Darwin and his Disciples

By the time the acting secretary of the Committee of Clergymen, W. R. Freemantle, put his signature to the Oxford Declaration of 25 February 1864, the divisions between the defenders of the United Church of England and Ireland and the new prophets of scientific revolution were clear. No fewer than 11,000 clergymen signed the declaration, which asserted that the Bible was the indisputable word of God. Their motivation was a series of seven essays, from 1860, by liberal churchmen, dubbed the ‘Seven against Christ’, which had sought to accommodate advances in biology and geology with the prevailing theology in Essays and Reviews. The essays caused greater uproar than On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin, published four months earlier, and reflected a growing distrust in the dogmatic literalism of the Church’s orthodoxy.

Although Darwin, who had initially trained to join the church, was fearful of the reaction to his book by organised religion, he could not have expected that his work would be co-opted and interpreted by others and lead to fundamental changes in society. The political impact of Darwin’s work would be to undermine the Church’s creationist doctrine, puncture its veneer of omniscient authority, hasten the erosion of its power and position in English society and replace the laws of scripture with the laws of science. The profound political consequences of this shift in outlook were felt around the world and can be seen in the competing and paradoxical ideologies of Marxism and the Social Darwinist ideas of Libertarianism and Eugenics.

The Debate

In 1860, Oxford was a crossroad of power, the centre of religious orthodoxy and the home of the High Anglican Oxford Movement led by John Henry Newman, which sought to reassert the Catholic traditions into the Anglican Communion. It was fitting that Oxford should be the place for the most significant early debate over Darwin’s thesis. Theories of evolutionary change had been discussed and advanced in Britain for nearly 75 years but none had gained widespread impact or popularity. The biologist Thomas Huxley, initially a sceptic, had become convinced by Darwin’s theories in the preceding years. He had helped organise the first public pronouncement of Darwin’s theories at the Linnean Society on 1 July 1858, and was a powerful advocate for both Darwin and On the Origin of Species.

Huxley was born in Ealing and had initially trained as a doctor. His interest in biology was matched by his dissent against the Church. Darwin’s comprehensive work and evolutionist ideas of ‘struggle for survival’ and ‘natural selection’ gave him the platform to fashion a broadside against Church dogmas and literalism. Huxley’s intention was plain: ‘My screed was meant as a protest against Theology and Parsondom ... both of which are in my mind the natural and irreconcilable enemies of science. Few see it but I believe we are on the Eve of a new Reformation, and if I have a wish to live thirty years it is that I may see the foot of science on the necks of her enemies’. Huxley and was one of a number of outspoken academics who argued for the establishment, in 1858, of a Faculty of Science and BSc degree at University College London, which had been founded in 1826 as an alternative to the social and religious restrictions found at Oxford and Cambridge.

While controversy engulfed the liberal theologians who had dared to publish in Essays and Reviews, the British Association for the Advancement of Science convened a meeting in Oxford on 30 June 1860 at the newly built Museum of Natural History. The debate that ensued pitted Thomas Huxley, rapidly becoming known as Darwin’s Bulldog, against the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, the third son of the abolitionist William Wilberforce, and an outspoken and intransigent anti-evolutionist. Although the ostensible argument centred on Darwin’s theories, the underlying issue of the authority of the divinely inspired scriptures as enshrined by the Reformation and the possibility that these scriptures were false, was on the minds of those in attendance. This was a battle to preserve both the theological authority of the Church and its role at the centre of the political establishment.

Huxley was widely regarded as winning the argument, but the event was remembered for one exchange in particular. When asked by Wilberforce whether it was ‘through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed descent from a monkey’, Huxley responded: ‘If the question is put to me “Would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather, or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means and influence, and yet who employs these faculties and that great influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion”, [then] I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.’ The effect was to make Huxley, a man of science, appear more principled that the greatest orator of the Church.

Although the question would continue to be fiercely debated for years to come, the need for theology to accommodate the march of science in order to sustain its place at the centre of society was now plain. The Oxford Declaration, which came four years later, used ‘fear of everlasting punishment to the cursed’ as a stick to try to beat back the growth of evolutionary sentiment. While 11,000 members of the clergy signed the Oxford Declaration, 16,000 did not – a division that reflected the theological split in the Anglican Communion and revealed that Wilberforce’s views had become those of the minority. The Church’s accommodation of evolution accelerated and was completed when Frederick Temple, the author of the first essay in the demonised Essays and Reviews, was named Archbishop of Canterbury in 1896. The appointment meant that the church had made way for science, while its political relevance diminished as theological literalism was replaced by scientific investigation.

Darwin’s evolutionary premise had changed the way the individual was seen, and the political consequences of this shift were soon to be felt. Man was no longer made in the image of God; he was now simply a member of a species battling for survival. This altered perspective was co-opted and used to serve agendas across the political spectrum, from the far left to the far right.

Marx

Darwin’s alternative to the theological miracle of creation was admired by Karl Marx and sat easily with his social and political theories. Marx, who believed that Darwin’s theories would help break the Church’s opiate-like hold over the masses, was confident that Darwin’s scientific writing supported the class struggle: the proletariat would prove to be the fittest and would overthrow the capitalist masters. In fact, Marx appropriated from Darwin only what served the purpose of class struggle. The ‘struggle for existence’ that Darwin described became, for Marx and his followers, a class struggle or a ‘social struggle for existence’. Fredrick Engels was also an admirer, arguing at Marx’s graveside in 1883: ‘Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history’.

Similarly, Darwin’s ideas became inseparable from those of Marx in the Soviet ideology of the 1930s. Leading members of the Communist Party embraced Darwinism, and evolution was taught as part of the state dogma. There seemed an apparent contradiction, however, between Darwin’s view of slow evolutionary change in nature and the Marxist concept of sudden revolutionary change. This was overcome by co-opting a competing theory by Dutch biologist Hugo DeVries, which described change as a ‘gradual evolution with sudden revolutionary spurts’. Thus Darwin’s ideas, when translated into political or social theory, were appropriated when convenient, modified as necessary and accommodated in much the same way the Church had tried to accommodate them at the end of the 19th century.

Spencer and Carnegie

Marx was not alone in seeing the attractiveness of Darwin’s scientific work as a foundation for a political and social philosophy. One of the most important figures in the promulgation of Darwin’s ideas was Hebert Spencer. He moved Darwin’s scientific concepts into the sphere of politics and social thought in both Britain and America. Indeed many historians believe that ‘Social Darwinism’ should more appropriately be called ‘Social Spencerism’. Spencer aimed to formulate a general concept informed by the principle of evolution, and he found in Darwin compelling evidence for belief in free enterprise, laissez-faire economics and competition. In 1852 he coined a phrase forever associated with Darwinism, ‘the survival of the fittest’, a form of words Darwin himself accepted and which became synonymous with ‘Natural Selection’.

Spencer’s philosophy crossed the Atlantic with Darwin’s science and enjoyed great recognition. The ‘survival of the fittest’ imperative of Darwin’s science and Spencer’s philosophy was a match for the American rugged individualism that was at the heart of that nation’s westward expansion.

Libertarian businessmen and American academics appropriated Darwin’s ideas to advocate both freedom from government intervention and the exploitation of the fruits of the ‘New World’. Those who had accumulated great wealth believed in a laissez-faire economic approach and felt that interference with the economy would only lead to the deterioration of America’s economic success.

Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant who amassed his fortune in steel, was deeply disturbed by the ‘collapse of Christian theology’ until he had the opportunity to read the work of Darwin and Spencer: ‘I remember that light came as in a flood and all was clear. Not only had I got rid of theology and the supernatural, but I found the truth of evolution. “All is well since all grows better” became my motto, my true source of comfort.’ Carnegie believed that the ‘law’ of competition allowed ‘the survival of the fittest in every department’. He adopted a similar approach to Spencer and, although believing there should be no state welfare for the poor, he thought that industrialists should return money to the community in the form of private charity. John D. Rockefeller, Chauncey Depew and James J. Hill also believed that they had achieved success because they were more evolved, with a greater ability to adapt. Distrust of government led both Carnegie and Rockefeller to become philanthropists, and they gave considerable amounts of their wealth to charities, believing that government could not rectify the social problems which plagued society.

The idea that Social Darwinism was widely adopted by successful businessmen of the time is hotly debated by historians. Nonetheless, the idea of laissez-faire economics spread into academia where it was studied and sustained. Although the great universities of the United State had, like Oxford and Cambridge, traditionally been run by Churchmen, the appointment of Charles William Eliot, a chemist, to be President of Harvard in 1869 signalled the rise of the scientist in America. In the following decade, Johns Hopkins University was the first university to be dedicated to research and free of any religious requirements. At Yale, also in the 1870s, William Graham Summer, one of the most outspoken advocates of Social Darwinism, became a professor of Political and Social Science in 1872. Summer held that the human struggle to survive had two distinct parts. The first is the ‘struggle for existence’ with nature, and the second was the ‘competition for life’ with other men. He was an outspoken critic of government intervention, since this would interfere with these natural struggles. His work, and that of others, reflected a growing acceptance of laissez-faire economics and put considerable pressure on politicians to accept the tenets of Darwinism.

Eugenics

The Eugenics movement tested the moral conscience of civilised society throughout the 20th century and changed the way that governments viewed their relationship with citizens. Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, coined the word Eugenics in 1883 and defined it as the ‘science of improving the stock’. He wrote of Darwin’s work that its effect ‘was to demolish a multitude of dogmatic barriers by a single stroke and to arouse a spirit of rebellion against all ancient authorities whose positive and unauthenticated statements were contradicted by modem science’. He established the National Eugenics Society in 1907 and gained the support of Fellows of the Royal Society and Cambridge academics, including Sir Clifford Allbutt, the Regius Professor of Medicine. Their encouragement helped the movement to gain both credibility and access to British political circles. When Leonard Darwin, Charles Darwin’s youngest son, became chairman of the organisation in 1911 it was beginning to establish a foothold in both left and right wing politics.

In 1910 the Eugenics Society wrote to all candidates in the British general election, advising them to implement measures to stop ‘degenerates’ from having offspring, while widespread public support resulted in a Private Member’s Bill called ‘The Feeble-Minded Persons Bill’ the following year. Politicians from all political parties embraced Eugenics, including Home Secretary Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour and Will Crooks, the fourth elected MP of the Labour Party. The Bill was withdrawn, but the strength of feeling among the upper echelons of the Liberal party meant that the government decided to introduce a Mental Deficiency Bill in 1913. While this bill did not sanction compulsory sterilisation it did allow ‘idiots’, ‘imbeciles’, ‘the feeble-minded’ and ‘moral defectives’ to be segregated. ‘The Idiots Act’ gave nine hospitals and institutions the right to segregate the mentally disabled from society. Remaining in place until 1959, it is said to have segregated 60,000 people at its peak and placed another 43,000 under supervisory control orders in the community. Sterilisation was also attractive to all parties because it was a cost effective way of coping with an economic underclass and fitted in with Labour’s idea of social planning.

The three key designers of Britain’s post war welfare reforms – John Maynard Keynes, William Beveridge and Richard Titmuss – were all Eugenicists. They extrapolated the underlying concepts of Eugenics, improving the stock and social planning, into a means for social improvement. This culminated in legislation after the Second World War, which cemented in the mind of the British public the concepts of state intervention in the welfare of its citizens and universal healthcare. The principle that the State could intervene in the lives of its citizens, against their will if it felt it was in their best interests, was a natural extension of these concepts. Although Briton pulled away from a compulsory sterilisation policy America embraced it.

The concept of Eugenics was widely accepted in the United States with supporters in both the corridors of academia and political power. Harvard zoologist Charles Davenport, considered an intellectual disciple of Francis Galton, created the ‘Eugenics Record Office’ in 1910, which documented family trees and inherited defects. The office was led by Harry Laughlin and the records were used to try to identify those that were considered ‘defective’. With this newly compiled data many States began to consider legislation which would sterilise their citizens. By 1917 sixteen states had enacted sterilisation statutes, though opposition elsewhere meant the constitutionality of sterilisation laws had to be tested in the courts. In 1924, Virginia adopted a law calling for the sterilisation of ‘the mentally retarded, insane, criminal, epileptic, inebriated, diseased, blind, deaf, deformed, and economically dependent’, and three years later the Supreme Court ruled that the legislation was not only constitutional but, in its opinion, wise. By 1940, this ruling had led to the sterilisation of 36,000 men and women across the United States. Nazi legislation, ‘Preventing Hereditarily Ill Progeny’, was almost identical, and the leap from these Social Darwinist inspired eugenics laws to the Wannsee Conference’s Final Solution is not hard to imagine.

Conclusion

The appropriation of Darwin’s biological findings by advocates of a wide range of political beliefs was responsible for a fundamental shift in the political constructs of Western society. Science became the new religion that guided political principles. The moral guidance of the Church was diminished and replaced by the presumed infallibility of scientific data. Frederick Temple’s accommodation of Darwin in order to preserve the status of the Church against the onslaught of science was the first of many accommodations of Darwin’s theories. Karl Marx co-opted Darwin to agitate against the Church’s presence in a socialist society. Social Darwinist principles, which spawned the libertarianism advanced by Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner and embraced inequality as a fact of nature, became corrupted by the Eugenics movement which called for human intervention to ‘improve the stock’. The secularism of our daily life, and the presumption by the modern State that it knows what is best for the welfare of its citizens, is a direct result of the political impact of Charles Darwin.