchangeably - which represented the height of
human development, whereas the Jew was a parasite, a bacillus, a 'world
plague' threatening to poison and destroy the Aryan unless counteracted
with appropriate measures. With these images of the Jew as an alien
'otherness', whose materialism and lack of 'rootedness' in his own native
soil contrasted with the idealistic and racially superior Aryan, Hitler was
drawing upon a long tradition of anti-Semitic and Volkish racial
stereotyping in Germany.17 He argued that the Jewish race possessed a
1 l2
* Hitler, Mein Kampf, 121. Hitler, Secret Book, 16; also Hitler, Mein Kampf, 259.
13 14
Hitler, Mein Kampf, 348. Ibid., 363, 60.
15 16
Ibid., 259; Hitler, Secret Book, 28. Hitler, Mein Kampf, 348.
17
For an analysis of the interplay between Volkish and anti-Semitic currents in German
great instinct for survival but this only acted at the level of the self-
preservation of the individual; hence Jews lacked sufficient idealism to
form their own state. Instead they sought to corrupt and then subjugate
the states which harboured them. 18 But the Jews were not the only
'racial danger' which the 'culture-creating5 Aryan needed to guard
against, and one of the crucial functions of the state was to maintain and
improve the racial health of its people. In keeping with a long-standing
feature of a certain genre of Social Darwinist thought, Hitler was of the
opinion that modern civilisation tended to substitute social for natural
selection, with highly damaging consequences for racial hygiene. Mod-
ern warfare, for example, tended to eliminate the healthiest specimens in
the population while sparing the weaklings, and modern judicial and
penal practices likewise preserved the lives of criminals. Birth control
had created a situation in which people sought to limit the size of their
families while paying little attention to the racial value of the children
they did beget. It was racial suicide to countenance the continued
propagation of defective and incurably sick infants. Hitler lauded the
eugenic practices of ancient Sparta on the grounds that the destruction
of weak, sickly and deformed children 'was more decent and a thousand
times more humane than the wretched insanity of our day'. 19 In a
speech to the Nuremberg Party Rally on 5 August 1929, Hitler
denounced 'sentimental humanitarianism' and the 'sense of charity'
which he considered responsible for 'maintaining the weak at the
expense of the healthy'. He complained 'that even cretins are able to
procreate while more healthy people refrain from doing so ... Criminals
have the opportunity of procreating, degenerates are raised artificially
and with difficulty. And in this way we are gradually breeding the weak
and killing off the strong.'20
Hitler's writings and speeches portrayed nature in rigidly deterministic
terms. Expressions such as 'eternal', 'inexorable' and 'iron' were used to
refer to nature and its laws. Sometimes 'God' or 'Providence' were
substituted for nature, but it is evident that Hitler was not appealing to
any Christian deity, for he defined God as 'the dominion of natural laws
throughout the whole universe', and referred to Providence as 'the
unknown, or Nature, or whatever name one chooses'.21 These natural
laws were inescapable realities which could not be ignored without
courting disaster: 'Nothing that is made of flesh and blood can escape
culture a n d their relationship to N a t i o n a l Socialism, see G. M o s s e , The Crisis of German

Ideology ( N e w York: Shocken, 1981).
18
Hitler, Mein Kampf, 2 7 3 , 299. Cf. Hitler, Table Talk, 117.
19
Hitler, Secret Book, 8 - 9 , 1 7 - 1 8 .
20 21
N o a k e s a n d P r i d h a m , eds., Nazism, III, 1002. Hitler, Table Talk, 6, 4 4 .
the laws which determined its coming into being.' Man must continue
to be subjected to 'Nature's stern and rigid laws' because he 'has never
yet conquered Nature in anything'.22 The task of the politician was to
recognise this and seek to harmonise policies with nature's rules so as to
ensure the 'preservation and the continuance of the life of a people ...'
This became the yardstick against which the success or failure of actions
and policies must be judged: 'All human thought and invention, in their
ultimate effects, primarily serve man's struggle for existence on this
planet ...' And Hitler harboured no doubts about the efficacy of
National Socialism in this respect, since 'the folkish philosophy of life
corresponds to the innermost will of Nature .. .' 23
In conformity with this deterministic conception of nature, Hitler
adopted a hereditarian stance with regard to the social and political
problems of the day. Character for him was largely a matter of nature
rather than upbringing. True, some traits vital to racial survival, such as
loyalty, self-sacrifice and discretion, could be instilled through the right
education. But ability was inborn, a gift of nature, not something that
could be inculcated through instruction. 'Assuredly', wrote Hitler, 'the
most essential features of character are fundamentally preformed in the
individual: the man of egotistic nature is and remains so for ever ... The
born criminal is and remains a criminal.. .' 24
The limits of education became particularly apparent with regard to
racial differences. Hitler was adamant that racial traits were refractory
to any modification. It was impossible to make Germans out of Poles,
which rendered assimilationist programmes ludicrous in his eyes. As for
the efforts to educate negroes to become lawyers, teachers and pastors,
this was an offence against nature and reason, for 'it is a criminal
lunacy to keep on drilling a born half-ape until people think they have
made a lawyer out of him ... For this is training exactly like that of a
poodle .. :25
This exegesis of Hitler's ideas reveals him to have endorsed the
elements comprising Social Darwinism: laws common to humans and
nature in general, a struggle for existence deriving from pressure on
space and other resources which operated both at the level of individuals
and social aggregates, of which races were the most important, and
heredity constituting the mechanism whereby adaptive traits were
transmitted to successive generations. This Social Darwinist world view
was not only central to Hitler's ideology, but underpinned the most
22
Hitler, Secret Book, 5; Hitler, Mein Kampf, 2 6 2 , 2 6 1 .
23
Hitler, Secret Book, 7; Hitler, Mein Kampf, 4 0 5 , 3 4 8 .
24
Hitler, Mein Kampf, 3 7 8 , 3 7 7 .
25
Hitler, Secret Book, 4 7 ; Hitler, Mein Kampf, 3 9 1 .
distinctive and essential features of Nazi theory and practice. This will
be illustrated by a brief examination of some areas of Nazi thought and
policy during their period in power.
Social Darwinism in Nazi thought and practice

The National Socialist vision of the world as an arena of competing
states among which the only principle in operation was that of 'might is
right' had fairly obvious repercussions for the field of foreign policy. The
Nazi ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946), spelled this out as early
as 1924 when he asserted that 'the world-political task of National
Socialism consists of knocking one state after the other out of the world-
political power system of today and, in the end, leaving no peoples
under international management, but only a series of organic, folkish
state systems on a racial basis'. 26 When the Nazis came to power this
brutal message, if not always apparent to foreign statesmen of the
period, was made clear to the German people. For example, the official
guidelines for the teaching of history in secondary schools issued in 1938
by the German Central Institute of Education stated:
The German nation in its essence and greatness, in its fateful struggle for
internal and external identity is the subject of the teaching of history. It is based
on the natural bond of the child with his nation and, by interpreting history as
the fateful struggle for existence between the nations, has the particular task of
educating young people to respect the great German past and to have faith in the
mission and future of their own nation and to respect the right of existence of
other nations.
Apparently, the authors of these guidelines perceived no inconsistency
between teaching history as a struggle for national survival and
inculcating respect for the existence of other nations. They continued
with an injunction to emphasise the enduring racial forces of the
German nation, and added: 'Insight into the permanence of the
hereditary characteristics and the merely contingent significance of
environment facilitates a new and deep understanding of historical
personalities and contexts .. ,' 27 In like vein, the notes for speeches by a
Nazi party official to civil servants and other party officials in 1939
contained the following statement: 'The struggle for existence and the
racial self-assertion of a nation is a process which eternally repeats itself.
There is no end to it, for there are always new tasks since each new
26
A. Rosenberg, Der Volkishe Staastgedanke (Munich: Eher, 1925). There is an excerpt
from this entitled 'The Folkish Idea of State', in Lane and Rupp, eds., Nazi Ideology
Before 1933,11.
27
Noakes and Pridham, eds., Nazism, II, 4 3 8 .
generation must once again be turned into a body capable of resistance
through education, work, and the supervision of its morale.'28 Paul Josef
Goebbels (1897-1945) conveyed the essence of this message in an entry
in his diary in 1940: 'All means are justified. Our end is clear: a new
world empire of Germans.'29
Closely connected to the foreign policy goals of National Socialism
was war and the need for the total mobilisation of the population and
national resources in order to achieve success. Despite his awareness of
the dysgenic consequences of modern warfare, Hitler subscribed to the
view that wars were good for a nation, encouraging its inhabitants to
have more children. Hence: 'For the good of the German people, we
must wish for a war every fifteen or twenty years.' War, in fact, was 'life's
most potent and most characteristic expression', the ultimate test of a
nation's capabilities and moral fibre.30 This meant involving the entire
nation in the war effort cas if they were passionate participants in a sports
contest'.31
The need for effectiveness in the struggle with other states, coupled
with the biological determinism typical of Nazi versions of Social
Darwinism, provided the rationale for a comprehensive eugenics
programme aimed at purifying the population of its criminals and
mental and physical defectives. The Nazi sterilisation law of 1933 made
sterilisation compulsory for certain categories of people deemed to be
suffering from hereditary illnesses (including alcoholism). However,
additional criteria (e.g. 'anti-social behaviour', which included homo-
sexuality, and 'moral weakness', which encompassed unmarried
mothers) were often employed by medical officials. By 1945, 360,000
men and women had been sterilised under this programme, to which
must be added an unknown number of foreign workers and members of
ethnic minorities.32
Even more brutal was the euthanasia programme applied to mentally
handicapped persons from 1939 to 1945. As previously noted, there had
been serious discussion of the costs of maintaining 'idiots' during the
28
Ibid., 242.
29
P. J. Goebbels, The Goebbels Diaries, 1939-1941, ed. and tr. F. Taylor (London: Sphere,
1983), 160.
30
Hitler, Table Talk, 2 8 , 397.
31
N o t e s taken from a speech by Hitler to a conference of Gauleiters, 2 February 1934, in
Noakes and Pridham, eds., Naxism, II, 2 3 5 - 6 .
32
See Noakes and Pridham, eds., Nazism, II, 458; Weindling, Healthy Race and German
Politics, 5 3 3 . O n the persecution of homosexuals in the Third Reich, which included
castration and imprisonment, see Burleigh and Wipperman, The Racial State, 1 8 2 - 9 7 ;
G. J. Giles, ' "The Most Unkindest Cut of All": Castration, Homosexuality and Nazi
Justice3', Journal of Contemporary History, 2 7 ( 1 9 9 2 ) , 4 1 - 6 1 ; R. Plant, The Pink Triangle:
The Nazi War Against Homosexuals (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1987).
Weimar Republic, including proposals for the elimination of the
'mentally dead'.33 Opportunity to implement such policies was provided
by the Nazis, who embarked upon a programme of 'mercy-killing' of
handicapped children in 1939, a process often involving the gradual
starvation of the victims.34 This was accompanied by the gassing of
mentally handicapped adults from 1939, although Hitler officially put a
stop to this in August 1941 as a result of opposition to the programme.
By then, over 70,000 people had been 'disinfected', a figure that was to
be greatly augmented by unofficial euthanasia practices conducted in the
concentration camps after 1941, often including people who were not
sick but considered undesirable on racial grounds.35 In this manner,
Hitler's vision of a state which employed the ancient Spartan practice of
eliminating the weak, the unfit and the socially unacceptable members of
the community was realised in a most brutal fashion. These policies
received their legitimation from the Social Darwinist world view which
saw in such categories of people a threat to the survival capabilities of the
nation in the struggle for existence due to their possession of traits
deemed to be genetically determined. This also applied to criminals and
political subversives. As Goebbels put it: 'The asocial elements must not
be preserved for a later revolution. They will always be a threat to the
state, particularly in the large cities. Therefore: liquidate them and
create a healthy social life for the Volk. Authority is, of course, nothing
but a fiction. If the asocial elements succeed in devaluating it - or even
denting it - then the door is open to anarchy.'36
The most horrific manifestation of this perspective took place in the
domain of Nazi racial policies, primarily, though not exclusively,
directed against the Jews. So thorough-going was the Nazi persecution
of Jews, gypsies and Slavs - people considered to be so racially inferior
as to be virtually sub-human - that some commentators have interpreted
these actions as expressing the essence of the Nazi revolution. This was a
revolution directed, not against the prevailing social and economic
system, but at the realisation of a racial Utopia.37 Hitler had proclaimed:
'All who are not of good race in this world are chaff',38 and the policies
of the National Socialists, from their assumption of power in 1933, were
dedicated to separating the chaff from the wheat. This culminated in the
33
See Noakes and Pridham, eds., Nazism, III, 997-1002.
34 35
Ibid., 1008. Ibid., 1041, 1043-8.
36
Goebbels, Diaries, 124-5.
37
See, for example, H . Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (London: Andre Deutsch,
1986), part III; Mosse, Crisis, chaps. 16—18; Burleigh and Wipperman, The Racial State;
M . Hauner, 'A German Racial Revolution?', Journal of Contemporary History, 19(1984),
669-87.
38
Hitler, Mein Kampf, 269.
mass murder of millions of Jews, but also at least half a million Sinti and
Roma ('gypsies'), and millions of Russians and Poles. To the Nazis
these were untermenschen - sub-people who at best were fit only to serve
their Aryan masters in the most menial capacities. Thus Hitler
counselled no remorse over the fate of the subject populations in the
conquered Eastern Territories: 'There's only one duty: to Germanise
this country by the immigration of Germans, and to look upon the
natives as Redskins.' Improvements in health, education and social
conditions were definitely not on Hitler's agenda, and he recommended
that subject races 'know just enough to understand our highway signs,
so that they won't get themselves run over by our vehicles!'39 The
extraordinary ferocity of the war on the Eastern Front has been partially
attributed to National Socialist propaganda which stressed the racial
character of the struggle against the USSR.40
Another consequence of the biologically grounded racism of the Nazis
was the continual underestimation by their leaders of the military
capabilities of the Russians. Goebbels, for example, repeatedly wrote in
his diaries that the Bolsheviks would collapse like a 'house of cards', that
their army was 'scarcely battleworthy', probably because 'the low
intelligence level of the average Russian makes the use of modern
weapons impossible'.41 These judgements were not confined to the
enemies of Nazism. After denigrating the ability of the Italian army, he
observed, by way of explanation: 'The Italians are, after all, a Romance
race.'42 Military prowess, like other traits, was unevenly distributed
among the different races, and a notable speciality of the Aryan.
When faced with impending defeat, the leaders of National Socialism
tended to give even greater prominence to the racial core of Nazi
ideology. In their exhortations to the German people they stressed that
the conflict was a struggle for survival between different races on which
would depend the future of the Nordic race and the civilisation it had
created. Thus in a military directive dated 25 November 1944, Hitler
maintained: 'The war will decide whether the German people shall
continue to exist or perish. It demands selfless exertion from every
individual.'43 A few weeks before his suicide, Hitler gave orders for his
retreating armies to adopt a 'scorched earth' policy within the Reich
itself in order to prevent resources from falling into the hands of the
enemy. The order was prefaced by the statement: 'The struggle for the
39
Hitler, Table Talk, 6 9 .
40
See O . Bartov, The Eastern Front, 1941-45 ( L o n d o n : M a c m i l l a n , 1985), chap. 3 .
41
G o e b b e l s , Diaries, 3 4 3 ; also 4 8 , 5 9 , 8 7 , 4 1 1 , 4 1 4 .
42
Ibid., 214.
43
Hitler's War Directives 1939-1945, ed. H . R. T r e v o r - R o p e r ( L o n d o n : P a n , 1966), 2 8 8 .
existence of our people compels us, even within the territory of the
Reich, to exploit every means of weakening the fighting strength of our
enemy, and impeding his further advance.'44 The Fuhrer's rationalisa-
tion of this policy to his subordinates showed a consistent adherence to
the premisses of Social Darwinism to the very end, for he asserted that
Germany had shown itself to be weaker than its eastern opponents and
did not therefore deserve to survive.45
Nazism and Social Darwinism

Hitler and other ideologues of National Socialism clearly endorsed the
main tenets of Social Darwinism. Heredity, struggle and selection were
integral to their conception of both the natural and the social realms,
and the task of Nazism was to create a community in harmony with the
eternal laws of nature.
The primary unit upon which the forces of natural selection acted was
that of the race, although there was also a role for the struggle for
survival within the Volksgemeinschaft as well. The economy, for example,
was regarded as an arena of competition in which only the most efficient
and competent firms would succeed. Hitler observed, in a speech made
on 20 May 1937: 'Business is quite brutal. You know, one notices a
businessman who has made it, but one doesn't notice the tens of
thousands of others who have gone bust. But it is in the nation's best
interests for its economy to be run only by able people and not by civil
servants.' And he concluded with a judgement that those businessmen
who failed were 'merely good-for-nothings, incompetents - they can go
bust'.46 But the main thrust of Nazi rhetoric was to present the Volk as
the major protagonist in the battle for life to which the welfare of the
individual must be subordinated at all times. Hence marriage, for
example, was perceived not an end in itself but rather a means to
attaining a higher goal, namely 'the increase and preservation of the
species and the race. This alone is its meaning and its task.'47 The
'natural' role of women was confined to the task of producing and
nurturing the next generation.
The Nazi veneration of motherhood reflected their general attitude to
nature as a virtually sacred domain so that a genuinely authentic
existence consisted of living in harmony with natural laws. Hitler insisted
44
Order dated 19 March 1945, Hitler's War Directives, 2 9 3 .
45
See R. Pois, National Socialism and the Religion of Nature (London: Croom H e l m ,
1986), 109.
46
Noakes and Pridham, eds., Nazism, II, 2 6 4 .
47
Hitler, Mein Kampf, 229. See also Noakes and Pridham, eds., Nazism, II, 4 5 4 ; Reading
71 in Griffin, ed., Fascism.
that there was no gap between organic and inorganic nature, and
regarded the destruction of the belief in the separation of these two
domains by the 'battering-ram of science' as vital to the task of
discrediting Christianity.48 This type of attitude, however, did not
preclude a mystical conception of nature as a life-force to which those
who were in possession of its secrets were attuned.49 The celebration of
spiritual values and concern with an 'inner revolution' of the soul was
held to be the objective of National Socialism, involving the creation of a
New Man, of which the SS warriors were the prototype. This stress
seems antithetical to the biological reductionism of other aspects of Nazi
thought, and particularly with the deterministic features of the racial
struggle for survival.
There is certainly one point on which the Nazi version of Social
Darwinism differed from those articulated by early pioneers such as
Darwin and Haeckel, namely the common ancestry of apes and humans.
Some Nazi texts unequivocally repudiated an ape-like ancestry.50 Such
also seems to be the message contained in the following statement by
Hitler in a private conversation in 1942:
Where do we acquire the right to believe that man has not always been what he is
now? The study of nature teaches us that, in the animal kingdom just as much as
in the vegetable kingdom, variations have occurred. They've occurred within the
species, but none of these variations has an importance comparable with that
which separates manfromthe monkey - assuming that this transformation really
took place.51
At the very least, this implies scepticism about the alleged ape-like
origins of mankind and possibly even about the idea of species
transmutation. As an inveterate racist Hitler would of course have been
opposed to any idea of a common ancestor for all the human races. The
evidence, however, is equivocal. Only a few days prior to this observation
the dictator, in one of his diatribes on the virtues of vegetarianism,
insisted: 'The monkeys, our ancestors of prehistoric times, are strictly
vegetarian.'52 In October 1941, Hitler apparently claimed that 'there
have been human beings, in the baboon category, for at least three
hundred thousand years. There is less distance between the man-ape
and the ordinary modern man than there is between the ordinary
modern man and a man like Schopenhauer.' Goebbels reported a
conversation with Hitler at the end of December 1939 as follows: 'He
[Hitler] has little regard for homo sapiens. Man should not feel so
superior to the animals. He has little reason to. Man believes that he
48
Hitler, Table Talk, 59, 8 4 - 5 .
49
F o r a detailed analysis of this dimension of Nazi ideology, see Pois, National Socialism.
50 51 52
Pois, National Socialism, 43. Hitler, Table Talk, 248. Ibid., 231.
alone has intelligence, a soul, and the power of speech. Has not the
animal these things?'53 It is, moreover, worth noting that around this
time a number of respected European and American palaeo-anthropol-
ogists were seeking to eliminate the apes from human ancestry.54
Even if Hitler and other Nazi ideologues had displayed complete
consistency in their denial of the ape-like lineage of humanity, there can
be no doubt that as far as Social Darwinism is concerned both their
theory and praxis were predicated upon the world view to a remarkable
degree. What Nazi ideology exemplifies is a development already noted
in the history of Social Darwinism, in which the struggle for existence
becomes transmuted. It becomes a dynamic not so much responsible for
evolution - although this term was employed in Nazi texts, equivocation
about the origins of mankind, and celebration over the seemingly
'eternal' achievements of the Aryan renders its meaning problematic - as
with the preservation of an existing, and seemingly timeless, racial ideal.
Social and political forms may change, as may economic and military
technologies, but human nature remains essentially fixed. The struggle
for survival takes the form of an age-long conflict between the
embodiment of different forms, and levels, of this nature. In this respect,
National Socialism replicates a development noted in the work of earlier
theorists like Vacher de Lapouge in which the play of natural laws and
forces serves to maintain certain essences rather than acting as agents of
perpetual transformation.
What of the model/threat dualism in Nazi representations of nature?
By endorsing the struggle for existence and virtually eradicating
individual welfare as an ethical goal, Nazism avoided this dichotomy.
Nature and its laws represented an ideal, the main threats to which
emanated from social institutions and value systems. The aim of Nazism
was to remove these threats by harmonising nature and society, which
entailed reorganising the latter so as to render its processes and
outcomes concordant with the putative workings of nature's laws.
The world view of Italian Fascism

Italian Fascism exhibits considerable ideological diversity, and this is
notably apparent with regard to Social Darwinism. An example where
this world view provided a scaffolding for Fascist ideas is furnished by
53
Ibid., 86; Goebbels, Diaries, 11.
54
See P. Bowler, Theories of Human Evolution: A Century of Debate, 1844-1944 (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1989), chap. 5. A notable example was the American, Henry Fairfield
Osborn, who in the aftermath of the Scopes 'monkey trial' in Tennessee, 1925, sought
to liberate mankind from what he referred to as 'the bar sinister of ape descent'. Cited
by Bowler, Theories, 128.
some of the speeches and publications of Alfredo Rocco (1875-1935),
who was Mussolini's Minister of Justice from 1925 to 1932. In a text
written just after the Great War, Rocco depicted the world as a plurality
of distinctive states, each one representing an organism with autono-
mous needs and goals, as evinced by history and 'by the biological and
moral laws governing social life'. The form of these laws is conveyed in
the following citation:
Conflict is in fact the basic law of life of all social organisms, as it is of all
biological ones; societies are formed, gain strength, and move forwards through
conflict; the healthiest and most vital of them assert themselves against the
weakest and less well adapted through55conflict; the natural evolution of nations
and races takes place through conflict.
Rocco emphasised that within social organisms there must be unity,
based upon discipline, hierarchy and organisation. All competition was
directed outwards, at other nations, whether in the form of economic
competition or armed conflict. This took place 'in order that, as a result
of their inequality, those nations should assert themselves who are best
prepared for and best adapted to the function that devolves on every
powerful and capable nation in the evolution of civilisation'.56 The rise
of the state was explicable by, and subject to, this 'ineluctable law of the
struggle for existence'. At various stages of history, certain state forms
predominate among the most advanced nations: for example, the city-
state among the ancient Greeks, and the nation-state in modern times.
More recently, this latter form was being replaced by empires - the
outcome of a century of evolution.57
These arguments quite plainly smack of Social Darwinism. On other
occasions, however, the relationship between conflict and socio-political
evolution in Rocco's outlook was less obvious. In a speech delivered two
years later, Rocco denied the existence of a unilinear pattern to historical
change. Developing a point made in the earlier text, in which he had
repudiated the notion of an evolutionary sequence from smaller to larger
social aggregates,58 Rocco described history as a series of distinct but
recurring cycles, in which political communities expanded and then
disintegrated into smaller units.59 He still interpreted this process as
reflecting a biological law, but one rather different from the adaptational
dynamic he had invoked previously. The model stressed in this speech
was that of the life-cycle. In history 'we see the birth of the state, we see
55
A. Rocco, 'Politico. Manifesto', 15 D e c e m b e r 1918, in Lyttleton, Italian Fascisms,
258-9.
56 57 58
Ibid., 259. Ibid., 259, 263-4. Ibid., 262.
59
Rocco, 'The Syndicates and the Crisis Within the State', Speech to the University of
Padua, 15 November 1920 in Lyttleton, Italian Fascisms, 271.
it become organized, gain strength and prosperity and then become
disorganized, decline and perish, just as any biological organism is born,
develops, grows old and dies'.60
This life-cycle model of history is an ancient one and does not need
the motor of conflict to explain adaptations and transformations. The
status of Social Darwinism in Rocco's thought is, therefore, problematic,
and one can hardly assign it an important functional role, despite its
intimation in some of his discourses. In other expressions of Fascism,
Social Darwinism was completely absent. In The Origins and Doctrine of
Fascism (1934) of Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944), the underlying
structure was Hegelian, as exemplified in such statements as: 'The
nation is never complete and neither is the state ... The state is always
becoming.'61 Gentile conferred great importance on conflict, announ-
cing that 'mankind progresses only through division, and progress is
achieved through the clash and victory of one side over another .. .' 62
But there was no suggestion that division and conflict were the
manifestations of biological laws. Indeed, such a conception would
contradict his view that human beings were motivated primarily by
spiritual considerations. This position was set forth by Benito Mussolini
(1883-1945) in collaboration with Gentile in The Doctrine of Fascism
(1932). Once again, the existence of, and necessity for, conflict, was
presented as axiomatic.
Above all, Fascism ... believes neither in the possibility nor in the utility of
perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism - born of the
renunciation of the struggle as an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War
alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies, and puts the stamp
of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it.63
The struggle referred to, though, was not derived from any premisses
about a natural law of struggle for existence. In fact, the accent was on
the transcendence of the animal features of human nature - consisting
primarily of concern with personal welfare - through heroic self-
abnegation and sacrifice. The Fascist strives to achieve ca life in which
the individual, through the denial of himself, through the sacrifice of his
own private interests, through death itself, realises that completely
spiritual existence in which his value as a man resides'. 64 Hence the
imperialist ambitions signalled in this text were not derived from any
inexorable struggle for survival, but presented as the sign of vitality and
60
Ibid., 2 7 1 .
61
G. Gentile, The Origins and Doctrine of Fascism in Lyttleton, Italian Fascisms, 310.
62 Ibid., 304.
63
B. Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism (1932), in Lyttleton, Italian Fascisms, 47.
64
Ibid., 40.
strength as opposed to the decadence and weakness that typified the
renunciation of expansionist goals. 65
Not only would reducing humanity to the effects of biological laws
constitute a denial of the expressly human features of mankind, it would
also be guilty of the sins of fatalism and determinism. In a speech made
just prior to the march on Rome, Mussolini asserted that: 'We don't
believe that history repeats itself; we don't believe that history follows a
hard and fast itinerary .. .' 66 History was made by people in the attempt
to impress their values on the world through the expression of will. This
Nietzschean perspective was inconsistent with determinism of any kind,
and Mussolini rejected Marxian economic determinism and class
struggle, and liberal doctrines of progress, as examples of attempts to
impose a pattern on historical change. life 'is a continual change and
coming to be', and Fascism insists that man 'with his free will can and
must create his own world', must 'conquer for himself that life truly
worthy of him .. ,' 67
A similar critique of historical determinism in any form can be found
in the attempt by an Englishman, Barnes, to distil the universal content
of Fascist ideology in a text prefaced by Mussolini himself.68 Barnes
criticised the view of history as 'an unfolding, inevitable pageant,
containing no might have beens .. .' 69 He believed in the existence of
two sorts of laws - the moral law which derived from God, and natural
laws which were uniformities established through scientific induction.
Natural laws were transcended by moral laws, but not in a manner
which involved any contradiction between them. The struggle for
existence was an example of a law of nature, and its relationship to moral
imperatives he described as follows:
The natural tendency of all organisms is to fight for their continued existence;
and Sociology demonstrates that States exhibit this tendency as powerfully and
instinctively as any other living organisms. This is a natural law which the Moral
Law transcends, but does not lay aside. The Moral Law can never be in essential
conflict with Natural Law. So here we have a law of life; and the manner in
which the Moral Law transcends it is by sanctioning the sacrifice of individual
65
Ibid., 56.
66
Mussolini, speech at San Carlo Opera House, 24 October 1922, in C. Delzell, ed. and
tr., Mediterranean Fascism, 1919-1945: Selected Documents (London: Macmillan, 1970),
42.
67
Mussolini, Doctrine of Fascism, 41, 40.
68
Barnes, who was raised in Italy, was a personal friend of Mussolini and a member of the
Italian Fascist Party. See G. Webber, The Ideology of the British Right 1918-1939
(London: CroomHelm, 1986), 143-4.
69
J. S. Barnes, The Universal Aspects of Fascism (London: Williams and Norgate, 1928),
94. Barnes was antagonistic to the Hegelian conception of history favoured by theorists
like Gentile.
life whenever thereby a richer, more vigorous life and a generally higher (more
moral) life is rightly judged to be the consequence.70
Barnes was here walking a very thin line between determinism and the
power of humans to change the course of history. He often assimilated
the state to other living organisms, 'subject to growth and decay',
evolving through adaptation to changed circumstances and possessing ca
natural instinctive force' directed at its own survival. The struggle for
existence was ca law of life, from which none of us can withdraw'.71 This
is close to the Nazi rhetoric of iron laws of nature. Yet Barnes also
suggested that a law of nature could be acknowledged as much by
resisting as by submitting to it. He insisted that the means to adaptation
were not scientifically determined but had to be realised through ration-
ally directed political action, while denying that warfare was a natural
human condition.72 Such arguments are more typical of the stress on
elan, dynamism and heroic effort found in the Mussolini/Gentile texts.
Thus while Barnes undoubtedly construed the struggle for existence as a
law of life that encompassed human societies as well as biological
organisms, it cannot be said that this notion belonged to an expressly
Social Darwinist outlook, or formed a central component of his ideology
as was the case for Hitler and Nazism in general.
In keeping with their denial of history as a process reducible to the
play of one particular set of factors, both Mussolini and Barnes were
critical of racial interpretations of the nation and its historical role.
Mussolini defined the nation in non-racial terms and was hostile
towards Nazi race theory.73 Barnes likewise refused to identify nation
and race, and described racism as a 'materialist illusion, contrary to
natural law and destructive of civilisation'.74 Racism, i.e. a systematically
formulated theory of racial difference and superiority/inferiority, did not
play a significant role in these discourses. The term race was often
employed, usually as a synonym for nation or people, but did not form a
part of a wider system of significations denoting a hierarchy of peoples
based upon biological differences. This is not to argue that Italian
Fascism lacked a racist faction,75 or that racialist assumptions played no
70 71 72
Ibid., 7 0 - 1 . Ibid., 6 9 , 105, 156. Ibid., 6n, 105, 9 2 - 3 .
73
Mussolini, Doctrine of Fascism, 4 3 . N o t e also Mussolini's critique of racism in his 1935
essay ' T h e Irrefutable F a c t ' , R e a d i n g 3 5 in Griffin, ed., Fascism. F o r M u s s o l i n i ' s
criticisms of Nazi race theory, see R. T h u r l o w , ' N a z i s m a n d Fascism: N o Siamese
T w i n s ' , Patterns of Prejudice, 14(1980), 1 2 - 1 3 .
74
Barnes, Universal Aspects, 4 3 , 60.
75
B u t even t h e racialist faction of Italian Fascism was usually wary of biological
conceptions of race. O n this, see R. Sodi, ' T h e Italian Roots of Racialism', UCLA
Historical Journal, 8 ( 1 9 8 7 ) , 4 0 - 7 0 . According to Sodi (54), Italian racialist a u t h o r s u s e d
the w o r d s sangue, stirpe, nazione a n d popolo (blood, race, n a t i o n a n d people)
interchangeably t o c o n n o t e a cultural, rather t h a n a biological, identity.
role in Mussolini's foreign policy, particularly in Africa, where Fascist
foreign policy was conducted with great brutality.76 But the majority of
Europeans were convinced of their superiority vis-d-vis the indigenous
populations in Africa, Asia and the New World, and such an attitude
would hardly serve to distinguish Fascism as an ideological entity in its
own right. In the writings of Ammon or Vacher de Lapouge, or the
ideologues of Nazism, on the other hand, race constituted precisely the
key to history which Fascism denounced.
As far as Social Darwinism is concerned, the texts examined above
reveal elements of this world view, especially in the early writings of
Rocco, but it would be misleading to argue that Social Darwinism acted
as a foundation for the theoreticians of Italian Fascism in the way that it
did for German National Socialists.
Conclusion
If the position adopted in this study is accepted - i.e. that Social
Darwinism comprises the philosophical infrastructure of a social theory
or ideology - then, on the basis of the material reviewed in this chapter,
it is reasonable to conclude that German Nazism and Italian Fascism,
during the period studied here, reposed upon different intellectual
foundations. In the former case, these foundations were Social
Darwinist, in the latter not. The world view underpinning Fascism was
one which regarded historical time as a dimension devoid of any pattern,
and though it accepted the existence of laws of nature, it denied the
ability of these to set limits to human endeavour or to dictate the course
and content of public policies. In this, Fascism can be seen to be
partially inspired by the philosophies deriving from Hegelian doctrines
of conflict and synthesis, Sorelian celebrations of myth and violence, the
Nietzschean advocacy of self-transcendence and Bergson's notion of
evolution as a process of self-creation.
This is not the place to examine the precise ways in which these
various components of Fascism were articulated and elaborated, but it
does seem clear that in this formulation there would be little scope for
biological determinism or, indeed, for any kind of determinism. Fascism
would therefore be inimical to one of the core assumptions of Social
Darwinism, namely, that human beings are, both morally and culturally,
76
See E. Robertson, 'Race as a Factor in Mussolini's Policy in Africa and Europe',
Journal of Contemporary History, 23(1988), 37-58. The release of material from United
Nations archives in early 1988 exposed the viciousness and brutality of the Italian
occupation of Abyssinia and Europe. See William Scobie, 'Revealed: Italy's Savage
War Crimes', Observer, 24 January 1988.
governed by natural laws. Thus while they placed a high value on
struggle and conflict, Fascists did so for reasons other than those
invoked by Social Darwinists, seeing in adversarial conditions the
opportunities for men (or, rather, some men - those of the elite) to
display the heroic qualities that differentiated the spiritual from the
material realms.
This stress on heroism and spirituality can also be found in Nazism.
But in this instance, heroism consists in expressing values that are
consistent with the dictates of nature, in accordance with the natural
order. To fight against the determinism of the latter is to court disaster.
In this way, the different metaphysical foundations of Nazism and
Fascism have important ideological consequences, not least of which is
the salience of race in the former creed. For Nazism, race was genetically
based and hence hereditary, its features produced by selection and
adaptation and threatened by miscegenation. The exigencies of the
struggle for survival justified the most radical measures in eugenics and
racial hygiene. There is, consequently, a relentless continuity between
the Nazi conception of human nature and history on the one hand, and
the racial and eugenic practices of the Third Reich on the other.
There are a number of caveats which need to be made at this juncture.
First, I have no desire to argue that Nazi praxis was an inevitable con-
sequence of its ideological premisses. Though ideologies make up an
important aspect of reality, they are not the whole of that reality and do
not possess the power of independent causation. The history of the Third
Reich does not flow inexorably from the pages of Mein Kampf, and Nazi
ideology is only one factor in the conditions in which policies of war,
racial purification and genocide occurred. My points are simply that: (a)
there is a great deal of consistency between the Nazis' ideology and the
policies that they implemented; (b) this ideology is one in which race occ-
pies a central role; (c) race is, in turn, predicated upon a Social Darwinist
world view in which the struggle for survival is a prescient fact of life.
My second caveat relates to the role of race in Fascist thought. Racism
was, as we have seen, rampant throughout the West during this period,
and few Europeans or white colonialists harboured any doubts over their
superiority vis-d-vis the indigenous populations of Asia, Africa and the
New World. Italian Fascism contained racist factions, and the initial
success of Nazism would have encouraged imitation of their ideas. Such
could well be the reason for the anti-Semitic legislation of 1938, which
was criticised by some Italian Fascists precisely for this reason.77 This
77
For condemnations of this legislation for imitating Nazism, see Carlo Costamagna
(1881-1965), reproduced in J.-P. Faye, Langages Totalitaires (Paris: Hermann, 1973),
[84-90]; Gioacchino Volpe (1876-1971) in Griffin, ed., Fascism, Reading 39.
being said, the texts analysed here show race not to have been an integral
feature of Fascist theorising. Some commentators have responded to
this difference by referring to Nazism as 'Fascism + racism'.78 But
Nazism cannot be adequately conceived in these terms: racism was not a
simple accretion to the world view of Fascism but, on the contrary,
reflected a different, even incompatible, view of nature, time and
humanity. If all references to race were removed the essential structure
of Fascist ideology would remain intact, whereas a similar excision for
Nazism would remove its central core. This has implications for Fascist
practice, for the experience of Fascism in Italy for Jews, brutal and
distressing as it undoubtedly was, did not approach the genocidal horror
of the Third Reich.79
I have argued that whereas Nazi racism was legitimated by a Social
Darwinism of a particularly deterministic ilk, Fascism was anti-determi-
nistic, and its concept of national community therefore was less
exclusive than one based upon race. Or rather, the exclusionary criteria
employed by Fascists in their conception of national identity were less
rigid than those adopted by Nazis. Once again, I am not arguing that
ideas are the sole (or even major) determinants of social processes, only
pointing to a certain degree of congruence between world view, ideology
and praxis.
These conclusions are tentative. The analysis has been confined to
two countries, and I have only examined a small sample of individual
texts rather than surveying the entire corpus of Fascist literature.
Furthermore, there is some evidence of the language of Social Dar-
winism, notably in some of the writings and speeches of Rocco. What
are needed are detailed comparative investigations of the ideology of the
various Fascist movements and ideologues of the period. Though much
progress has been made in recent years in the understanding of Fascist
ideology it is still a neglected area of study. Hopefully the analyses
conducted in this chapter have suggested some interesting lines of
inquiry.
78
Ball and Dagger, Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal, 192.
79
Mussolini's position on the Jews tended to fluctuate, but seems to have been governed
by pragmatic rather than by ideological considerations. See M. Michaelis, Mussolini and
the Jews (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978).
Postscript: Social Darwinism old and new: the case
of sociobiology
Introduction
There is a widely held view among historians and social scientists that
Social Darwinism declined in popularity after World War II due to its
association with racism and Nazism. The belief is that in the post-war
democratic consensus that emerged in the Western states there was little
tolerance for theories which apparently gave a biological justification for
racism, war or exploitation. The American historian Degler considers
these circumstances were not just uncongenial for Social Darwinism but
actually fatal to it. 'Social Darwinism', he writes, 'was definitely killed,
not merely scotched .. . j l
The thesis that Social Darwinism is dead is false, as will be shown
below. The weaker claim that it declined in importance during the
immediate post-war period is plausible although the detailed studies
required to substantiate it have yet to be made. In any case, by the mid-
1960s Social Darwinism had re-emerged and was reaching wide
audiences in Britain and the USA. It took the form of popular writings
about the evolutionary heritage of humans that were the forerunners of
sociobiology which itself, I shall argue, is a particularly powerful
example of Social Darwinism. It is possible that Social Darwinism was
manifested in other currents of thought in the post-war era, and that
accounts of its decline have been exaggerated, but an investigation of
this possibility is outside the scope of this study.2 In confining this
chapter to sociobiology the intention is not to engage in a critical
appreciation of this discipline but to examine its relationship to Social
Darwinism. The aims are to test the robustness of the model of the
1
Degler, In Search of Human Nature, ix.
2
Social Darwinism has certainly been appropriated by neo-Fascist and extreme right-
wing groups in Europe. Examples for Britain are cited later in this chapter and there is
evidence to suggest that the Front National in France has also adopted Social Darwinist
rhetoric. See P. A. Taguieff, 'La Metaphysique de Jean-Marie Le Pen', in N. Mayer
and P. Perrineau, eds., Le Front National a decouvert (Paris: Presses de la Fondation
Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1989), 173-94.
292
Social Darwinism old and new 293
world view constructed in chapter 1 for a different historical epoch and
to explore the continuing relevance of Social Darwinism to Western
culture.
Before embarking on this exercise it is useful to take cognisance of
developments in biology since the Modern Synthesis. The discovery of
the structure of DNA in 1953 paved the way for advances in molecular
biology which have greatly enhanced knowledge about the processes of
genetic mutation and transmission. Developments in population ge-
netics and evidence from ecology and detailed ethological studies have
deepened our understanding of selection and evolution. 'Fitness' is
denned as the differential success of organisms in survival and the
leaving of offspring. Since the 1960s a consensus has emerged over the
unit of selection, with group selection rejected by the majority of
biologists in favour of individual selection, although some persist in
retaining a notion of species selection.3 Others maintain that since it is
genes which are actually replicated, selected and transmitted then the
gene is the appropriate level of analysis. Gene and individual-level
models are broadly compatible and are both opposed to group selection.
The trend towards individual or gene-based models of evolution has
developed out of attempts to solve the hoary problem of altruism.
Actions apparently favouring the group at the expense of the individuals
performing them, as in the case of the warning cries emitted by certain
species of birds in the presence of predators, are explained as examples
of 'kin selection'. Altruistic actions can increase the likelihood of an
organism preserving copies of its own genes in its relatives. On average
an organism's offspring or siblings will possess half of its own genes;
hence even a self-sacrificing action which leaves two or more siblings
alive promotes 'inclusive fitness'. The inclusive fitness of a gene is
therefore defined as 'the reproductive rate of its bearer plus that of the
copies of the gene carried by relatives to whom the bearer may extend
help'.4
Another important concept is that of 'reciprocal altruism'. Animals
that extend help to other (unrelated) animals in their group improve the
chances of receiving aid themselves in times of need. In these cases (as
was suggested by Darwin), seemingly altruistic actions in fact derive
from individual self-interest. Here, then, as with inclusive fitness,
behaviour which potentially benefits the group at the expense of the
3
For discussions of these different positions, see Smith, Did Darwin Get it Right?, chap.
16; Wilson, Diversity of Life, 81-5.
4
D. J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 1979), 305.
For a brief overview of the development of the notion of inclusive fitness, see Smith,
Did Darwin Get it Right?, chap. 13; Gould, Ever Since Darwin, chap. 33.
individual is explained by reference to the selective advantages accruing
to the individual.
Modern evolutionary theory is therefore Darwinian in its explanatory
structure. It combines genetics, ecology, ethology and mathematics in
its models of evolutionary dynamics. Palaeontology continues to be
closely relevant to Darwinian theory, particularly the spectacular
discoveries of early hominid fossils in Africa. The outcome is a theory of
evolution which is more powerful but more abstruse than the original
version. Whereas Darwin's technical writings could be readily assimi-
lated by non-specialist audiences, modern Darwinism is much less
accessible. Despite this, Darwinism continues to excite public contro-
versy and debate and scientists have been remarkably successful in
producing popular accounts of the latest developments in evolutionary
theory. This is the intellectual context in which sociobiology made its
appearance.
Sociobiology
Sociobiology as a discipline is usually traced to the publication, in 1975,
of the bestselling Sociobiology: The New Synthesis by the Harvard
biologist, Edward Osborne Wilson. Wilson defined sociobiology as 'the
systematic study of the biological basis of all social behaviour'.
According to his own testimony he had concluded his Insect Societies
(1971) with the hypothesis that the principles of population biology and
comparative zoology that had worked so well for the analysis of the
social insects could be extended to the study of vertebrate animals. This
goal was realised in Sociobiology, the final chapter of which contains
Wilson's controversial assertion that these principles could be applied to
the study of human social behaviour, thereby closing the gap between
the natural and the social sciences. His On Human Nature (1978) was a
first step in the achievement of this synthesis.5 Since then there has been
a veritable efflorescence of literature devoted to this project. This has in
turn inspired an enormous level of criticism and a great deal of debate -
much of it acrimonious - over the methods, conclusions and alleged
political implications of sociobiology. The existence of this body of
criticism coincident with the continued thriving of sociobiology -
especially in the USA - provides an important lesson for an under-
standing of the history of Social Darwinism: hostility towards a body of
ideas in certain social circles provides no warrant for assuming its overall
unpopularity.
5
This account of Wilson's ideas is taken from his On Human Nature, ix-x.
A recurrent theme in this criticism has been the accusation that
sociobiology is a renascent Social Darwinism. The claim was made at
the birth of the discipline and has remained a basis of condemnation
ever since. 6 Sociobiologists are accused of espousing a rigid biological
determinism in their efforts to explain phenomena such as incest
prohibitions, rape, adultery, warfare, homicide and homosexuality -
among many others - as the consequences of a genetic heritage shaped
by natural selection. Such efforts are deemed by some critics to provide
a justification, at least implicitly, for capitalism, class inequalities,
racism, patriarchy and armed conflict. For them, there is nothing novel
about the proposed 'New Synthesis', which reprises the basic themes of
the Social Darwinism of the 1870s. 7
Sociobiologists and their supporters have been vociferous in their
rejection of these allegations. While without exception they claim to be
Darwinists, the majority seem to agree with the political scientist
Lopreato that the link between Darwinism and Social Darwinism was
'theoretically disastrous' as the latter was bad science and bad
Darwinism. This was because Social Darwinism 'was to a large extent
an ideology and an apologia for the worst form of capitalism,
ethnocentrism, and racism'.8 Degler likewise insists on the ideological
discontinuity between the politically liberal sociobiologists and conserva-
tive defence of the capitalist status quo which he sees as typical of Social
Darwinism.9 The psychologist Crawford bemoans the 'heavy burden'
placed on evolutionary theory by Social Darwinist defences of predatory
business practices, racism, inequality and imperialism, while the
philosopher Ruse, in denying the connection, stresses the scientific
authenticity of sociobiology. 10
Both accusers and accused share one point in common: they agree in
P. Samuelson, 'Sociobiology, a New Social Darwinism', Newsweek, 7 July 1975;

Sahlins, The Use and Abuse of Biology, 72; J. Thompson, 'The New Social Darwinism:
The Politics of Sociobiology', Politics, 17(1982), 121-8.
7
Rose, Lewontin and Kamin, Not in Our Genes, 243.
8
J. Lopreato, Human Nature and Bio-Cultural Evolution (Boston: Allen and Unwin,
1984), 8. Wilson distances himself from the 'absolute Social Darwinist', Sumner, in
Human Nature, 208.
9
Degler, In Search of Human Nature, 13, 42, 112.
10
C. Crawford, 'Sociobiology: Of What Value to Psychology?' in C. Crawford, M. Smith
and D. Krebs, eds., Sociobiology and Psychology (London/New Jersey: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, 1987), 4-5; M. Ruse, 'Sociobiology and Knowledge', in Crawford
et al, Sociobiology and Psychology, 63-5. Sarah Hrdy admits that sociobiology is 'social
Darwinism' because it applies Darwinism to human society, but denies it is 'Social
Darwinism' because it does not attempt to justify social inequalities. S. B. Hrdy, The
Woman That Never Evolved (1981), cited in Bellomy, "'Social Darwinism" Revisited',
16.
equating Social Darwinism with certain ideological positions such as
racism, imperialism, patriarchy and, especially, pro-capitalism. Socio-
biologists then refute the charge of Social Darwinism by denying any
connection with such positions, by pointing to their own liberal political
persuasions, or by separating Darwinism from the ideological perver-
sions to which it has been subjected.
From the perspective of this study both the allegations and their
denials are irrelevant. Social Darwinism cannot be defined by its
ideological functions or equated with a particular political position.
Whether or not sociobiology is Social Darwinist depends on whether or
not its practitioners adhere to the five components of the world view
identified earlier. In the remainder of this chapter I argue that socio-
biologists do adhere to the components of this world view and are quite
unambiguously Social Darwinists. This is followed by an assessment of
the salient characteristics of this Social Darwinism and its relationship to
earlier manifestations. I make no pretence to have covered the socio-
biological literature comprehensively but I believe that the selections
used convey an accurate portrait of the assumptions underpinning the
discipline.
My focus, for reasons of convenience, is on the literature published
from 1975, but it is worth underlining a connection - one which others
have already highlighted - between modern sociobiology and what has
been termed the 'pop ethology' of the previous decade.11 The works in
question include Robert Ardrey's African Genesis (1961) and The
Territorial Imperative (1967); The Naked Ape (1967) by Desmond
Morris; On Aggression (1966) by Konrad Lorenz; and The Imperial
Animal (1970) by Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox. These books were, albeit
in rather different ways, concerned with human nature and looked to
ethology and evolutionary biology for enlightenment. They linked
humans to other animal species through the shared possession of innate
capacities for aggression, territoriality and predation which had evolved
in our hominid predecessors through natural selection. These pre-
dispositions remained a powerful legacy in modern times and under-
pinned such phenomena as war, patriotism, private property and sexual
difference.
The free (and in some instances, dubious) speculations of pop
ethology earned the hostility of some professional biologists, and
modern sociobiologists like Wilson and Dawkins have dissociated
themselves from this literature.12 Its relevance to this study resides in its
11
The expression 'pop ethology' is taken from Gould, Ever Since Darwin, 240. The
connections with sociobiology are noted in Rose et ah, Not in Our Genes, 239-40.
12
For a critique of this material see Gould, Ever Since Darwin, chap. 30. Dawkins
explicit utilisation of Darwinism as a means to an understanding of
human nature and certain social institutions and practices. Having
established (at least to their satisfaction) the existence of behavioural
uniformities among humans and other social animals the authors then
ascribed these uniformities to natural selection. Evolved over millennia
these patterns derived from innate features of human nature and were
discernible in such cross-cultural practices as incest taboos, territoriality
and war. Because these phenomena were deeply rooted in the human
evolutionary heritage they were usually held to be immune to radical
alteration.
These claims will be illustrated by a single example, Robert Ardrey's
The Territorial Imperative.13 Ardrey, a former American playwright,
had a personal mission to counteract, through the popularisation of
recent discoveries and developments in population genetics, ethology
and palaeontology, what he saw as widespread misunderstandings
about human nature and society. The particular theme of this
publication was the universal human need - shared with some other
social animals - for territory. 'The territorial nature of man5, asserted
Ardrey, 'is genetic and ineradicable' (116). It had evolved through
natural selection in our pre-human ancestors on the African savannah
and, in conjunction with other psychological and behavioural attri-
butes evolved in like manner, was responsible for a good deal of social
action. 'We act as we do for reasons of our evolutionary past, not our
cultural present ...' (5). The 'biological nation' was an example of
this kind of programming. It was defined as a social group with at
least two mature males, in exclusive possession of a piece of territory,
isolated 'from others of its kind through outward antagonism', and
within which there was social cooperation (191). According to Ardrey,
this form of social organisation had been in existence in the animal
kingdom for fifty million years (192). Patriotism, therefore was a
'predictable force' elicited by the appropriate circumstances just as in
any 'territorial species' (232).
Ardrey was adamant that 'the basic evolutionary unit is not the
individual but the population of which he is a part' (138). He went even
further than this, insisting that 'through natural selection evolution is
capable of fostering inborn traits ... restraining the individual to the
ultimate benefit of his species. I see no reason to regard this as other
describes this literature as 'totally and utterly wrong', primarily for its insistence on
group as opposed to individual selection. Dawkins, Selfish Gene, 2. For Wilson's
reaction, see Rose et al, Not in Our Genes, 240. J. Diamond is dismissive of Ardrey in
his The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee (London: Vintage, 1992), 33.
13
London: Collins, 1967.
than a biological morality' (79). Hence there was 'no qualitative break
between the moral nature of the animal and the moral nature of man'
(78). This morality, however, was confined to the ingroup. Resurrecting
the arguments of Arthur Keith on the 'dual code', Ardrey insisted that
aggression and warfare - the 'code of enmity' - were equally deeply
ingrained in human nature as the result of selective forces (286-8).
Ardrey's books were bestsellers and so these ideas reached a large
public. Of significance to this study are a number of features which these
writings shared with the other pop ethologists. First, there was a clear
endorsement of Darwinian evolutionary theory, with particular emphasis
on the importance of natural selection and competition. Second, there
was an unhesitating application of this theory to human psychology and
culture in order to grasp the fundamental attributes of human nature.
Thus the pop ethologists reproduced both the discursive substance and
the ambitions of earlier Social Darwinists.
There was one point, though, on which these modern Social Darwin-
ists differed from their earliest counterparts like Bagehot, Spencer,
Royer and Haeckel. The latter had posited a socio-psychological
development from primitive to modern - usually from military to
industrial types of social organisation and mentality. True, all believed
in the possibility of arrested development and atavism at both the
individual and the social levels: the primitive legacy could still assert its
presence in modern civilisation. But as I have sought to show, the
primary function of the primitive in these theories was to define the
starting point of evolution by marking the threshold of animality/
humanity. In pop ethology this threshold was erased and evolutionary
time no longer acted to distance the modern from the primitive but
served to underscore the continuity of the primitive in the modern. The
Social Darwinism of Ardrey et al collapsed the distance not only
between the primitive and the modern but between the animal and the
human. In this, they continued a form of Social Darwinism already
developed by, for example, Lapouge, in which human nature appears as
an unchanging essence. As we shall see, this tendency is maintained in
sociobiology.
The world view of sociobiology

As stated above, sociobiologists are unequivocally Darwinian in outlook.
Wilson has summarised what this means in the context of human
evolution. Genes predisposing their carriers to adopt traits that en-
hanced their adaptiveness would be spread through the population by
natural selection.
Adaptiveness means simply that if an individual displayed the traits he stood a
better chance of having his genes represented in the next generation than if he
did not display the traits. The differential advantage among individuals in this
strictest sense is called genetic fitness. There are three basic components of
geneticfitness:increased personal survival, increased personal reproduction, and
the enhanced survival and reproduction of close relatives who share the same
genes by common descent. An improvement in any one of the factors or in any
combination of them results in greater genetic fitness.14
The driving force of evolution is selection deriving from competition
for resources. Dawkins depicts the most intense manifestation of this
competition occurring among conspecifics, but the relationship between
predator and prey can also be seen in these terms since the evolutionary
goals of the antelope and the lion hunting it are 'mutually incompa-
tible'. 15 However, what distinguishes sociobiology and gives it analytical
(and polemical) bite is its assertion that evolutionary theory facilitates a
scientific understanding of many aspects of human psychology and
culture. Parallels - sometimes close ones - are posited between certain
human social practices like murder, pair-bonding, warfare and rape, and
behaviour patterns in other social animals. Matt Ridley, in his book on
sex and human evolution, argues that if we were chimpanzees we would
still exhibit many of our characteristics, i.e. 'we would be family based,
urban, class-conscious, nationalist and belligerent, which we are'.
Where humans differ profoundly from chimpanzees is in the realm of
sexual behaviour. Here the appropriate comparison is with birds. Ridley
asserts that 'man is just like an ibis or a swallow or a sparrow. He lives in
large colonies. Males compete with each other for places in a pecking
order. Most males are monogamous.' 16 Jared Diamond has likewise
proposed animal precursors for two seemingly uniquely human capa-
cities, language and art. 17
The assumption is that if evolutionary theory can explain the
emergence of pair-bonding, adultery, aggression and incest avoidance in
animal societies, it can do so for humans. Culture is not denied all
relevance: on the contrary, most sociobiologists acknowledge an
interactive relationship between genes and culture which they refer to as
co-evolution. 18 Yet ultimately most see genetic evolution as the
determinant of cultural possibilities. In the words of Wilson: 'The genes
hold culture on a leash. The leash is very long, but inevitably values will
14 15
Wilson, On Human Nature, 32-3. Dawkins, Selfish Gene, 67, 83.
16
M. Ridley, The Red Queen (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994), 208, 226.
17
Diamond, Rise and Fall, chaps. 8 and 9.
18
Lopreato, Human Nature, chap. 3; C. J. Lumsden and E. O. Wilson, Genes, Mind and
Culture: The Coevolutionary Process (Harvard University Press, 1981).
be constrained in accordance with their effects on the human gene
pool.'19
One of the most provocative examples of sociobiology challenging
conventional approaches to a topic is the theory of rape advanced by the
Thornhills. After studying 'rape' - i.e. forced copulation of a female by a
male - among scorpion flies, the authors turn their attention to human
rape. Rejecting alternative explanations, the Thornhills argue that, as
with scorpion flies, human rape is 'an evolved mating tactic'. It occurs
when low-status males are denied mating opportunities, allowing these
males some opportunity to spread their genes and increase their
inclusive fitness. Although the reproductive benefits of rape are very low,
in evolutionary terms they could prove to be important. According to
the Thornhills: 6A small difference in fitness between men who raped
when other avenues of reproduction were closed compared to men who
did not rape in this context during evolutionary history would be
expected to lead to major evolutionary change.'20
Another controversial focus has been on sexual differences. Wilson
claims that men and women have evolved different physical and mental
traits through evolutionary history. Among our early forebears, men
hunted and competed with other males for women, hence men, as with
males in most species, tend to be aggressive, women much less so.21
Males can in principle impregnate many females, while females have to
invest much time and effort in childbearing. These different reproduc-
tive strategies have produced different traits in males and females, with
the latter, according to Ridley, favouring monogamous relationships and
the former more promiscuous, prone to opportunistic mating 'and to
use wealth, power and violence as means to sexual ends in the
competition with other men .. .'22 Ridley goes on to argue that while, in
contrast to chimpanzees and gorillas, humans tend to form monoga-
mous pairs in which the males invest time and effort in childcare,
adultery nevertheless can be advantageous to both sexes, which is why it
is a 'chronic problem throughout human society .. .' 23 Ridley believes
that these evolved sex differences explain much social behaviour. Thus
for men he maintains that 'deep in the mind of modern man is a simple
male hunter-gatherer rule: strive to acquire power and use it to lure
women who will bear heirs; strive to acquire wealth and use it to buy
affairs with other men's wives who will bear bastards.'24
19
Wilson, On Human Nature, 167.
20
R. Thornhill and N . W. Thornhill, 'Human Rape: The Strengths of the Evolutionary
Perspective', in Crawford et al, Sociobiology and Psychology, 283.
21 22
Wilson, On Human Nature, 125-8. Ridley, Red Queen, 198.
23 24
Ibid., 220. Ibid., 236.
c
Ridley insists that: Men and women have different minds. The
differences are the direct result of evolution.'25 Equally adamant that
difference does not entail inequality he nonetheless insists that the
differences are real and cannot be attributed to social conventions.26 A
similar position is upheld by Wilson, who proposes that: 'Even with
identical education for men and women and equal access to all
professions, men are likely to maintain disproportionate representation
in political life, business and science. Many would fail to participate fully
in the equally important, formative aspects of child rearing.' 27
These examples suffice to demonstrate the Social Darwinist creden-
tials of sociobiology, the entire rationale for which is predicated on the
fifth assumption of the world view, namely that Darwinian theory can
explain important aspects of human society, culture and psychology.
Moreover, despite their protestations to the contrary, sociobiologists are
in this respect closely allied to the pop ethologists of the 1960s. Whatever
the sophistication of the former, in both instances the project of
synthesising evolutionary theory with ethology and ecology and applying
this synthesis to problems erstwhile deemed to be the province of
psychology, anthropology and sociology is clearly articulated. In this, the
pop ethologists may actually have facilitated the wide acceptance of
sociobiology by introducing some of its central ideas to the general
public.
There are two other areas in which sociobiology evinces close links
with pop ethology, and before that with early Social Darwinist texts.
First, sociobiologists concede nothing to previous generations of Social
Darwinists when it comes to speculative audacity. Wilson has proposed
genetic explanations for crime, murder, ethnocentrism and aggression
and homosexuality and speculated as to how these traits might improve
genetic fitness.28 Others have advanced evolutionary explanations for
suicide, fasting, drug taking, and why modern (as opposed to pre-
modern) men prefer slim women.29 Sociobiology excels in the construc-
tion of evolutionary narratives that relate current institutions, fashions
and social practices to the selection of genes in the evolutionary past.
Second, like their predecessors, sociobiologists have been conspicuous
25 26 27
Ibid., 240. Ibid., 253. Wilson, On Human Nature, 133.
28
Ibid., 44, 83-100, 143-7.
29
O n suicide see D . de Catanzaro, 'Evolutionary Pressures and Limitations to Self-
Preservation', in Crawford et ah, Sociobiology and Psychology, 3 1 1 - 3 3 ; for dieting,
Lopreato, Human Nature, 214; for drug addiction, Diamond, Rise and Fall, chap. 11;
for slim women, Ridley, Red Queen, 279-84. There is a resounding critique of these
attempts to explain current social practices through the selection of genes for which n o
evidence actually exists in R. C. Lewontin, The Doctrine of DNA (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1993), 100-4.
for both proclaiming the ethical neutrality of the science of sociobiology
and advertising its relevance to moral debates. Thus Lopreato writes:
'Free competition - that is at once the game and the fundamental
principle of the ethics implicit in biocultural science.' 30 Wilson adopts a
similar position, believing that human biology 'will fashion a biology of
ethics, which will make possible the selection of a more deeply
understood and enduring code of moral values'. 31 In fact Wilson betrays
his affinities with older (and allegedly discredited) modes of discourse in
a disturbing passage where he contends that in the light of our current
knowledge 'we are justified in considering the preservation of the entire
gene pool as a contingent primary value until such time as an almost
unimaginably greater knowledge of human heredity provides us with the
option of a democratically contrived eugenics*'.32 Even Dawkins, who is
sensitive to the charge of biological reductionism, draws ethical conclu-
sions from his thesis of the selfish gene. Organisms, he argues, are
vehicles made by genes in order that the latter can replicate themselves.
Nevertheless, human mental capacities mean that we 'have the power to
defy the selfish genes of our birth .. .' 33 But Dawkins, in language close
to that of Wilson and other sociobiologists, makes plain the fact that this
power renders humans unique in nature:
Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals
cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect
little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism,
because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up
to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs,
something that no other species has ever aspired to.34
In the light of this discursive continuity I am sympathetic to Crook's
verdict that sociobiologists are inflicted with 'collective amnesia about
their forebears'. Reading them induces a feeling of deja vu, because:
'The same old issues keep cropping up, although the language is now
more sophisticated .. .' 35 The remainder of this chapter examines in
more detail the relationship between the Social Darwinism of the
sociobiologists and that espoused by their intellectual ancestors.
30
Lopreato, Human Nature, 3 4 0 , original emphasis.
31 32
Wilson, On Human Nature, 198. Ibid., m y emphasis.
33
Dawkins, Selfish Gene, 2 0 0 .
34
Ibid., 3 , original emphasis. A similar conclusion occurs in M . Konner, ' H u m a n Nature
and Culture: Biology and the Residue of Uniqueness', in J. J. Sheehan and M . Sosna,
eds., The Boundaries of Humanity: Humans, Animals, Machines (Oxford: University of
California Press, 1991), 120.
35
Crook, Darwinism, War and History, 196, 198. Greta Jones also arrived at this
conclusion in 1980; Social Darwinism, 187.
Continuities and contrasts

Since 1859 Darwinian theory has been revised and enriched by advances
in genetics and other pertinent sciences. What are the consequences of
these developments for the application of Darwinism to social and
psychological phenomena, i.e. are there any substantial differences
between early and contemporary versions of Social Darwinism? An-
swering this question is difficult due to the range of Social Darwinist
applications subsumed under the rubric of 'early', i.e. covering the
period 1859-1945. Bearing in mind the potential this creates for
overgeneralisation and oversimplification, it is possible to arrive at some
preliminary conclusions by focusing upon a number of themes in
Darwinism, particularly upon those which constituted the indetermina-
cies of the earlier versions.
The struggle for existence

Natural selection through the struggle for existence was the mechanism
adopted by Darwin to explain evolution. We have seen how the
application of this mechanism to human affairs generated a variety of
interpretations, ranging from the presentation of human conflict in its
several manifestations as the analogue of natural selection to the thesis of
an evolution of struggle itself from violent to peaceful modes as
civilisation advanced. The interpretation of the social equivalents of
natural selection was, accordingly, a key issue for Social Darwinists and
one that provided a rich rhetorical resource.
It is interesting to note that after the Modern Synthesis Darwinian
biology tended to downplay the notion of a struggle for existence.
Biologists continued to acknowledge a role for direct conflict in natural
selection but denied that this was inevitably the case since selection
'may simply be a matter of differential birth-rates'. If two strains of
bacteria are placed in identical conditions and one has a higher rate of
division, it will eventually replace the other completely without any
violent struggle occurring.36 Sociobiologists, in contrast, tend to stress
competition and conflict as integral to selective dynamics. Some,
certainly, have objected to the equation of natural selection with a
nature 'red in tooth and claw'.37 These dissenters are in the minority.
36
Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2 9 1 - 2 . Smith, in his popular Theory of Evolution (first
edition 1958, third edition 1975), refers to the struggle for existence only twice (32,
42).
37
Crawford, 'Sociobiology', 7. Wilson also denies natural selection is necessarily lethal,
Diversity of Life, 74. However, in his analysis of human behaviour he has stressed the
ubiquity of murder and aggression. See Wilson, On Human Nature, 8 3 , 99.
Dawkins explicitly endorses this equation, stating 'I think "nature red
in tooth and claw" sums up our modern understanding of natural
selection admirably.'38 This perception of nature is unflinchingly
applied to human societies. The anthropologist Konner maintains that
all forms of conflict, up to and including homicide, can be found in
every type of human society as well as in 'virtually all animal species for
which there is sufficient evidence'.39 He castigates social scientists for
falsely assuming that society is an organism in which conflict is
aberrant. On the contrary, conflict is endemic in all social relations and
'among unrelated individuals can be expected at times to be extreme'.40
Even within families there is conflict because members have different
evolutionary goals which will periodically lead to competition: between
husband and wife, parents and progeny, siblings. 'Such conflict is not
inadvertent friction in a system that should, by design, function
smoothly but is an inherent and inevitable expression of the purposes
of social life itself.'41
By making conflict arising from the attempts by individuals to
improve inclusive fitness a central feature of social reality, socio-
biologists have reinstated the view of some earlier thinkers. Darwin and
his supporters were engaged in the attempt to redefine nature and
stress the importance of struggle, death and extinction. At the social
level, many Social Darwinists supported the notion of violent inter-
social conflict coupled with peaceful intra-social competition, a
tradition that has been reasserted by sociobiology. Wilson, for example,
explains warfare as a consequence of ethnocentrism, which is 'the
emotionally exaggerated allegiance of individuals to their kin and fellow
tribesmen'.42 Human brains are programmed to divide people into
friends and aliens just as some birds are predisposed to learn certain
songs. Hence: 'We tend to fear deeply the actions of strangers and to
solve conflict by aggression.'43 But the sociobiologists seem to go much
further than even the most conflict-oriented of the earlier theorists,
who while perhaps regarding warfare between rival states and races as
inevitable would have shrunk from the implications that murder, rape,
adultery and child abuse were universal - and perhaps ineradicable -
features of social systems because they were encoded in human genes.
In this respect, sociobiology adopts an even more uncompromising
perspective on the struggle for existence than did early Social
Darwinism.
38 39
Dawkins, Selfish Gene, 2. Konner, 'Human Nature and Culture', 109, 111.
40 41
Ibid., I l l , original emphasis. Ibid., 119.
42 43
Wilson, On Human Nature, 111. Ibid., 119.
Sexual selection
Few of Darwin's followers assigned much significance to sexual selection
as an evolutionary mechanism, although there were exceptions, and I
have underlined the efforts of feminists like Gamble and Gilman to
enlist sexual selection in the cause of female equality. Modern biologists
recognise the role of sexual selection in evolution. Although it is
ultimately subsumed under natural selection, sexual selection is assigned
importance because traits which foster reproductive success could
conflict with survival, as in the case of the peacock's tail.
Sociobiologists have made sexual selection an important part of their
explanation of sexual dimorphism and have not shrunk from extending
the analysis to human sexual differences. The differences they accent-
uate are almost identical to those emphasised by earlier Social
Darwinists although, unlike some of the latter, sociobiologists are quick
to repudiate any implication of female inferiority. As with the earlier
period, such theorising is not exclusively male: several prominent
sociobiologists are female and some feminists have insisted on the need
to recognise the importance of sex differences.44 Other feminists, while
recognising the relevance of biology to the formation of sexual
identities, reject sociobiological accounts of these identities as exces-
sively reductionist.45
Sociobiologists dismiss these accusations while at the same time
insisting on the reality of differences established through evolution and
the constraints these differences place upon socio-political action. In
Wilson's words: 'The consequences of genetic history cannot be chosen
by legislatures.'46 As with early forms of Social Darwinism, then,
sociobiologists tend to use sexual and natural selection to represent
certain aspects of the sexual division of labour as reposing upon 'natural'
distinctions, although in ways which would have been most uncongenial
to Gamble and Gilman.
The unit of selection

From the outset, Darwinism contained an indeterminacy over the unit
of selection, i.e. whether it was the individual or the group. This
permitted different social applications in which struggle occurred
44
Examples are cited in Ridley, Red Queen, 255; Degler, In Search of Human Nature, chap.
12.
45
L. Birke, Women, Feminism and Biology (Brighton: Harvester, 1986), 11-43; E. F .
Keller, 'Language and Ideology in Evolutionary Theory: Reading Cultural Norms into
Natural Law', in Sheehan and Sosna, eds., Boundaries of Humanity, 8 6 - 7 , 99.
46
Wilson, On Human Nature, 7.
primarily between individuals or groups (clans, classes, nation-states,
races or empires) according to the ideological predilection of the
theorist. These debates continue, although the present consensus is that
selection acts upon individual organisms or their genes. Modern biology
and sociobiology seem to have narrowed, if not closed off, one of the
original indeterminacies in the Darwinian world view.
One consequence has been a marked emphasis on self-interested
behaviour, whether at the level of individuals or genes. Altruism is
reduced to the unconscious effort to maximise inclusive fitness or else to
the expectation of reciprocal aid in the future, which is a form of self-
interest. Thus Wilson contends that: 'Our societies are based on the
mammalian plan: the individual strives for personal reproduc tive
success foremost and that of his immediate kin secondarily; further
grudging cooperation represents a compromise struck in order to enjoy
the benefits of group membership.'47 Dawkins insists that: 'Much as we
might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the
species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary
sense.' 48 Daly and Wilson are sceptical about the existence of suppo-
sedly social as opposed to individual interests. They argue that
evolutionary theory 'suggests that the individual is a more basic mode of
unitary self-interest than is the larger society, and hence that appeals to
society's interests may often be self-serving smoke screens'. 49 Indeed,
they erect self-interest into a normative standard by arguing that insanity
occurs when individuals no longer recognise or wish to pursue their self-
interest. Since in evolutionary terms self-interest equates with inclusive
fitness, 'sanity is characterised by the intelligible pursuit of nepotistic
self-interest' while insanity consists in 'the forswearing of that pursuit'. 50
In sociobiology groups still compete with one another but, as we have
seen, this stems from genetically rooted ethnocentricity - a blind
allegiance to one's tribe which probably originated in kin-selection.
Most sociobiologists, however, avoid discussion of one of the most
salient forms of group conflict in early Social Darwinism - race. Wilson
correctly observes that scientists agree that it is impossible, on biological
grounds, to identify discrete races, and insists that 'almost all' differ-
ences between societies are cultural rather than hereditary.51 Others
47 48
Ibid., 199. Dawkins, Selfish Gene, 2.
49
M . Daly and M. Wilson, 'Evolutionary Psychology and Family Violence', in Crawford
et al.s Sociobiology and Psychology, 2 9 4 . See also Dawkins, Selfish Gene, 255: 'The group
is too wishy-washy an entity. A herd of deer, a pride of lions or a pack of wolves has a
certain rudimentary coherence and unity of purpose. But this is paltry in comparison to
the coherence and unity of purpose of the body of an individual lion, wolf or deer.'
50
Daly and Wilson, 'Evolutionary Psychology and Family Violence', 3 0 3 .
51
Wilson, On Human Nature, 4 8 - 9 . See also D i a m o n d , Rise and Fall, 1 9 9 - 2 0 0 , 2 1 3 - 1 4 .
have denied racism any foundations in evolutionary theory, while
acknowledging that racist ideology may have been adaptive in consoli-
dating ingroup solidarity.52 Needless to say, this has not prevented the
appropriation of sociobiology by racist individuals and movements, as
ever seeking a scientific legitimation for their beliefs. One example must
suffice. In Britain during the 1970s the racist National Front Party was
quick to seize upon sociobiology in order to validate its doctrines of
European racial supremacy and its opposition to liberalism and
Marxism.53 Despite the atomistic methodological bias of sociobiology,
then, and the liberal persuasion of many of its Anglo-American
practitioners, it can and has been deployed to explain both group and
individual antagonisms.
Heredity
Modern Darwinism is unremittingly hereditarian and the action of the
environment through the inheritance of acquired characters is rejected
by sociobiologists. Here one of the original indeterminacies is definitely
closed off in that a Social Darwinist would find it very difficult nowadays
to endorse Lamarckism. The debate about nurture versus nature is as
fierce as ever, although it now takes place between Social Darwinists and
their opponents rather than, additionally, within Social Darwinism itself
as was once the case.
Most sociobiologists acknowledge the importance of culture as a
determinant of human behaviour and even concede a dialectical
interplay between genes and culture, with the latter having a selective
impact on the former. In practice, as I have already indicated, when it
comes to accounting for certain key institutions and practices, socio-
biologists assign causal primacy to inherited biological traits. Thus
Lopreato, in challenging Weber's thesis on the importance of Calvinist
ideas of predestination in the development of early capitalism,
comments: 'ideas may indeed have been powerful forces in the
maturation of modern capitalism, but only because they were "public
images" of a biological substratum. Without the latter, they would have
fallen on deaf ears.'54
An important arena for the contest between sociobiological and
52
I. Silverman, 'Race, Race Differences and Race Relations: Perspectives from Psychol-
ogy and Sociobiology', in Crawford et ah, Sociobiology and Psychology, 2 1 7 - 1 8 .
53
See R. Verral, 'Sociobiology: T h e Instinct in Our Genes', Spearhead, 127(March,
1979), 1 0 - 1 1 . T h e same journal later carried an article on Darwin in its 'Great British
Racists' series. See Spearhead, 130(August 1979), 11. I am grateful to Steve W o o d -
bridge for these references.
54
Lopreato, Human Nature, 92.
cultural explanations has been the topic of incest prohibitions. Since
these can be found in animal societies as well, they are deemed to have
an instinctual basis. In humans, individuals who had a genetic aversion
to mating with close kin would have left more descendants than those
without this trait, and hence incest aversion would have been implanted
through natural selection.
This kind of explanation is not new and a version of it was advanced
over a century ago by Westermarck - as sociobiologists acknowledge.55
Westermarck surmised that if selection favoured those who avoided
injurious sexual unions, then an instinct for incest avoidance would
develop. 'Of course', he continued, 'it would display itself simply as an
aversion on the part of individuals to union with others with whom they
lived; but these, as a matter of fact, would be blood-relations, so that the
result would be survival of the fittest.'56 Sociobiologists claim that
Westermarck's conjectures have been confirmed by modern ethnology:
unrelated children that are brought up together are unlikely to marry
and when they do they tend to produce fewer offspring than couples
who were brought up separately.57 Some sociobiologists have inferred
from this that incest rarely occurs and so-called incest taboos actually
prohibit adultery and inbreeding (i.e. cross-cousin unions) 'and are
made to enhance the fitness of powerful men, the rule-makers'. 58 An
anthropologist has gone so far as to proclaim that 'purely cultural
explanations' of incest avoidance are simply untenable. 59
These views are contentious and tend to receive a hostile reception
from cultural anthropologists.60 I lack the time and competence to
engage in these debates, but fortunately there is no need. All that
requires emphasis is the 'hard' hereditarianism of modern sociobiology
linking it with pop ethology and, before that, with the Weismann-
inspired versions of Social Darwinism which emerged towards the end
of the nineteenth century. The effect is that within Social Darwinism an
indeterminacy has been closed off.
55
F o r example, Ridley, Red Queen, 2 7 4 - 7 .
56 57
Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, 352. Ridley, Red Queen, 275.
58
N . Thornhill and R. Thornhill, 'Evolutionary Theory and Rules of Mating on Marriage
Pertaining to Relatives', in Crawford et al, Sociobiology and Psychology, 397.
59
P. L. van den Berghe, 'Incest Taboos and Avoidance: Some African Applications', in
Crawford et al., Sociobiology and Psychology, 353.
60
For a balanced assessment of cultural and instinctive explanations of incest taboos, see
A. Kuper, The Chosen Primate (London/ Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1994), 156-66. This study is an excellent critical review of sociobiological accounts of
aggression, pair-bonding, kinship and gender differences in the light of the ethno-
graphic record.
Human nature
Darwinism represented a challenge to the idea of species essentialism
which in turn undermined the notion of a fixed human essence. Very
quickly, however, evolutionary theory itself was used to underwrite the
view that human nature changed so slowly that within the compass of
the historical record and the foreseeable future it could be taken as fixed.
Versions of Social Darwinism appeared and gained wide credence in
which human institutions and behavioural attributes - particularly those
associated with race - were presented as virtually timeless.61 This
assumption was also an important component of pop ethology, as we
saw above.
It is also a premiss of sociobiology whose practitioners, almost without
exception, maintain that the nature of modern humans was, in
essentials, established thousands of years ago. Modern people possess
the emotional and behavioural repertoire of the hunter-gatherers who
were their remote ancestors, much of which is in turn shared with
primates and even other animals. In the words of Wilson: 'Human
nature is ... a hodgepodge of special genetic adaptations to an
environment largely vanished, the world of the ice-age hunter-gatherer.
Modern life, as rich and rapidly changing as it appears to those caught in
it, is nevertheless only a mosaic of cultural hypertrophies of the archaic
behavioural adaptations.'62 We have already encountered a similar
explanation by Ridley, namely the 'hunter-gatherer rule' to acquire
wealth and power for the purpose of acquiring women. In a recent
publication Wilson bases his hope for conservationist policies aimed at
protecting biological and ecological diversity partly on the existence of
innate features of human nature. These he refers to as biophilia: 'the
connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life'.
The human heritage, he argues, is at least two million years old,
stretching back to the appearance of the genus homo. In intimate contact
with nature, our ancestors struggled to understand it. 'The imprint of
that effort cannot have been erased in a few generations of urban
existence.'63
The effect of arguments such as these is to reinstate human nature as
the foundation of ethical and social thought and practice, as noted
above; a human nature which, to all intents and purposes, we can take as
fixed. Its main parameters were determined perhaps two million years
ago and despite the vast cultural changes that have occurred since then,
these parameters still provide the key to an understanding of much
61
See m y ' T h e Struggle for Existence in Nineteenth Century Social Thought'.
62 63
Wilson, On Human Nature, 196. Wilson, Diversity of Life, 334, 332-3.
social action and many institutions. I am not concerned here with the
veracity of these arguments, for it seems perfectly consistent with
Darwinism to maintain that some species undergo little change over
long periods. My point is that evolutionary theory - a theory of change -
has been used to reinsert what is in practice a human essence into the
fundamental premisses of socio-political thought. In this, sociobiologists
are continuing a long-standing tendency in Social Darwinism.
Sociobiologists are not therefore interested in social change.64 Unlike
the early Social Darwinists, they do not seek to construct stages of
social and/or mental evolution. Like the pop ethologists, they do not
ask how modern people were differentiated from primitives and
primates: on the contrary, they seek to demonstrate that modern traits
and institutions can be found in primitives and primates because they
have been selected for by evolution. The chronological distance
between modern humans, primitives, hominids and apes is condensed.
Time's arrow becomes Zeno's arrow.65 Whereas this distances socio-
biologists sharply from someone like Spencer, it does show continuity
with certain developments in early Social Darwinism, for example the
theories of Gumplowicz and Lapouge, and the writings of Graham
Wallas.
It is their insistence on the presence of timeless and universal features
of human nature deriving from a genetic basis selected by evolution
which has earned sociobiologists their reputation as conservatives.
However much sociobiologists insist on their ethical neutrality or liberal
credentials, their critics charge them with furnishing justifications for the
status quo. Thus the American geneticist Lewontin sees sociobiology as
'the latest and most mystified attempt to convince people that human
life is pretty much what it has to be and perhaps even ought to be'. 66
There is substance to these charges, as the examples cited here testify.
But this political orientation should not be confused with the Social
Darwinism of sociobiology and nor should it preclude the possibility
that there exist modern examples of Social Darwinism employed in the
service of more radical programmes, just as in the past (compare
Lapouge and Wallas).
64
It is instructive to recall Greta Jones's verdict on Wilson: 'Wilson is searching less for a
scientific theory of human social evolution than for an ontology of human nature in
which there is a strong biological component': Social Darwinism, 192.
65
Zeno was a fifth-century B C Eleatic philosopher who endeavoured to prove that an
object in motion was apparently at rest.
66
Lewontin, Doctrine of DNA, 89. Lewontin continues: 'After all, if 3 billion years of
evolution have made us what we are, do we really think that a hundred days of
revolution will change us?' (90).
Nature as model and threat

Throughout this study I have drawn attention to the dual resonance of
nature within Social Darwinism as both a model for and a threat to
social existence. This duality varied in both the extent of its presence
and in its discursive consequences. In some versions of Social
Darwinism, such as Nazism, it was muted: nature was a model for social
practices. What tended to fluctuate in Nazism was the status of nature,
which alternated between an inexorable force against which culture was
impotent and a rather fragile balance that required socio-political
intervention for its preservation. This conception of nature was, as we
have seen, prefigured in Lapouge and other late nineteenth-century
thinkers.
In sociobiology the model/threat duality inclines to the muted variant.
I have sought to show how sociobiologists tend to reify nature as a
powerful causal force and as a normative guideline for cultural practices.
In the words of Ridley: 'Nurture always reinforces nature; it rarely fights
it.'67 In some cases, nature is depicted as inimical to certain values.
Thus Dawkins cautions those who wish to live in a world of peace and
cooperation not to look to nature for practical guidance: disinterested
altruistic behaviour must be taught. But even he perceives the possibility
of a moral myth in the proclivity of vampire bats to assist non-related
fellow cave inhabitants in times of need. 'They could herald the
benignant idea that, even with selfish genes at the helm, nice guys can
finish first.'68
The valuation of nature takes on a new twist in sociobiological
writings that decry the environmental hazards created by humans. In
these texts, nature is itself under threat. No longer is nature something
which potentially threatens humans, but also something which is itself
menaced by human agency. Green issues are very much a late twentieth-
century concern and their salience inevitably feeds into a revaluation of
nature and the place of humanity within it. In sociobiology this may
account for the perception of nature as much more a model than a
threat, with the latter emanating from culture rather than from within
nature.
I would not, however, wish to push this point too far. The history of
Social Darwinism shows that the notion of a struggle for existence was
not an easy one for social theorists to handle. It is also problematic for
sociobiologists. No matter how much they extol competition and
emphasise the evolutionary legacy of human nature, they invariably fall
67 68
Ridley, Red Queen, 244. Dawkins, Selfish Gene, 233.
back on human reason as a resource which enables humanity to
recognise this legacy and perhaps even to achieve cooperation and
international solidarity. Though rarely articulated there is an implicit
recognition that murder, rape, nepotism, adultery, aggression and
xenophobia, however 'natural', are morally unacceptable. Yet if these
actions have a genetic basis established thousands of years ago through
natural selection then the only way in which they can be eradicated or
suppressed is through culture. One can expect, therefore, that our
current Social Darwinists will continue to exhibit the dilemmatic
features of their predecessors. Competition, aggression and the battle of
the sexes will continue to appear in their writings as natural expressions
of human evolutionary history. But unless the theorists in question are
prepared wholeheartedly to endorse these actions or - which is most
unlikely - to refrain altogether from any ethical judgement, then they
will persist in representing nature as janiform - as model and threat.
Conclusion
The Social Darwinist world view described in chapter 1 is clearly recog-
nisable in the writings of modern sociobiologists. All of the original five
elements have been retained; what has altered are some of the indeter-
minacies within the world view due to developments in biology and
related sciences. Not only the original world view but many of the
substantive theoretical concerns and tactics of early Social Darwinism -
even many of the same ideas - are reproduced in sociobiology. Social
Darwinism, consequently, is thriving nearly a century and a half after the
appearance of the Origin. Through the publicity accorded their ideas,
the sales of their books, and the dissemination of their theories via
academia, the sociobiologists have reached a very wide audience. Hence
Social Darwinism has likewise been widely popularised and one could
expect it to be manifest in many other areas, though this point cannot be
pursued here.69
It is pointless and misleading to present this popularisation as a
vulgarisation of Darwinism. The application of Darwinian theory to
human society and psychology was an explicit goal of Darwin and the
early Darwinians. There is, therefore, no such thing as 'vulgar' or
'crude' Social Darwinism. What varies between theories is the under-
69
Casual evidence for the penetration of popular culture by Social Darwinism is readily
available. For example, a recent editorial in a utilities magazine on competition within
the industry following privatisation was headed 'Natural Selection'. It began: 'Competi-
tion is a basic instinct. The survival of the fittest determines which species survive and
which ones don't': Utilities Week, 13 October 1995.
standing of Darwinism and the rigour with which it is applied to social
phenomena. Many sociobiologists are rigorous in both respects but then
so were Spencer, Haeckel and Royer given the state of knowledge of
their time, as were Lapouge, Wallas and Lenz later. Sociobiologists are,
then, quite wrong to insist on their differentiation from Social
Darwinism, an insistence which is based upon an ignorance both of the
nature and the history of Social Darwinism.
In the light of this history it is also apparent that sociobiologists are
naive to disclaim any responsibility for the socio-political implications of
their theories, especially as their own writings are usually redolent with
such implications. It is certainly true that Darwinism does not under-
write any specific ideological position or political programme, but as a
contemporary cultural anthropologist, Kuper, has observed, 'it is well to
bear in mind that any persuasive theory about human nature is bound to
become the basis for policies - about child-rearing, social mobility,
educational selection, immigration, even war and peace .. .' 70 Social
Darwinism can underpin more than one theory of human nature, but
this study has demonstrated that such theories are persuasive and have
precisely the consequences enumerated by Kuper. Since the explicit goal
of sociobiology has been the construction of a scientifically based theory
of human nature, and since sociobiologists themselves have been
prominent in the popularisation of this theory, they should not be
surprised at the consequences. Theirs is a long-standing ambition, and
although conversance with its history can hardly be expected to daunt it,
such awareness would at least make innocence as to its implications
impossible.
70
Kuper, Chosen Primate, 17.
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Index
adaptation, 11, 12, 45, 68, 126, 136-7, 145 Bannister, R., 4, 10
population growth as stimulus to, 48, 54 Barnes, John Strachey, 287-8
Spencer on, 84, 87-8 Bebel, August, 154-6, 158, 159, 257-8
Wilson on 'adaptiveness', 298-9 Bergson, Henri, 289
adultery, 300, 304 Bernhardi, Friedrich von, 208-9, 213,
Africa, colonisation of, 204-6 215
alcoholism, 78, 223, 244, 279 Bernstein, Eduard, 157, 158
altruism, 54, 86, 92, 93, 107, 270 Billig, Michael, 17
condemnation of, 189, 238 Binding, K., 232
female, 251, 252, 253-4, 255, 268 biology
modern sociobiological thought on, linkage of sociology and, 52, 54, 99, 103,
293-4,306 109, 137
and strict selectionism, problems of modern developments in, 293-4
reconciling, 29, 103, 108, 171, 173-4 see also determinism; reductionism
see also charity; Darwin, Charles birth control, 160-1, 276
American Civil War, 104, 201, 203 for the 'unfit', 96, 167, 223, 228, 230,
American Indians, 62, 201, 203 243, 245-6, 266
Ammon, Otto, 117, 198-9, 233, 289 see also castration; sterilisation
anarchism, 8, 151, 240-1 Bismarck, Otto von, 123, 144-5
* Anglo-Saxon' nations, 36, 172, 204, 210 Blind, Mathilde, 271
animals, continuities between humans and, Boer War, 226
28, 31, 136, 178, 296-7, 298, 299, Bourgeois, Leon, 179-80
300 Bowler, P., 16
animal breeding as model for human Brace, Charles Loring, 37, 99, 103, 146,
reproduction, 55, 216, 217, 229-30, 151
238 on compatibility of Darwinism and
anti-clericalism, 97, 124, 128, 130, 133, religion, 63, 64-5, 81, 121, 148
142-3, 148, 260 racial theory, 62-4, 104, 120, 200
anti-egalitarianism, 129, 138-40, 223, 240 Bradley, Francis Herbert, 223-6, 229, 231,
anti-Semitism, 133, 197, 236, 272, 275-6, 232
290 brain, 86, 93-4
see also Jews see also cranial measurement; intelligence
apes, descent from, see simian ancestry breeding, selective, 55, 216-17, 229-30,
Ardrey, Robert, The Territorial Imperative, 238,243
296, 297-8 Britain
Aryans, Nordic race, 107, 108-9, 127, 133, eugenics in, 216-18, 220-1, 222-31,
158,235 247
Nazi doctrine, 275-6, 281 Fascism, 287-8
theories of decline, 185, 193-7, 200 pioneering examples of Social
Australian Aborigines, 140, 235 Darwinism, 37, 67-74, 82-103
pre-Darwinian theories of social change,
Bagehot, Walter, 37, 67-73, 81, 99, 186, 45-6,48-51,54-8
298 reform Darwinism, 159-75
335
336 Index
Britain {com.) attitude to women, 36, 251-2
views on women and sexual difference, conception of heredity, 25, 26-7, 31, 44
251-2,253,255-7 Descent of Man (1871), 26, 27, 28, 36,
writings on racial and national conflict, 37, 147,223,251,260
184-5, 204-6, 209-10, 213-15 Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Buchner, Ludwig, 65-7, 73, 81, 103, 148, Animals (1872),36
151 influence in France, 124, 125, 127, 128
Burrow, J. W., 23 influence in Germany, 132, 134
influence in USA, 62, 104-5, 106
capitalism, 8, 67, 112, 152, 153, 295, 296 on inheritance of acquired characters, 4,
Carrel, Alexis, 241-2, 253 26,27
castration, 240, 241 and Lamarck, 17, 27, 39, 41-4
catchphrases, Darwinism as set of, 3-4, 10 and Malthus, 15-16, 50
Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 185, 235 and mutability of species, 30, 41
Chambers, Robert, 37 and natural selection, 4, 26, 27-8, 29,
charity, 65, 86, 140-1, 189 30, 101-2, 147
condemned, 111, 129, 130, 195, 227, On the Origin of Species (1859), 25-7, 28,
242, 276 30, 36, 37, 62, 124, 125, 128, 132
see also welfare relationship to Social Darwinism, 3, 4, 6,
children 14-16, 17,35-8
perceptions of, 77, 81, 91, 98, 99 on sexual selection, 26, 27, 260
rearing of, 265, 270, 300, 301 and Spencer, 4, 14, 15, 37, 84, 87, 88
see also motherhood on struggle, 4, 15-16, 25-6, 29-30, 33,
Christianity, 214, 283 35, 42, 43, 304
denunciation of, 128, 142-4, 195 theory of evolution, 6, 25-30, 34, 36, 41,
see also Roman Catholic Church 119
class structure, 116-17, 185, 228 treatment of human evolution, 27-30,
primitive mentality reproduced in 41
modern lower classes, 70-1, 72 Darwin, Erasmus, 57-8
Cobbe, Frances Power, 259 Darwin, Major Leonard, 229-30, 231, 253
competition, see struggle Dawkins, Richard, 16, 296, 299, 302, 304,
Comte, Auguste, 52-4, 123, 255 306,311
Condorcet, Marquis de, 15 degeneration, 34, 64, 74, 216-17, 219-21,
conflict, see struggle 230
cooperation, social solidarity, 66, 90-1, Degler, C , 8, 295
102, 157, 177-82, 183,213 democracy, 67, 151, 162, 164
Cope, Edward Drinker, 104-5 denunciation of, 194, 198, 242
cranial measurement, 75, 76, 79, 193, 199, Desmond, A., 43
233,256 determinism, 31, 118, 122, 146, 174, 177
Crawford, C , 295 biological, 78-9, 158, 179, 191, 258,
creationism, 23, 55, 63, 105, 125-6, 186 279, 295
criminals, 141, 145, 227, 238, 301 Deweyjohn, 118, 146, 175-7, 183
concept of born criminal, 74-80, 158, Diamond, Jared, 299
263 disease
eugenic solutions, 167, 195-6, 222, beneficial effects in racial improvement,
239-40, 241, 243, 279, 280 222
Crook, D. P., 302 hereditary, elimination of, 225, 240,
cultural and biological transmission, 241-2,279
relationship between, 31, 52, 53, 160, see also sick, the
299-300, 307 division of labour, 49, 66, 136, 153
inequality as foundation for, 108, 125,
Daly, Martin, 306 138, 194
Darwin, Charles Robert, 31, 32, 68, 283 sexual, 249, 253, 256, 267-8, 305
on altruism, 28-9, 189, 247, 251, 293 DNA, 19,293
and assumptions underlying eugenics, Dobzhansky, T., 24
216-17,223,247 Durkheim, Emile, 12-13, 182
Index 337
economic competition, 160, 169, 172, 212, Fabian Society, 159, 160, 162
226, 263-4, 267, 282 Fabianism, 157, 159-68
Spencer's theory, 86, 93 family, condemnation of, 254-5
economic evolution, Molinari's theory, Fascism, 18, 156,272-3
131-2 Italian, 272, 273, 284-9, 290-1
economic selection, 196 feminism, 8, 129-30, 249, 255, 259-64,
Edinburgh University, 43 269
Edmonds, Thomas Rowe, 54-6 Ferguson, Adam, 48-50
education, 169,268 Ferrero, William, 77-8
and evolution, 226, 238, 267, 269, 277 Ferri, Enrico, 156-8, 252
of women, 238, 251, 253, 254 fertility, 102, 155
egalitarianism, 129, 138, 151, 182 concern over differential rates in
see also anti-egalitarianism; inequality; advanced societies, 218, 222, 226-7
women see also population growth
Einstein, Albert, 236 Fischer, Eugen, 233-4, 246
elitism, aristocracy, 116, 139, 223, 231, Fiske, John, 68, 106-8, 109, 114, 118,
237, 245, 246 120-1, 145, 148
Ellis, Henry Henry Havelock, 255-7 fitness, 84, 157,293
embryology, 134, 136 'inclusive', 293, 299, 301, 304, 306
Engels, Frederick, 152-3 Fondation pour l'Etude des Problemes
Enlightenment, 47-51, 54, 128, 198 Humaines, 241
environment, action of, 25, 26-7, 33, 40, Fox, Robin, 296
53, 155 France, 37, 123,272
and heredity, repective roles of, 44, feminist appropriation of Social
134-5, 162-3, 165, 218-19, 222, 241, Darwinism, 129-30, 259-60
307-8 racial theory, 186-9, 191-200, 211-13,
Spencer's theory, 84-8 239-40
see also adaptation; inheritance of solidarity movement, 179-80
acquired characters; struggle see also Darwin, Charles; eugenics;
essentialism, species, 30, 309 French Revolution; progress; struggle
see also human nature; Lapouge, G. free will, see determinism; will
Vacher de; race(s) freedom, see liberty
ethics, see morality French Eugenics Society, 218, 237
ethnocentrism, 295, 301, 304, 306 French Revolution, 67, 123, 194, 198, 199
eugenics, racial hygiene, 55, 96, 215, 264, Freud, Sigmund, 11
265-6, 267, 302
in Britain, 216-18, 220-1, 222-31, Galton, Sir Francis, 37, 117, 217-18
247 Gamble, Eliza Burt, 260-2, 264, 269-70,
and Fabians, 159, 164, 165, 166, 167 305
in France, 196-7, 218, 237-42 Gautier, Emile, 177
in Germany, 79-80, 133, 140-1, 145, Geddes, Patrick, 252
218, 232-7, 246, 276, 279-82 gender
relationship of Social Darwinism to, 6-7, relations, 254-5, 256-7, 258, 260, 261,
216-48,272 263
in the USA, 105, 218, 242-7 stereotypes, 250-1, 252, 255
Eugenics Congress, First International see also sexual differences
(1912), 218 genetics, 24, 231, 252, 293, 303
Eugenics Education Society, 218 genius, evolutionary significance of,
European races, 140 119-20, 121
Lapouge's theory of, 193-200 genocide, 272, 291
euthanasia, 232, 241, 279-80 Gentile, Giovanni, 286-7
evolutionary continuum, primitive Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Etienne, 42
mentality in modern humans, 36, germ-plasm theory, 33, 134, 171, 241
70-2,74-8,80,81,298 German Race Hygiene Society, 218
Spencer on, 91,98-9 German Social Democratic Party, 154,
Evrie, J. H. van, 63, 64 158
338 Index
Germany, 37, 65-7, 123-4, 132-45, 146, in Nazi ideology, 277, 278, 282
158-9,206-7 permanence of hereditary traits, 188,
imperialism, 204 189,190, 191,192-3,201-2
science of racial hygiene {see also and sociobiology, 307-8
eugenics), 232-7, 240, 241 Spencer on, 85, 87, 99
Third Reich, 215, 233, 290, 291 see also Darwin, Charles; environment;
uses of Social Darwinism, 8, 61-2, inheritance of acquired characters
207-8,272-3 heroism, 286, 290
women's movement, 264 Himmler, Heinrich, 246
see also Nazism; struggle Hirst, P. Q., 15
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 262-4, history
269-70, 305 Fascist conceptions of, 285-8
Gobineau, Arthur de, 185, 192, 198,233, Social Darwinism in revisionist
235 historiography, 9-10
Godwin, William, 15 Hitler, Adolf, 185, 215, 273-7, 279, 281-4
Goebbels, Paul Josef, 279, 280, 281, 283-4 Hitler's Secret Book, 273-4
Gould, S. J., 80 MeinKampf, 274, 290
green issues, 311 Hobbes, Thomas, 45-6, 51
Greene, J. C.,. 27 Hoche, A. E., 232
group, 186 Hofstadter, Richard, 3 - 4 , 8, 9
intra-group competition/conflict, 26, 42, Homo Alpinus (brachycephals), Lapouge's
85, 127, 178, 190, 208, 304 theory, 193-4, 196, 198, 199, 200
role in early stages of evolution, 69, 92, Homo Europaeus (dolichocephals),
213-14 Lapouge's theory, 193-4, 195, 196,
solidarity, 177-81,213 197,200
see also individual homosexuality, 279, 301
Gumplowicz, Ludwig, 117, 189-91,215, human nature, 45-6, 90, 97, 101, 188-9
310 belief in universal, 2 2 - 3 , 5 2 - 3 , 159,
gypsies, Nazi persecution of, 280-1 162-3, 164-5,284,298
challenges to notion of fixed human
habits, inheritance of, 121 essence, 22-3, 30, 46, 51, 128, 176,
Haeckel, Ernst, 10, 37, 106, 132-45, 147, 267, 309
151,298 continuity with animal behaviour, 28, 31,
anti-clericalism of, 133, 142-4, 148 136, 178, 296-7, 298, 299, 300
on dangers of charity and altruism, duality of, 213-14, 298
140-1, 189 Enlightenment theories, 48, 49, 54
on incompatibility of socialism and sociobiologists' thought on, 309-10
Darwinism, 138, 156 humanitarianism, condemned, 240, 242,
on inheritance of acquired characters, 276
27, 134 see also charity; welfare
monism of, 134, 143, 144, 195 humanity
racial theory, 139-40, 145 subject to same laws as rest of nature, 28,
on simian ancestry of humans, 136, 283 3 1 , 3 5 , 4 0 - 1 , 5 2 , 135-6, 178
on struggle for existence, 132, 135, unity of nature and, 45, 46, 47, 48, 191,
136-7, 138-9, 141, 146, 186 296-7, 298
Haller, M. H., 203 see also animals
Hardin, Garrett, 246 'hunter-gatherer rule', 300, 309
Haycraft, John Berry, 222-3, 229, 231, Huxley, Julian, 230-1, 233
232 Huxley, T. H., 43, 94, 142, 148, 168-70,
Hegel, G. W. R, Hegelianism, 51, 223, 171,251
286, 289 evolutionary theory, 34, 106, 174
Helvetius, Claude-Arien, 47-8
heredity, 33, 53, 68, 145, 147, 160, 171 ideologues, 39-40
and criminality, 74-80, 158, 167 ideology
and eugenics, 217, 219, 222, 226-7, ideological functions of Social
233-7,238,241,245,246 Darwinism, 7-8, 17-18, 295-6, 313
Index 339
relationship between world view and, Jones, Greta, 9
21-3,94 Jordanova, L. J., 42
imitation, 69
imperialism, 7, 8, 97, 148, 166, 203-6, 296 Keith, Sir Arthur, 213-15, 298
improvement, ideas of, 99 Kelly, A., 8
see also progress; self-improvement Key, Ellen Karolina Sofia, 265-9, 270
incest, 196, 270, 308 Kidd, Benjamin, 5, 6-7, 171-4, 175
Indiana, USA, sterilisation law, 242 Knox, Robert, 184-5
individual, 107, 119, 190, 211-12 Konner, Melvin, 304
or group as unit of selection? 28-9, 33, Kropotkin, Peter, 157, 177-9, 180-1
165, 189, 293-4, 297-8, 305-6 Kuper, Adam, 313
in Fascist and Nazi ideology, 274-5,
282, 286, 287-8 laissez-faire, 7, 9, 10, 13, 160
priority of collective over, 165-6, 207, critique of, 176,263
209, 213, 223-6, 229, 231, 240 Sumner's defence of, 110-11, 112, 113,
see also individualism; liberty; self- 115
improvement; self-interest; welfare see also individualism; liberalism
individualism, 9, 10, 110-15, 125, 176, Lamarck, Jean Baptiste, 9, 39-44, 53
215,235-6 Lamarckism, 42-4, 104, 134, 167, 235
see also laissez-faire; socialism; Spencer and Darwinism, 17, 27, 39, 41-4, 307
industrial society, 131, 218, 219 of Spencer, 87-8
Spencer on, 90, 92-4, 101 Lanessan, J.-L., de, 181-2
Sumneron, 110, 113, 116 Lankester, E. R., 220-1
see also economic competition Lapouge, G. Vacher de, 5, 117, 311
inequality, 125, 147, 156, 160 essentialism of, 192-3, 200, 284, 298,
biological foundations of, 127, 129, 130, 310
182,228-9,236 eugenics of, 196-7
see also division of labour; egalitarianism racial theory, 191-200, 289
infanticide, 240, 241, 276 theory of social selection, 193, 194-6,
'inferiority' and 'superiority', notions of, 200
217,245 Laveleye, Emile, 8
see also elitism; miscegenation; women Le Bon, Gustave, 186-9
inheritance of acquired characters, 32-3, Le Conte, Joseph, 201-2
44, 146-7 leadership, authority, 69, 91-2, 211, 212
Darwin's stance on, 4, 26-7 Lebensraum theory, 209, 274
endorsement of, 27, 68, 126, 134-5, Leeds, A., 10
139,238 Lenz, Fritz, 79-80, 81, 234-7, 246,
in Lamarckism, 39, 40, 42 252-3,313
rejection of, 191, 235, 241, 245, 307 Lewontin,R. C , 310
in Spencer's theory, 85, 87 liberalism, 147-8
see also heredity German, 132-3, 144, 145
insanity, 141, 167, 225, 227, 238, 245-6, Spencer's defence of, 89, 93, 94, 103
306 see also laissez-faire
instinct, 114, 121-2, 162-3 liberty, individual, 112, 113, 121, 128, 180,
intelligence, 176, 199 243
hereditary, 141, 163, 238, 245, 246 Lombroso, Cesare, 74-80, 99, 147, 151,
in racial theory, 239 245, 252, 253
Italy, 281 on primitive heritage in modern humans,
criminology, 74-80 75,76,77-8,80,81
Fascism, 272, 273, 284-9, 290-1 use of cranial measurement, 75, 76, 79,
199
James, William, 11, 68, 118-20, 121-2, Lombroso, Gina, 253-4, 255
146, 148 Lopreato, J., 295, 302, 307
Jews, 185,197,236 Lorenz, Konrad, On Aggression, 296
Nazi policy, 272, 275-6, 280-1, 291 Love, Rosaleen, 250-1
see also anti-Semitism love, evolution of, 265-6, 269
340 Index
Lyell, Sir Charles, 37 Mussolini, Benito, 156, 285, 286-7, 288,
289
Machtpolitik, 206, 209 mutualism, see cooperation
Malthus, Thomas Robert, Malthusianism,
15-16,50-1,53-4, 153,155 National Front Party, 307
marriage, 217, 255, 270, 282 National Socialism, see Nazism
inter-racial, see miscegenation nationalism, 186, 207, 214, 215, 228
Key's ideas on, 265, 266, 267, 269 nations, conflict between, 170, 184, 186,
monogamous, 265, 269-70, 300 199, 212-15, 223, 228, 285
no longer in accord with natural law, natural selection, 24, 56-7, 106-8, 120,
157,238,244 136-7, 224
o f unfit', prevention of, 223, 230, 241 biological principle extended to human
Marx, Karl, 152-3, 182 evolution, 28, 29-30, 37, 106-7
Marxism, 151, 152, 153-9 distinction between creative and
'masses, the', concept of, 67, 71-2, winnowing aspects, 84, 87-8, 96,
116-17, 171, 172 101-2, 104
Matabele Wars, 204-5 equated with maleness, 263, 264
Matthew, Patrick, 56-8 group versus individual as unit of
Mayhew, Henry, 74 selection, 28-9, 33, 165, 189, 293-4,
medical profession, and eugenics, 218 305-6
Mendelian genetics, 24, 252 minimised or denied, 11-12, 178-9,
mental defectives, elimination of, 216, 230, 180-1, 185
239, 243, 279-80 modern thinking on, 293, 305-7
militant society, militancy, 90-2, 97, 100, problems of application to advanced
110,113, 114 societies, 72, 87, 107-8, 264
militarism, 8, 66, 92, 207, 281 see also Darwin, Charles; sexual selection;
see also war social selection; Spencer; struggle
MillJ. S.,95, 161,254-5 nature, 23, 42-3, 125, 146, 188
miscegenation, 63-4, 80, 127, 200, 234, Darwinian picture of, 30, 33, 44, 45
236,239,241 dual aspect of, 18, 35, 183, 250, 261-2,
beneficial effects, 62-3 271,311-12
deleterious consequences, 185, 187, 192, as female, 183, 249-50, 262, 270, 271
196,202,229,239,275 as model for social practices and
Modern Synthesis, 19, 24, 293, 303 institutions, 114, 121, 137, 155, 159,
Molinari, Gustave de, 131-2 248, 269
monism, 134, 143, 144, 195 modern thinking on, 303-4, 311-12
'moral surgery', 224-6 monism, 134, 143, 144, 195
morality, ethics, 123, 129, 130, 174-5, Nazi representations of, 276-7, 282-3,
176, 195-6 284,311
development of moral faculty, 28-9, 92, pre-Darwinian conceptions of, 42, 45,
98, 102-3, 177 46, 47, 48
inheritance of moral disposition, 74-80 as threat, 67, 155, 161, 269
moral and natural law, relationship see also humanity
between, 287-8 Naturphilosophie, 144
notion of moral progress, 108, 169, 171, Nazism, 272-84, 292, 311
189-90,254-5 eugenic ideology, 233, 246, 276,
relationship to struggle for existence, 279-81
135, 168-71 Haeckel as forerunner of, 133, 134, 141,
sociobiological stance on, 298, 302 145
Morris, Desmond, The Naked Ape, 296 and Social Darwinism, 213, 272, 277-8,
Mosca, Gaetano, 11 279,280,282-4,289-91
motherhood, 282 see also nature; race(s); struggle
evolutionary basis to, 257, 267-8, 269 negro races, 62-3, 235, 243, 259
sterilisation of unmarried mothers, 279 neo-Darwinism, 33
see also children 'neo-Lamarckism, 104, 105
murder, 301,304 'New Liberalism', 89, 151, 171
Index 341
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 213, 287, predation, 41, 42, 85, 299
289 primitives, savages, 235, 261
Nordau, Max Simon (originally Siidfeld), conceptualisations of, 68-70, 91, 100-2,
219-20 115-16, 126, 139-40, 171
Nordic race, see Aryans continuity of primitive in the modern,
Novicow, Jacques, 7, 8 298,310
primitive defined as starting point of
ontogenesis, 134, 136 evolution, 48-9, 98, 298
organs, use and disuse of, 25, 26, 27, 32, see also evolutionary continuum
39,40 progress, 5, 4 2 - 3 , 44, 146, 163-4, 198,
220
pacifism, 8, 33, 183, 198, 240, 266-7 American ideas on, 64, 107-8, 109, 114,
Pan German League, 145 121
parenthood, 227, 265, 270, 300, 301 Bagehot's definition, 68-70
see also motherhood Darwin's belief in, 34, 36
Pareto, Vilfredo, 11, 13 Enlightenment doctrines, 48-50
patriarchy, 8, 161, 250, 259, 260, 263, 269 French ideas on, 125, 126-7, 128
paupers, 55, 131-2, 169 German ideas on, 135, 136
condemnation of, 95, 99, 111, 145 Spencer on, 85-6, 92, 99, 146
proposed treatment of, 222, 228, 243, psychiatry, 11
245 psychology, 107, 234, 235
peaceful coexistence as evolutionary role of Darwinism in development of, 11,
outcome, 65-6, 86, 102, 107, 108, 162-3
114, 151
denial of, 114, 131,135 Quinton, Rene, 211
see also cooperation
Pearson, Karl, 226-9, 231, 232, 240, 241 race(s), 184-6, 247
Peirce, Charles Sanders, 118, 146, 175 American thought on, 62-4, 104, 105,
Peters, Carl, 204 120, 126,200-3
Pfeiffer, Franz von, 233 conflict between, 61-2, 85, 127, 140,
phrenology, 74 146, 158-9, 184-215
see also cranial measurement and crime, 79-80
physical anthropology, 74, 76, 79 in Fascist thought, 288-9, 290-1
physical defectives, 216-17, 230 formation of new, 63-4, 190, 191
condemnation of, 145, 225, 228 hierarchy of, 105, 139-40, 158, 184-5,
elimination of, 240, 279 203, 235, 239
Pick, D., 80 in Nazi ideology, 272, 274, 280-2, 290,
Poles, as Untermenschen, 281 291
political exploitation of evolutionary theory, as separate species, racial essentialism,
7-8, 43, 68, 169, 295-6, 313 63, 158, 187, 190, 191, 192-3, 200,
political science, political economy, 11, 202
124, 131 and sociobiology, 306-7
political selection, 194-5 see also France; miscegenation; racism
Politische-Anthropologische Revue, 158 racial hygiene, see eugenics
poor, see paupers racism, 12-13, 202, 203, 246, 281, 288
Poor Laws, 57, 83, 95 association of Social Darwinism with, 7,
pop ethology, 296-8, 301, 308, 309, 310 292, 295-6
population growth, 153, 160 rape theory, 300, 304
as cause of struggle for existence, 31, 32, Ratzel, Friedrich, 117, 209
85, 109, 110, 126,208,209 Reade, Winwood, 74
cause of struggle theory rejected, 73, reason, rationality, 128
240 growth of, 4, 51, 54, 86, 170, 172-3
decline in, 102,218 recapitulation theory of human
pre-Darwinian theories, 45, 47, 48, 50, development, 77, 91, 98
53-4, 56 reductionism, 177, 188
pragmatism, 118 biological, 136, 146-7, 199, 237, 238
342 Index
reform Darwinism, 6, 17, 151-83 sexual selection, 13, 32, 78, 265, 266, 270,
religion, 97, 173-4, 195 305
attempts to reconcile Darwinism with, Darwin's theory, 26, 27, 260
105, 107 female choice of mate, 258, 260-2, 264
belief in compatibility of Darwinism and, perversion of, 182, 238
63, 64-5, 81, 121, 148 Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate, 203
and science, 118-19, 142 Shaw, George Bernard, 7, 166-8
see also anti-clericalism; Christianity sick, the, 147, 238
revolution, 157, 158 elimination of, 140, 141, 145, 225, 230,
Richet, Charles, 237-41 240,241,279
Ridley, Matt, 299, 300-1, 309, 311 see also disease
rights, individual, 198, 238, 242 simian ancestry of humans, 28, 65, 105,
Ritchie, David G., 160-2, 168, 255 126,136, 142-3,283-4
Rocco, Alfredo, 285, 289, 291 slavery, 36, 63, 104
Rolle, Friedrich, 61-2, 146, 186 American attitudes, 62, 63, 116, 200,
Roman Catholic Church, 133, 142, 143, 201, 203
195,260 enslavement of women, 257, 261, 262,
Romanes, George, 11 263
Rosenberg, Alfred, 278 Slavs, Nazi policy on, 280
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 126, 180 Smiles, Samuel, 88
Royer, Clemence-Auguste, 80, 124-31, social reforms, 110, 151, 161-2, 169, 176,
147, 151,204,313 182,218-19
anti-clericalism of, 124, 128, 148, 260 see also welfare
critique of charity for the 'unfit', 129, social relations, 153, 181, 304
130, 189 tension between biological and cultural
feminism of, 129-30, 259-60 explanations, 155-6, 169-70
on role of struggle and conflict, 126, see also cooperation; struggle
127-8, 146, 186 social sciences, and Social Darwinism,
study of human evolution, 37, 125-8, 8-14
298 social selection, 147, 244, 245, 276
on virtues of individualism and Lapouge's theory, 193, 194-6, 200
liberalism, 125, 128-9, 190 socialism, 8, 67, 110, 151, 172, 240
Ruse, M., 295 and individualism, 173, 174, 179
Russett, Cynthia Eagle, 249 relationship to Darwinism, 138, 152-70,
Russia, Russians, 196, 245, 281 182-3
sociobiology, 16, 19
savages, see primitives relationship to Social Darwinism, 292,
Schmidt, Oskar, 64, 132 294-313
Schneider, W. H., 237 socio-political theory, 15, 19, 21-4
science, 118-19, 134, 142 solidarity, social, see cooperation
and eugenics, 221, 231 Soloway, R. A., 247
see also biology Sorel, Georges, 289
self-improvement, self-help, 43, 64-5, 83, specialisation, 45, 49, 54, 92, 135, 136
88 Marxist view of, 153-4
self-interest, 46, 101, 293-4, 306 see also division of labour
Selous, Frederick Courtney, 204-6 species essentialism, 30, 309
sexual differences, 78, 161, 249-71 see also race(s)
cultural explanations, 254-5, 257, Spencer, Herbert, 82-103, 118, 151, 156,
258-9, 260 163,313
evolution of, 251-64 anti-clericalism of, 97, 148
sociobiological thinking on, 300-1, belief in progress, 85-6, 92, 99, 146
305 and Darwinism, 4, 6, 14, 15, 37, 43, 80,
see also division of labour; gender; sexual 82-3, 84, 87, 88
selection on female suffrage, 252, 255
sexual equality, see women general evolutionary theory ('cosmic
sexual love, 265-9 evolution'), 82, 83-8, 92, 96
Index 343
on human nature, 90, 97, 101 suffrage, universal, 112, 151
individualism, 83, 89, 92-3, 94, 96, 98, female, 66, 164, 252, 255
169, 190 Sumner, William Graham, 109-18, 146,
influence in USA, 105-6, 107, 109 147, 202, 204
and Lamarckism, 87-8 Folkways, 115-17
on natural selection, 84, 87-8, 96, opposition to democratisation and
101-2, 102-3 welfare schemes, 110, 112-13, 148,
opposition to imperialism, 97, 148, 204 168
political thought, 82, 89, 93-8 Social Darwinism of, 10, 109-11, 117,
Social Darwinism of, 81, 95, 98-103, 120-1
121 views on warfare, 110, 114, 121, 145
theory of socio-political evolution, superiority, see 'inferiority' and 'superiority'
89-93, 98, 100-1, 113-14, 147, 298, survival of the fittest, 4, 8-9, 26, 102, 115,
310 126, 182, 187
on warfare, 7, 85-6, 92-3 Hitler on, 274-5
stage theory of development, 48-50 Spencer on, 82, 84, 87, 88
state, 66, 67, 131, 142, 214, 285-6 see also natural selection
critique of interventionist, 89, 93-4, 96, Sweden, 264
110,112-13, 115,117
endorsement of strong, 133, 151, 190 Tennyson, Alfred, 1st Baron, 'In
Stephen, Leslie, 170-1, 174, 175 Memoriam', 250
sterilisation, enforced, 241, 242, 246, 279 territoriality, 297
Sternhell, Z., 9 Teutons, 236
Stoddard, Lothrop, 237, 244-6 thermodynamics, 5
'strongest, law of the', 55-6, 69 Thomas, William Isaac, 258-9
struggle, competition, 8-9, 33-4, 145-6, Thomson, J. Arthur, 252
177-9,271 Thornhill, R. and N. W., 300
in American thought, 109-10, 111, 114, Tiger, Lionel, 296
115-16, 117 totalitarianism, 8, 177
in English thought, 69-70, 72-3, 84-6, Treitschke, Heinrich von, 206-7, 209
92-3, 102-3, 168-72 tribalism, 69, 92, 98, 100, 101, 213-14,
Fascist views of, 285, 287, 288, 290 215,261
in French thought, 12-13, 41-4, 126,
127-8, 181-2, 187,240 underclass, 95, 98, 115, 147, 243
in German thought, 11-12, 65-7, 132, Under-Men, Untermenschen, concept of,
135, 136-7, 138-9, 141, 146 245,281
between individual and environment, 26, 'unfit', category of, 95-6, 113, 115, 145,
64-5, 110,181 147, 171,264
inter-species (see also nations; races), 26, control of reproduction, 96, 167, 223,
127 228, 230, 243, 245-6, 266
intra-species, 26, 42, 85, 127, 178, 190, elimination of, 44, 229, 240, 241,
208 279-80
modern thinking on, 299, 303-4, and obstruction of natural selection, 188,
311-12 216,222,227,244,246
in Nazi ideology, 273-5, 276, 278-9, United States, 145, 175, 196, 258
282, 284 eugenics movement, 105, 218, 242-7
pre-Darwinian theories, 45, 46, 47-8, Social Darwinism in, 13, 37, 62-5,
49,51,54-6 104-22, 148
replaced by social solidarity, 177-82, see also progress; race(s)
183 urbanisation, 218, 219
socialist perspectives on, 152, 154-7, utilitarianism, 170, 173
158-9, 160, 161, 163-4
transformation into peaceful process, Valois, George, 211-13
29-30, 65-7, 102, 127-8, 156, 161 variation, 4, 65, 84, 126, 127, 171, 188
see also Darwin, Charles; economic causes of, 32-3, 68, 104, 116, 119, 120,
competition; population growth; war 186
344 Index
Darwinian theory, 24, 25, 29 opposition to collective schemes, 95, 96,
see also environment; inheritance of 111, 113, 148, 170-1,227
acquired characters see also charity
Veddahs, 140, 235 Wells, D. Colin, 244
Virchow, Rudolf, 138 Westermarck, Edward Alexander, 117,
Volkisch philosophy, 275, 277, 278 270,308
Vorzimmer, P., 15-16 Wilberforce, Samuel, 142
will, volition, 167, 204, 287
Wallace, Alfred Russel, 28, 37, 50, 151, denial of free, 137, 192
161, 169, 186 see also determinism
Wallas, Graham, 162-5, 168, 174, 219, Williams, Raymond, 8-9
310,313 Wilson, Edward Osborne, 294, 296,
war, 46, 121-2, 145-6, 178, 263 298-302 passim, 304, 305, 306, 309
beneficial effects of, 7, 42, 212, 215, 279, Wilson, Margo, 306
286 Woltmann, Ludwig, 158-9, 204
condemned between advanced nations, women
54, 75, 127-8 biological explanations of 'inferiority',
contribution to progress, 13, 49, 55, 81, 91, 98, 122, 188, 235, 252-3
85-6,92,210-11 cultural explanations for subordinate
dysgenic consequences of modern, 93, position, 129-30, 147, 254-5, 257,
163, 195, 214-15, 266-7, 276 260-3
endemic in social relations, 49, 110, 114, education of, 238, 251, 253, 254
187,304 emancipation of, 66, 151, 161, 164, 249,
eradication of, 107, 108 252, 253, 255
rationalisations of, 51, 206-15 equality of, 143, 161, 255, 256-7, 258,
replaced by industrial competition, 86, 259-64, 268
92-3, 131-2, 145-6, 171-2, 182-3, offenders, 77-8
267 thesis of original superiority, 258, 259
role in early stages of evolution, 33, 54, see also Darwin, Charles; motherhood;
6 9 , 7 2 - 3 , 7 5 , 126, 131 sexual differences; sexual selection
see also struggle Woodhull, Victoria C , 105, 243-4
Ward, Lester Frank, 13, 258, 262 World Federation, Fiske's concept of, 107,
Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, 162, 165-6, 108
167, 168 world view
Weber, Max, 11-12, 13, 307 distinction between ideology and, 21-4
Weindling, P. J., 232 Social Darwinism as, 17, 18, 30-5
Weismann, August, 33, 44, 88, 134, 171, World War I, 206, 233, 234, 245
191,222,308 World War II, 213
welfare, personal, 151, 173 Wyatt, Harold F., 210, 213, 215
individual or collective responsibility? 67,
96,113,168, 170 Youmans, Edward Livingstone, 105-6
Young, R. M., 15

Mike Hawkins - Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860-1945 - Nature As Model and Nature As Threat (1997)

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Mike Hawkins - Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860-1945 - Nature As Model and Nature As Threat (1997)

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This compelling and wide-ranging new study focuses upon the heated

controversies that have surrounded the meaning and shifting signifi-

© Mike Hawkins 1997

First published 1997

Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data

ISBN 0 521 57400 5 hardback

Transferred to digital printing 2003

Part I: Defining Social Darwinism

Part II: Pioneers

Part III: Case studies

Only that which has no history is definable.

The nature of Social Darwinism

The ideological functions of Social Darwinism

The significance of Social Darwinism

Social Darwinism and Darwin

The present study

The structure of social theory

Darwinism and Social Darwinism

Darwin's theory of evolution

The Social Darwinist world view

Darwin and Social Darwinism

The Lamarckian world view

Pre-Darwinian theories of social change

The Enlightenment and the stages of social change

The nineteenth century

Brace and the evolution of racial harmony

Buchner and social equality

Bagehot on monarchs and masses

Lombroso and the semiotics of criminality

Spencer, Principles of Biology, II, 536.

From militant to industrial society

speculative methods and generalisations congenial: C. Darwin and T. H. Huxley,

Due to their rudimentary moral and intellectual capabilities primitives

This condemnation was not of itself a product of Social Darwinism

Spencer's Social Darwinism

On occasions Spencer went as far as to argue that the inhabitants of

The cosmic philosophy of Fiske

Sumner and the 'iron spur9 of competition

Sumner's science of society

James and genius

Royer and the semiotics of nature

Liberty, equality and the status of women

Ernst Haeckel and Darzvtnismus

Darwinismus, inequality and religion

Socialism and Darwinism

In freeing society of all the corruptions with which an unbridled economic

The British Fabians

considered social progress to be possible only through a 'beneficent

Wallas apparently believed that eugenics should replace natural

Liberty, equality and democracy

The evolution of social solidarity

Kropotkin proposed an alternative model of nature in which mutual

Le Bon and the psychology of race

The calibration of racial worth

The race problem in the South

The tribunal of the battlefield

I am oppressed by the ineffectual cruelty of our imprisonments. I am disgusted

Bradley took care to pay homage to traditional values which, he

Huxley, Essays of a Biologist (London: Chatto and Windus, 1928), 51.