Finally, Galton concludes that members of
the human race were utter savages in the beginning; and that, after myriads of years of barbarism man has very recently found his way into the path of morality and civilization.14
There were several flaws in Dalton’s arguments, one of which he himself admitted: that his sources of information were limited. Not only that, he made the mistake of judging so-called ‘savages’ by the so-called ‘civilized’ standards of Western societies. He discounted those particular skills which ‘savages’ themselves had evolved and, in so doing, failed entirely to recognize or value their cultures and religions.
Looking ahead, said Galton,
The time may hereafter arrive, in far distant years, when the population of the earth shall be kept as strictly within the bounds of number and suitability of race, as the sheep on a well-ordered moor or the plants in an orchard-house; in the meantime, let us do what we can to encourage the multiplication of the races best fitted to invent and conform to a high and generous civilization, and not, out of a mistaken instinct of giving support to the weak, prevent the incoming of strong and hearty individuals.15
It was Galton who, in 1883, first coined the word eugenic – eugenics being defined as the science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics.16 He would develop his theme further in the years to come.
On 23 December 1869 Darwin wrote to Galton to say:
I have only read about 50 pages of your Book … . I do not think I ever in all my life read anything more interesting & original. And how very well & clearly you put every point!17
However, he would not commit himself as to whether or not he endorsed its sentiments. In two years’ time, Darwin would publish another book, this time related to the origin of man himself. Perhaps then he [Darwin] would give an opinion on this contentious subject.
To this, Galton, on the following day, declared that there was no one but Darwin
whose approbation I prize more highly, on purely personal grounds, because I always think of you in the same way as converts from barbarism think of the teacher who first relieved them from the [intolerable] burden of their superstition. I used to be wretched under the weight of the old fashion ‘arguments from design’, of which I felt, though I was unable to prove to myself, the worthlessness.
(‘Argument from design’ – that the apparent ‘design’ of the natural world is proof of the existence of God.)
Consequently the appearance of your Origin of Species formed a real crisis in my life; your book drove away the constraint of my old superstition as if it had been a nightmare and was the first to give me freedom of thought.
Believe me very sincerely yours Francis Galton18
Galton could not have written more succinctly and, in doing so, he echoed the sentiments of thinking people everywhere. It was as if, with the advent of Darwinism, a veil had been lifted, chains thrown off, bringing to mind, paradoxically, the Biblical quotation from the New Testament’s First Book of Corinthians, ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face … .’19
* * *
In 1870 Oxford University awarded Darwin the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law (DCL). This was much to his surprise, for Oxford was the very place where the ‘great evolution debate’ had taken place. Darwin, however, was unable to accept the degree – which was awarded only in person – on the grounds that his ill health precluded him from attending the ceremony.
Darwin was awarded the Diploma of the Royal Academy of Science, Literature and Art of Belgium on 16 December of that year.
NOTES
1. Galton, Francis, Hereditary Genius, p.211.
2. Ibid, p.71.
3. Ibid, p. 114.
4. Ibid, p.151.
5. Ibid, p.158.
6. Ibid, p.165.
7. Ibid, p.31.
8. Ibid, p.68.
9. Ibid, pp.224–5.
10. Ibid, p.227.
11. Ibid, p.228.
12. Ibid, pp.228–9.
13. Ibid, p.230.
14. Ibid, p.231
15. Ibid, p.236.
16. Oxford Dictionaries Online.
17. Darwin to Francis Galton, 23 December, Cor.17, pp.530–1.
18. Francis Galton to Darwin, 24 December 1869, Cor.17, p.532.
19. 1 Corinthians 13:12.
Chapter 21
The Descent of Man
When, in 1857, Alfred Russel Wallace asked Darwin whether he intended to ‘discuss “man”’ in his forthcoming book The Origin of Species, Darwin replied, ‘I think I shall avoid [the] whole subject’, on the grounds that it was too ‘surrounded with prejudices’.1 It would be another fourteen years before The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex was published on 24 February 1871. (It should be stressed that by ‘Descent’ Darwin meant ‘Origin’.) What did it contain? How would it be received? What new controversies would it foment? Whatever the outcome, no one could deny that, like Origin, this was a serious work, based on painstaking research performed over many years.
In his Introduction, Darwin wrote:
The sole object of this work is to consider, firstly, whether man, like any other species, is descended from some pre-existing form; secondly, the manner of his development; and thirdly, the value of the differences between the so-called races of man.2
Darwin points out ‘the marvellous fact that the embryos of a man, dog, seal, bat, reptile &c., can, at first, hardly be distinguished from each other’ and, he concludes,
Thus we can understand how it has come to pass that man and all other vertebrate animals have been constructed on the same general model, why they pass through the same early stages of development, and why they retain certain rudiments in common. Consequently we ought frankly to admit their community [here, perhaps ‘commonality’ – meaning shared features or attributes3 – might be a better word] of descent … .4
And declares,
It is manifest that man is now subject to much variability. No two individuals [even] of the same race are quite alike.5 [But] With respect to the causes of variability, we are in all cases very ignorant … .6
In respect of potential checks to population,
With savages the difficulty of obtaining subsistence occasionally limits their number in a much more direct manner than with civilized people, for all tribes periodically suffer from severe famines. At such times savages are forced to devour much bad food, and their health can hardly fail to be injured.7
But ‘what is probably the most important of all’ of these checks is
infanticide, especially of female infants, and the habit of procuring abortion. These practices now prevail in many quarters of the world … [and] appear to have originated in savages recognizing the difficulty, or rather the impossibility of supporting all the infants that are born.8
He compares the mental powers of man with that of the lower animals.
Of all the faculties of the human mind, it will, I presume, be admitted that Reason stands at the summit. Only a few persons now dispute that animals possess some power of reasoning. Animals may constantly be seen to pause [in their actions], deliberate, and resolve.9
Under the heading, ‘The moral sense …’, Darwin reveals himself to be a champion of social justice, by his demand that slavery must be abolished. ‘Although somewhat beneficial during ancient times’, it ‘is a great crime, yet it was not so regarded until quite recently, even by the most civilized nations’.10
As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.11
In other words Darwin, an ardent ‘abolitionist’, took the view that instead of enslaving
people, the hand of friendship should be extended to them. However,
The very idea of humanity, as far as I could observe [i.e. during the voyage of HMS Beagle] was new to most of the Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually becomes incorporated in public opinion.12
Darwin then turns his attention to the mind, in respect of man vis-à-vis the (other) animals.
There can be no doubt that the difference between the mind [i.e. intellectual capacity] of the lowest man and that of the highest animal is immense. Nevertheless the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, &c, of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals.13
These observations chime perfectly with Darwin’s conviction that man is part of the animal kingdom. However,
The moral sense perhaps affords the best and highest distinction between man and the lower animals … . I have so lately endeavoured to shew that the social instincts – the prime principle of man’s moral constitution – with the aid of active intellectual powers and the effects of habit, naturally lead to the golden rule, ‘As ye would that men should do to you, do ye [also] to them likewise’ [a quotation from the Gospel of St Luke],14 and this lies at the foundation of morality.15
Many years later Emma, as a devout Christian, was to take exception to Darwin’s opinion ‘that all morality has grown up by evolution’. The fact that her husband regarded morality as something which a), was based on instinct rather than on religion and b), had predated religion16 was, she said, ‘painful to me.’17
Under the heading ‘On the Development of the Intellectual and Moral Faculties during Primeval and Civilized Times’, Darwin declares:
All that we know about savages, or may infer from their traditions and from old monuments, the history of which is quite forgotten by the present inhabitants, shew that from the remotest times successful tribes have supplanted other tribes. Relics of extinct or forgotten tribes have been discovered throughout the civilized regions of the earth, on the wild plains of America, and on the isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean. At the present day civilized nations are everywhere supplanting barbarous nations, excepting where the climate opposes [i.e presents] a deadly barrier; and they succeed mainly, though not exclusively, through their arts [i.e. skills], which are the products of the intellect. It is, therefore, highly probable that with mankind the intellectual faculties have been mainly and gradually perfected through natural selection … .18
This matter is a controversial one, for Darwin implies that the skills of so-called ‘savage tribes’ are inferior, whereas, in many cases these skills have enabled them to survive in some of the world’s most hostile environments for centuries – if not millennia. It is also arguable, to say the least, as to whether or not, for example, the conquest of North America and the decimation of its indigenous peoples during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries can be described as ‘natural selection’.
Under the heading ‘Natural Selection as affecting Civilized Nations’, Darwin states that the following remarks of his are primarily based on the works of William Rathbone Greg (Unitarian, mill-owner and social commentator), A. R. Wallace and Francis Galton.
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies 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.
Now, at last, Darwin has come off the proverbial fence by implying that an over-zealous ‘welfare state’ may actually serve to set the evolutionary process into reverse. But then he presents an alternative point of view.
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy…. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.
In other words, to ignore the plight of the ‘helpless’ would be nothing short of ignoble.
We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.19
Therefore, the ‘weak’ and the ‘inferior’ were to be encouraged, but not forcibly coerced to refrain from procreation.
But what of those who would today be called ‘anti-social’, and the danger that those of a ‘superior class’ might be overwhelmed by their numbers?
A most important obstacle in civilized countries to an increase in the number of men of a superior class has been strongly insisted on by [essayist] Mr [William Rathbone] Greg and Mr Galton, namely, the fact that the very poor and reckless, who are often degraded by vice, almost invariably marry early, whilst the careful and frugal, who are generally otherwise virtuous, marry late in life, so that they may be able to support themselves and their children in comfort. Those who marry early produce within a given period not only a greater number of generations, but, as shewn by [Scottish physician] Dr [James Matthews] Duncan, they produce many more children. The children, moreover, that are born by mothers during the prime of life are heavier and larger, and therefore probably more vigorous, than those born at other periods. Thus the reckless, degraded, and often vicious members of society tend to increase at a quicker rate than the provident and generally virtuous members. In the eternal ‘struggle for existence’, it would be the inferior and less favoured race that had prevailed [i.e. would prevail] – and prevailed by virtue not of its good qualities but of its faults.20
Finally, Darwin agonizes, yet again, about the danger of overpopulation.
It is impossible not to regret bitterly, but whether wisely is another question, the rate at which man tends to increase; for this leads in barbarous tribes to infanticide and many other evils, and in civilized nations to abject poverty … .21
He indicates that Huxley agrees with him, in believing man to be a member of the animal kingdom.
Our great anatomist and philosopher, Prof. Huxley … concludes that man in all parts of his organization differs less from the higher apes, than these do from the lower members from the same group. Consequently there ‘is no justification for placing man in a distinct order’.22
(The divergence of humans from the ape family – from their common ancestor – is believed to have occurred sometime between 5 million and 7 million years ago.)
Remarks such as these would have infuriated the Anglican hierarchy; an immediate difficulty being that in the Book of Genesis it states, ‘And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness … So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him…’.23
Equally, Darwin affirms that each of the
various so-called ‘human races’, belongs to the human race as a whole.
Although the existing races of man differ in many respects, as in colour, hair, shape of skull, proportions of the body, &c., yet if their whole structure be taken into consideration they are found to resemble each other closely in a multitude of points.24
Under the heading, ‘On the Extinction of the Races of Man’, Darwin declares that
Man can long resist conditions which appear extremely unfavourable for his existence. Extinction follows chiefly from the competition of tribe with tribe, and race with race.
He then goes on to describe in detail how, when ‘civilized nations’ conquer ‘barbarians’ – i.e., the native inhabitants of ‘uncivilized’ countries – then there are many factors which cause the gradual extinction of the latter, ‘the most potent of all the causes of extinction’ being, ‘in many cases … lessened fertility and ill-health, especially amongst the children, arising from changed conditions of life …’.
Charles Darwin Page 18