Charles Darwin

by Andrew Norman

  12. Oxford Dictionaries Online.

  13. Galton, op. cit., p.10.

  14. Ibid, p.197.

  15. Ibid, p.56.

  16. Ibid, pp.198–9.

  17. Ibid, p.199.

  18. Ibid, pp.199–200.

  19. Ibid, p.200–1.

  20. Oxford Dictionaries Online.

  21. Galton, op. cit., p.206.

  22. Ibid, p.207.

  23. Ibid, pp.218–19.

  24. Ibid, pp.196–7.

  25. Oxford Dictionaries Online.

  26. Matthew and Harrison, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

  27. Galton, ‘Eugenics: its Definition, Scope, and Aims’. American Journal of Sociology, Volume X, July 1904; Number 1.

  28. Matthew and Harrison, op. cit.,

  29. Wallace, My Life; a Record of Events and Opinions, pp.299–300.

  30. Ibid, p.386.

  31. Chase, The Legacy of Malthus: The Social Costs of the New Scientific Racism, p.16, and note p.626.

  32. Pearson, National Life from the Standpoint of Science, pp.20–2.

  33. Ibid, p.20–1, 23.

  34. Ibid, p.26.

  35. Ibid, p.46

  36. Ibid, p.64.

  Chapter 35

  Major Leonard Darwin

  In 1912 the First International Eugenics Congress was held in London under the presidency of Darwin’s son, Major Leonard Darwin. A soldier, politician and economist, Leonard was a former President of the Royal Geographical Society (1908–11), Chairman of the British Eugenics Society (1911–28) and its Honorary President from 1928 until his death in 1943.

  In that February of 1912 Leonard delivered a lecture to the Cambridge University Eugenics Society entitled ‘First Steps Towards Eugenic Reform’.

  The aim of eugenics

  The primary object of Eugenics is, no doubt, to substitute for the slow and cruel methods of nature some more rational, humane, and rapid system of selection by which to ensure the continued progress of the race.

  Potential drawbacks

  Leonard was, however, aware

  that no reform is without some attendant evils, and that, in deciding how far any reform should be pushed, we have to attempt to ascertain the point at which the accompanying, evils would outweigh the advantages … . The possibility of inflicting a serious hardship on any individual, without any corresponding benefit in reality resulting from it to posterity, must, therefore, always be held in view.

  Where coercion is necessary

  There were certain situations, said Leonard, where ‘marriages should be absolutely prohibited; as, for example, the marriage of two idiots’.

  Where should the line be drawn?

  Otherwise, said Leonard, ‘Nature’ offered no help whatever, when it came to deciding which individuals should be prevented from ‘reproducing their kind’. And furthermore, ‘her method of drawing the line is to kill of all who unaided are incapable of fighting the battle of life, a method which can no longer be tolerated’.

  Why not breed humans in the same way as animals are bred?

  Leonard quotes a breeder of prize-winning dogs who, having declared that ‘I breeds a great many, and I kills a great many’, posed the question, ‘Then why not adopt this same successful method in dealing with mankind?’ To which he (Leonard) replies

  that, although we do not doubt the possibility of making rapid progress by such means, yet we fully realize both the impossibility and the immorality of attempting to introduce the methods of the stud farm into human affairs.

  Restrictions on marriage

  Leonard concurred with what others had suggested previously, when he declared

  In considering the possibility of placing some check on the marriage of the less fit, it must be admitted that such a reform is likely to be first adopted amongst the most advanced races of mankind, and, moreover, that it would tend to produce a certain diminution in their numbers in comparison, that is, with the population which would have existed had no such reforms been introduced.

  In other words, it was vital for the ‘most advanced races’ to keep up their numbers.

  Immigration

  Precautions were necessary, said Leonard

  against any gaps in our ranks being filled up by the immigration of less desirable stocks from abroad. If we are really intent on maintaining and improving the character of our race, we must, in fact, view with considerable suspicion our traditional policy of allowing nearly all comers to land on our shores.

  The importance of defining ‘ideal characteristics of the race’, and the failure of Eugenicists to do so

  It has often been urged as an objection to all Eugenic practice that, before taking any steps intended to affect the characteristics of the race in the future, Eugenicists ought to decide on the ideal at which they are aiming, or on the exact type of man they wish to encourage. [However] on this point they, as a rule, are nearly silent.

  What ‘preventive legislation’ should aim to achieve

  ‘Our main efforts as regards preventive legislation’ said Leonard,

  should be directed towards the reduction of the output of unquestionably undesirable types. In the present state of our scientific knowledge it would be as well to begin by endeavouring to make it impossible for those who are not only characterized by some signal heritable defect but who are also below the average both in bodily and in mental qualities, to reproduce their kind.

  Potential criminals

  As regards the ‘large class’ of people

  who are markedly inferior to the average of the nation if judged by many tests both mental and physical, [and] who have proved at an early age their incapacity to resist temptation, and who will therefore inevitably become criminals under existing social conditions, surely we ought at once to take precautions to ensure that the worst of them at all events should not, as it were, infect the coming generation with their defects … [Then] surely segregation for life with kindly treatment must in the interests of posterity be the fate of all who both fail in life in consequence of some signal heritable defect and have no redeeming qualities to compensate for such a defect.

  A register of the ‘abnormal’

  Some system ought to be established, said Leonard,

  by which all children at school reported by their instructors to be specially stupid, all juvenile offenders awaiting trial, all ins-and-outs at workhouses, and all convicted prisoners should be examined by trained experts in mental defects in order to place on a register the names of all those thus ascertained to be definitely abnormal. In this examination both physical and psychological tests should if possible be included, in which case the reports thus obtained would afford a good foundation for selecting out the most unfit.

  This alone, however, was not enough, for it was also necessary, ‘from the Eugenic standpoint’, to include in the register details of ‘defects’ in the relatives, including those who are

  unquestionably mentally abnormal, especially as regards … criminality, insanity, ill-health and pauperism … . If all this were done it can hardly be doubted that many strains would be discovered which no one could deny ought to be made to die out in the interest of the nation ….

  Political difficulties attendant on ‘eugenic reform’: the need for education

  it is quite certain that no existing democratic government would go as far as we Eugenists think right in the direction of limiting the liberty of the subject for the sake of the racial qualities of future generations. It is here that we find the practical limitation to the possibility of immediate reform ….

  one of the first steps towards Eugenic reform must be the education of the public, an end to which our efforts should therefore now be directed.

  Those who are severely disabled, either in mind or body

  Given the political difficulties attendant on attempting to further the aims of the eugenicists, said Leonard,

  For the present we must content ourselves with dealing with the more obvious mental qual
ities. Passing on to physical defects, they should be regarded as being important in proportion to the amount of suffering they are likely to cause both to the individual actually afflicted and to his relatives and friends; those diseases producing permanently injurious effects necessarily, therefore, being ranked as the most serious.

  Biometric screening

  When the family history of both parties [i.e. potential parents] is well known, the biometrician will doubtless before long be able to express in numbers the probability of the child of any marriage being afflicted with any heritable defect … .

  By ascertaining whether the ‘quality [i.e. disability] under consideration’ is ‘dominant in the Mendelian sense [i.e. according to the laws of inheritance devised by Austrian botanist Gregor J. Mendel]’ or ‘recessive’, the attending physician

  will be in a far better position to give sound advice as to the probable results, and therefore as to the morality of any marriage, than one who merely trusts to his ordinary professional knowledge.1

  In 1932, when the Third International Eugenics Congress was held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the following article appeared in the New York Herald Tribune under the heading ‘Eugenicists Hail Their Progress as Indicating Era of Supermen’.

  Major [Leonard] Darwin, who is the son of Charles Darwin, was unable to come to the congress because he is eighty-two years old. He presided at the first of these international gatherings and is still deeply interested in the progress of the work.

  His message was read last night by Dr R. A. Fisher [Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, geneticist, and statistician] and was in part as follows

  My firm conviction is that if widespread Eugenic reforms are not adopted during the next hundred years or so, our Western Civilization is inevitably destined to such a slow and gradual decay as that which has been experienced in the past by every great ancient civilization. The size and the importance of the United States throws on you a special responsibility in your endeavours to safeguard the future of our race. Those who are attending your Congress will be aiding in this endeavour, and though you will gain no thanks from your own generation, posterity will, I believe, learn to realize the great debt it owes to all the workers in this field.2

  Leonard’s The Need for Eugenic Reform, was published in 1926 and

  dedicated to the memory of MY FATHER. For if I had not believed that he would have wished me to give such help as I could toward making his life’s work of service to mankind, I should never have been led to write this book.3

  Here, the significant phrase is ‘if I had not believed that he would have wished’, indicating an assumption on Leonard’s part that Darwin would have endorsed his eugenic ideals and his proposals to put these ideals into practice, which is by no means certain.

  Summary

  Having observed how animals can be improved by selective breeding, eugenicists can hardly be blamed for wondering whether such methods might be applied to the human race also. However, most were aware of the moral and political dangers involved in ‘playing God’ – i.e. taking it upon themselves to decide who should live and who should die – all, that is, except Professor Karl Pearson, who appears to have possessed no moral conscience whatsoever.

  Had Darwin been alive, what would have been his attitude to eugenics?

  Darwin regarded himself as a scientist, first and last – i.e. a person who studies or has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences, ‘science’ being defined as the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.4

  Whether he would have approved of any or all, of his son Leonard’s proposals in respect of eugenics in practice, is a matter of conjecture. The likelihood is, however, that he would have avoided the subject like the proverbial plague, as this statement, taken from his autobiography, indicates.

  I rejoice that I have avoided controversies, and this I owe to [Sir Charles] Lyell, who many years ago, in reference to my geological works, strongly advised me never to get entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did any good and caused a miserable loss of time and temper.5

  There is, of course, a certain irony here, in that Darwin was involved in one of the greatest controversies of all time – that of evolution versus creation!

  NOTES

  1. Darwin, Major Leonard, ‘First Steps Towards Eugenic Reform’, Eugenics Review, Volume 4 (1), April 1912.

  2. Darwin, Leonard, ‘Eugenicists Hail Their Progress as Indicating Era of Supermen’, New York Herald Tribune (1932), review of Third International Eugenics Congress.

  3. Darwin, Leonard, The Need for Eugenic Reform, Dedication.

  4. Oxford Dictionaries Online.

  5. Darwin, Francis, op. cit., p.62.

  Chapter 36

  Social Darwinism: The Deliberate Misrepresentation of Darwin’s Ideas: The Nazi Holocaust

  The term ‘Darwinism’ is defined, in present day terms, as

  The theory of the evolution of species by natural selection advanced by Charles Darwin [who] argued that since offspring tend to vary slightly from their parents, mutations [i.e. variations] that make an organism better adapted to its environment will be encouraged and developed by the pressures of natural selection, leading to the evolution of new species differing widely from one another and from their common ancestors.1

  In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt states that

  Darwinism was especially strengthened by the fact that it followed the path of the old might-right doctrine. Darwinism met with such overwhelming success because it provided, on the basis of inheritance, the ideological weapons for race as well as class rule ….2

  It is true that Darwin, in The Descent of Man, did discuss the subject which later became known as eugenics. However, this he did in an objective but, above all, compassionate manner. Therefore, to use the term ‘Darwinism’ in the way that Arendt has done is to do the great exponent of the theory of evolution by natural selection a grave injustice for, although he observed that the ‘fittest’ – which usually meant ‘the strongest’ – tend to survive, never once did he subscribe to the ‘might is right’ philosophy, which means, in effect, that those who are powerful can do what they wish unchallenged, even if their action is, in fact, unjustified.3

  What Arendt was, in fact, referring to above was what became known as ‘Social Darwinism’

  the theory that individuals, groups and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals. Now largely discredited, social Darwinism was advocated by Herbert Spencer and others in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and was used to justify political conservatism, imperialism, and racism and to discourage intervention and reform.4

  In other words, the works of Darwin were hijacked by extremists who misinterpreted them in order to serve their own ends.

  Attempts to link Darwin with Hitler and the Nazi Holocaust

  The Nazi Party was formed in Munich after the First World War. It advocated right-wing authoritarian, nationalist government and developed a racist ideology based on anti-Semitism and a belief in the superiority of ‘Aryan’ Germans.5 In Nazi ideology, an ‘Aryan’ was defined as

  a person of Caucasian race not of Jewish descent. The idea that there was an ‘Aryan’ race corresponding to the parent Indo-European language was proposed by certain 19th century writers and was taken up by Hitler and other proponents of racist ideology, but it has been generally rejected by scholars.6

  During the Holocaust an estimated 16 million people were murdered by Hitler’s Nazi regime (between 1933 and 1945 when the Second World War ended). Of these, some 6 million were Jews, and this represented approximately 67 per cent of the Jewish population of Europe.

  In his book Hitler: Dictator or Puppet the author has discussed at length the origin of Hitler’s ideas, the sources of whic
h were not Darwin but Doctor Leopold Poetsch and Arthur Schopenhauer, both of whom were racists and anti-Semites. Poetsch was Hitler’s schoolteacher at the Realschule in Linz,7 and Schopenhauer was a German philosopher who referred to the Jew as ‘the great master of lies’.8 However, the greatest influence of all on Hitler was Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (1874–1954).

  Liebenfels was an Austrian whose original name was Josef Adolf Lanz, who became editor, publisher and contributor to the anti-Semitic monthly journal Ostara (named after the ancient Germanic goddess of Spring). His writings are appropriately described as ‘a potpourri of contemporary theories, most importantly of [Guido von] List’s race theories [see below]’.9 In his autobiography entitled Mein Kampf (My Life, published 1925–1926), Hitler, referring to his sojourn as a young man in Vienna, declares unashamedly in reference to Ostara that ‘For the first time in my life, I bought myself some anti-Semitic pamphlets for a few pence.’10

  Ostara was dedicated to the ‘practical application of anthropological research for the purpose of preserving the European master race from destruction by the maintenance of racial purity’. It was lavishly illustrated with erotic pictures of blonde beauties being seduced by undesirable creatures, referred to by Liebenfels as ‘beast-men’ or ‘ape-people’.

  Hitler possessed a great number of magazines, above all Ostara numbers. He was very interested in the content and also took the side of Lanz von Liebenfels very enthusiastically in discussions … .11

  Liebenfels, in turn, had been influenced by Guido von List (1848–1919), a pan-Germanist (i.e. democratic, social-reformist, but anti-liberal and anti-Semitic). In 1911, List predicted war, prophesying that

  The Aryo-German-Austrian battleships shall once more … shoot sizzling from the giant guns of our dreadnoughts; our national armies shall once more storm southwards and westwards to smash the enemy and create order.12