the minute researches which the idea of Selection suggests. They are
eager to defend this or that thesis. In the name of this idea certain
social anthropologists have recast the conception of the process of
civilisation, and have affirmed that Social Selection generally works
against the trend of Natural Selection. Vacher de Lapouge--following
up an observation by Broca on the point--enumerates the various
institutions, or customs, such as the celibacy of priests and military
conscription, which cause elimination or sterilisation of the bearers
of certain superior qualities, intellectual or physical. In a more
general way he attacks the democratic movement, a movement, as P.
Bourget says, which is "anti-physical" and contrary to the natural
laws of progress; though it has been inspired "by the dreams of that
most visionary of all centuries, the eighteenth."[250] The "Equality"
which levels down and mixes (justly condemned, he holds, by the Comte
de Gobineau), prevents the aristocracy of the blond dolichocephales
from holding the position and playing the part which, in the interests
of all, should belong to them. Otto Ammon, in his _Natural Selection
in Man_, and in _The Social Order and its Natural Bases_,[251]
defended analogous doctrines in Germany; setting the curve
representing frequency of talent over against that of income, he
attempted to show that all democratic measures which aim at promoting
the rise in the social scale of the talented are useless, if not
dangerous; that they only increase the panmixia, to the great
detriment of the species and of society.
Among the aristocratic theories which Darwinism has thus inspired we
must reckon that of Nietzsche. It is well known that in order to
complete his philosophy he added biological studies to his
philological; and more than once in his remarks upon the _Wille zur
Macht_ he definitely alludes to Darwin; though it must be confessed
that it is generally in order to proclaim the insufficiency of the
processes by which Darwin seeks to explain the genesis of species.
Nevertheless, Nietzsche's mind is completely possessed by an ideal of
Selection. He, too, has a horror of panmixia. The naturalists'
conception of "the fittest" is joined by him to that of the "hero" of
romance to furnish a basis for his doctrine of the Superman. Let us
hasten to add, moreover, that at the very moment when support was
being sought in the theory of Selection for the various forms of the
aristocratic doctrine, those same forms were being battered down on
another side by means of that very theory. Attention was drawn to the
fact that by virtue of the laws which Darwin himself had discovered
isolation leads to etiolation. There is a risk that the privilege
which withdraws the privileged elements of Society from competition
will cause them to degenerate. In fact, Jacoby in his _Studies in
Selection, in connexion with Heredity in Man_,[252] concludes that
"sterility, mental debility, premature death and, finally, the
extinction of the stock were not specially and exclusively the fate of
sovereign dynasties; all privileged classes, all families in
exclusively elevated positions share the fate of reigning families,
although in a minor degree and in direct proportion to the loftiness
of their social standing. From the mass of human beings spring
individuals, families, races, which tend to raise themselves above the
common level; painfully they climb the rugged heights, attain the
summits of power, of wealth, of intelligence, of talent, and then, no
sooner are they there than they topple down and disappear in gulfs of
mental and physical degeneracy." The demographical researches of
Hansen[253] (following up and completing Dumont's) tended, indeed, to
show that urban as well as feudal aristocracies, burgher classes as
well as noble castes, were liable to become effete. Hence it might
well be concluded that the democratic movement, operating as it does
to break down class barriers, was promoting instead of impeding human
selection.
* * * * *
So we see that, according to the point of view, very different
conclusions have been drawn from the application of the Darwinian idea
of Selection to human society. Darwin's other central idea, closely
bound up with this, that, namely, of the "struggle for existence" also
has been diversely utilised. But discussion has chiefly centered upon
its signification. And while some endeavour to extend its application
to everything, we find others trying to limit its range. The
conception of a "struggle for existence" has in the present day been
taken up into the social sciences from natural science, and adopted.
But originally it descended from social science to natural. Darwin's
law is, as he himself said, only Malthus' law generalised and extended
to the animal world: a growing disproportion between the supply of
food and the number of the living is the fatal order whence arises the
necessity of universal struggle, a struggle which, to the great
advantage of the species, allows only the best equipped individuals to
survive. Nature is regarded by Huxley as an immense arena where all
living beings are gladiators.[254]
Such a generalisation was well adapted to feed the stream of
pessimistic thought; and it furnished to the apologists of war, in
particular, new arguments, weighted with all the authority which in
these days attaches to scientific deliverances. If people no longer
say, as Bonald did, and Moltke after him, that war is a providential
fact, they yet lay stress on the point that it is a natural fact. To
the peace party Dragomirov's objection is urged that its attempts are
contrary to the fundamental laws of nature, and that no sea wall can
hold against breakers that come with such gathered force.
But in yet another quarter Darwinism was represented as opposed to
philanthropic intervention. The defenders of the orthodox political
economy found in it support for their tenets. Since in the organic
world universal struggle is the condition of progress, it seemed
obvious that free competition must be allowed to reign unchecked in
the economic world. Attempts to curb it were in the highest degree
imprudent. The spirit of Liberalism here seemed in conformity with the
trend of nature: in this respect, at least, contemporary naturalism,
offspring of the discoveries of the nineteenth century, brought
reinforcements to the individualist doctrine, begotten of the
speculations of the eighteenth: but only, it appeared, to turn mankind
away for ever from humanitarian dreams. Would those whom such
conclusions repelled be content to oppose to nature's imperatives
only the protests of the heart? There were some who declared, like
Brunetiere, that the laws in question, valid though they might be for
the animal kingdom, were not applicable to the human. And so a return
was made to the classic dualism. This indeed seems to be the line that
Huxley took, when, for instance, he opposed to the cosmic process an
ethical process which was its reverse.
But the number of thinkers whom this antithesis does not satisfy grows
daily. Although the pessimism which claims authorisation from Darwin's
doctrines is repugnant to them, they still are unable to accept the
dualism which leaves a gulf between man and nature. And their
endeavour is to link the two by showing that while Darwin's laws
obtain in both kingdoms, the conditions of their application are not
the same: their forms, and, consequently, their results, vary with the
varying mediums in which the struggle of living beings takes place,
with the means these beings have at disposal, with the ends even which
they propose to themselves.
Here we have the explanation of the fact that among determined
opponents of war partisans of the "struggle for existence" can be
found: there are disciples of Darwin in the peace party. Novicow, for
example, admits the "_combat universel_" of which Le Dantec[255]
speaks; but he remarks that at different stages of evolution, at
different stages of life the same weapons are not necessarily
employed. Struggles of brute force, armed hand to hand conflicts, may
have been a necessity in the early phases of human societies.
Nowadays, although competition may remain inevitable and
indispensable, it can assume milder forms. Economic rivalries,
struggles between intellectual influences, suffice to stimulate
progress: the processes which these admit are, in the actual state of
civilisation, the only ones which attain their end without waste, the
only ones logical. From one end to the other of the ladder of life,
struggle is the order of the day; but more and more as the higher
rungs are reached, it takes on characters which are proportionately
more "humane."
Reflections of this kind permit the introduction into the economic
order of limitations to the doctrine of "laisser faire, laisser
passer." This appeals, it is said, to the example of nature where
creatures, left to themselves, struggle without truce and without
mercy; but the fact is forgotten that upon industrial battlefields the
conditions are different. The competitors here are not left simply to
their natural energies: they are variously handicapped. A rich store
of artificial resources exists in which some participate and others do
not. The sides then are unequal; and as a consequence the result of
the struggle is falsified. "In the animal world," said De
Laveleye,[256] criticising Spencer, "the fate of each creature is
determined by its individual qualities; whereas in civilised societies
a man may obtain the highest position and the most beautiful wife
because he is rich and well-born, although he may be ugly, idle or
improvident; and then it is he who will perpetuate the species. The
wealthy man, ill constituted, incapable, sickly, enjoys his riches and
establishes his stock under the protection of the laws." Haycraft in
England and Jentsch in Germany have strongly emphasised these
"anomalies," which nevertheless are the rule. That is to say that even
from a Darwinian point of view all social reforms can readily be
justified which aim at diminishing, as Wallace said, inequalities at
the start.
But we can go further still. Whence comes the idea that all measures
inspired by the sentiment of solidarity are contrary to Nature's
trend? Observe her carefully, and she will not give lessons only in
individualism. Side by side with the struggle for existence do we not
find in operation what Lanessan calls "association for existence."
Long ago, Espinas had drawn attention to "societies of animals,"
temporary or permanent, and to the kind of morality that arose in
them. Since then, naturalists have often insisted upon the importance
of various forms of symbiosis. Kropotkin in _Mutual Aid_ has chosen
to enumerate many examples of altruism furnished by animals to
mankind. Geddes and Thomson went so far as to maintain that "Each of
the greater steps of progress is in fact associated with an increased
measure of subordination of individual competition to reproductive or
social ends, and of interspecific competition to co-operative,
association."[257] Experience shows, according to Geddes, that the
types which are fittest to surmount great obstacles are not so much
those who engage in the fiercest competitive struggle for existence,
as those who contrive to temper it. From all these observations there
resulted, along with a limitation of Darwinian pessimism, some
encouragement for the aspirations of the collectivists.
And Darwin himself would, doubtless, have subscribed to these
rectifications. He never insisted, like his rival, Wallace, upon the
necessity of the solitary struggle of creatures in a state of nature,
each for himself and against all. On the contrary, in _The Descent of
Man_, he pointed out the serviceableness of the social instincts, and
corroborated Bagehot's statements when the latter, applying laws of
physics to politics, showed the great advantage societies derived from
intercourse and communion. Again, the theory of sexual evolution which
makes the evolution of types depend increasingly upon preferences,
judgments, mental factors, surely offers something to qualify what
seems hard and brutal in the theory of natural selection.
But, as often happens with disciples, the Darwinians had out-Darwined
Darwin. The extravagances of social Darwinism provoked a useful
reaction; and thus people were led to seek, even in the animal
kingdom, for facts of solidarity which would serve to justify humane
effort.
* * * * *
On quite another line, however, an attempt has been made to connect
socialist tendencies with Darwinian principles. Marx and Darwin have
been confronted; and writers have undertaken to show that the work of
the German philosopher fell readily into line with that of the English
naturalist and was a development of it. Such has been the endeavour of
Ferri in Italy and of Woltmann in Germany, not to mention others. The
founders of "scientific socialism" had, moreover, themselves thought
of this reconciliation. They make more than one allusion to Darwin in
works which appeared after 1859. And sometimes they use his theory to
define by contrast their own ideal. They remark that the capitalist
system, by giving free course to individual competition, ends indeed
in a _bellum omnium contra omnes_; and they make it clear that
Darwinism, thus understood, is as repugnant to them as to Duehring.
But it is at the scientific and not at the moral point of view that
they place themselves when they connect their economic history with
Darwin's work. Thanks to this unifying hypothesis, they claim to have
constructed--as Marx does in his preface to _Das Kapital_--a veritable
natural history of social evolution. Engels speaks in praise of his
friend Marx as having discovered the true mainspring of history hidden
under the veil of idealism and sentimentalism, and as having
proclaimed in the _primum vivere_ the inevitableness of the struggle
for existence. Marx himself, in _Das Kapital_, indicated another
analogy when he dwelt upon the importance of a general technology for
the explanation of this psychology:--a history of tools which would be
to social organs what Darwinism is to the organs of animal species.
And the very importance they attach to tools, to apparatus, to
machines, abundantly proves that neither Marx nor Engels were likely
to forget the special characters which mark off the human world from
the animal. The former always remains to a great extent an artificial
world. Inventions change the face of its institutions. New modes of
production revolutionise not only modes of government, but modes even
of collective thought. Therefore it is that the evolution of society
is controlled by laws special to it, of which the spectacle of nature
offers no suggestion.
If, however, even in this special sphere, it can still be urged that
the evolution of the material conditions of society is in accord with
Darwin's theory, it is because the influence of the methods of
production is itself to be explained by the incessant strife of the
various classes with each other. So that in the end Marx, like Darwin,
finds the source of all progress is in struggle. Both are grandsons of
Heraclitus:--[Greek: polemos pater panton]. It sometimes happens, in
these days, that the doctrine of revolutionary socialism is contrasted
as rude and healthy with what may seem to be the enervating tendency
of "solidarist" philanthropy: the apologists of the doctrine then
pride themselves above all upon their faithfulness to Darwinian
principles.
* * * * *
So far we have been mainly concerned to show the use that social
philosophies have made of the Darwinian laws for practical purposes:
in order to orientate society towards their ideals each school tries
to show that the authority of natural science is on its side. But even
in the most objective of theories, those which systematically make
abstraction of all political tendencies in order to study the social
reality in itself, traces of Darwinism are readily to be found.
Let us take for example Durkheim's theory of Division of Labour.[258]
The conclusions he derives from it are that whenever professional
specialisation causes multiplication of distinct branches of activity,
we get organic solidarity--implying differences--substituted for
mechanical solidarity, based upon likenesses. The umbilical cord, as
Marx said, which connects the individual consciousness with the
collective consciousness is cut. The personality becomes more and more
emancipated. But on what does this phenomenon, so big with
consequences, itself depend? The author goes to social morphology for
the answer: it is, he says, the growing density of population which
brings with it this increasing differentiation of activities. But,
again, why? Because the greater density, in thrusting men up against
each other, augments the intensity of their competition for the means
of existence; and for the problems which society thus has to face
differentiation of functions presents itself as the gentlest solution.
Here one sees that the writer borrows directly from Darwin.
Competition is at its maximum between similars, Darwin had declared;
different species, not laying claim to the same food, could more
easily coexist. Here lay the explanation of the fact that upon the
same oak hundreds of different insects might be found. Other things
being equal, the same applies to society. He who finds some unadopted
specialty possesses a means of his own for getting a living. It is by
this division of their manifold tasks that men contrive not to crush
each other. Here we obviously have a Darwinian law serving as
intermediary in the explanation of that progress of division of labour
which itself explains so much in the social evolution.
And we might take another example, at the other end of the series of
sociological systems. G. Tarde is a sociologist with the most
pronounced anti-naturalistic views. He has attempted to show that all
application of the laws of natural science to society is misleading.
In his _Opposition Universelle_ he has directly combatted all forms of
sociological Darwinism. According to him the idea that the evolution
of society can be traced on the same plan as the evolution of species
is chimerical. Social evolution is at the mercy of all kinds of
inventions, which by virtue of the laws of imitation modify, through
individual to individual, through neighbourhood to neighbourhood, the
general state of those beliefs and desires which are the only
"quantities" whose variation matters to the sociologist. But, it may
be rejoined, that however psychical the forces may be, they are none
the less subject to Darwinian laws. They compete with each other; they
struggle for the mastery of minds. Between types of ideas, as between
organic forms, selection operates. And though it may be that these
types are ushered into the arena by unexpected discoveries, we yet
recognise in the psychological accidents, which Tarde places at the
base of everything, near relatives of those small accidental
variations upon which Darwin builds. Thus, accepting Tarde's own
representations, it is quite possible to express in Darwinian terms,
with the necessary transpositions, one of the most idealistic
sociologies that have ever been constructed.
These few examples suffice. They enable us to estimate the extent of
the field of influence of Darwinism. It affects sociology not only
through the agency of its advocates but through that of its opponents.
The questions to which it has given rise have proved no less fruitful
than the solutions it has suggested. In short, few doctrines, in the
history of social philosophy, will have produced on their passage a
finer crop of ideas.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 246: P. Flourens, _Examen du Livre de M. Darwin sur
l'Origine des Especes_, p. 53, Paris, 1864. See also Huxley,
"Criticisms on the _Origin of Species," Collected Essays_, Vol. II, p.
102, London, 1902.]
[Footnote 247: _Inquiries into Human Faculty_, pp. 1, 2, 3 sq.,
London, 1883.]
[Footnote 248: _Darwinism and Politics_, pp. 9, 22, London, 1889.]
[Footnote 249: _Life and Letters of Charles Darwin_, II. p. 385.]
[Footnote 250: V. de Lapouge, _Les Selections sociales_, p. 259,
Paris, 1896.]
[Footnote 251: _Die nataerliche Auslese beim Menschen_, Jena, 1893; _Du
Gesellschaftsordnung und ihre natuerlichen Grundlagen. Entwurf einer
Sozialanthropologie_, Jena, 1896.]
[Footnote 252: _Etudes sur la Selection dans ses rapports avec
l'heredite chez l'homme_, Paris, p. 481, 1881.]
[Footnote 253: _Die drei Bevoelkerungsstufen_, Munich, 1889.]
[Footnote 254: _Evolution and Ethics_, p. 200; _Collected Essays_,
Vol. IX, London, 1894.]
[Footnote 255: _Les Luttes entre Societes humaines et leurs phases
successives_, Paris, 1893.]
[Footnote 256: _Le socialisme contemporain_, p. 384 (6th edit.),
Paris, 1891.]
[Footnote 257: Geddes and Thomson, _The Evolution of Sex_, p. 311,
London, 1889.]
[Footnote 258: _De la Division du Travail social_, Paris. 1893.]
INDEX
_Abraxas grossulariata_, 100
Acquired characters, transmission of, 20, 28, 42, 94, 120, 149, 171, 173
_Acraea johnstoni_, 290
[Transcriber's Note: No such page number or reference seen.]
Adaptation, 24, 27, 34, 39, 42-45, 50, 58, 79-86, 106, 107
Adloff, 140
Alexander, 217
Ameghino, 132, 138
Ammon, O., Works of, 271
_Anaea divina_, 69
Anglicus, Bartholomaeus, 237
Ankyroderma, 40
Anomma, 44
Anthropops, 132
Ants, modifications of, 43-46, 51
Ardigo, 207, 208
Argyll, Huxley and the Duke of, 238
Aristotle, 3, 237, 240
Avenarius, 211
Bacon, on mutability of species, 4, 5
Baehr, von, on Cytology, 99
Bain, 194
Baldwin, J. M., 53, Foot Note 165
Balfour, A. J., 241
Barratt, 217
Bates, H. W., on Mimicry, 70, 76
--232
BATESON, W., on _Heredity and
Variation in Modern Lights_, 87-110
--on discontinuous evolution, 30
Bathmism, 14
Bells (Sir Charles) _Anatomy of Expression_, 177
Bentham, Jeremy, 217, 218
Bergson, H., 208
Berkeley, 200
Berthelot, 228
Bickford, E., experiments on degeneration by, 52
Biophores, 47
Blumenbach, 89
Bodin, 256
Bonald, on war, 273
Bonnet, 6
BOUGLE, C., on _Darwinism and Sociology_, 264-280
Bourdeau, 253
Bourget, P., 270
Boutroux, 208
Brassica, hybrids of, 106
_Brassica Napus_, 106
Broca, 137, 270
Brock, on Kant, Foot Note 6
Brunetiere, 274
Bruno, on Evolution, 4
Buch, von, 15
Buckle, 252, 253, 256, 258
Buffon, 6-15, 21, 88
Burdon-Sanderson, J., letter from, Foot Note 224
BURY, J. B., on _Darwinism and History_, 246-263
Butler, Samuel, 9, Foot Note 17, Foot Note 57, Foot Note 61, 94, Foot Note 66, 107
Butterflies, mimicry in, 65-83
--sexual characters in, 59-63
Cabanis, 201
Candolle, de, 270
Carneri, 217
_Castnia linus_, 76
Caterpillars, variation in, 36, 37
Cesnola, experiments on Mantis by, 65
Chaerocampa, colouring of, 68
Chambers, R., _The Vestiges of Creation_ by, 15
Chromosomes and Chromomeres, 47, 96-100
Chun, Foot Note 36
Claus, Foot Note 21
Clodd, E., Foot Note 13
Coadaptation, 41-54
_Colobopsis truncata_, 44
Colour, E. B. Poulton, in relation to Sexual Selection, 61-65
Comte, A., 200-203, 252-255, 262, 265
Condorcet, 221, 250, 252, 258
Cope, 138
Correlation of organisms, Darwin's idea of the, 2
Cournot, 265
Cuvier, 9, 10, 266, 268
Cytology and heredity, 95, 96, 99, 100
_Danaida chrysippus_, 75
_Danaida genutia_, 75
_D. Plexippus_, 75
Dantec, Le, 274
Darwin, Charles, as an Anthropologist, 146-165
--on ants, 44
--and S. Butler, Foot Note 61, 94
--on Cirripedia, 212
--on the Descent of Man, 111-145
--evolutionist authors referred to in the _Origin_ by, 9
Darwin, Charles, and Haeckel, 137
--and History, 246-263
--and Huxley, 112
--on Lamarck, 28, 129
--on Language, 124
--and Malthus, 16, 24, 91
--on Patrick Matthew, 19
--on mental evolution, 166-196
--on Natural Selection, 21, 41, 54, 55, 122
--a "Naturalist for Naturalists," 87
--his personality, 187
--his influence on Philosophy, 197-222
--predecessors of, 1-22
--his views on religion, etc., 115, 116, 219-222
--his influence on religious thought, 223-245
--causes of his success, 10, 90
Darwin, Charles, on the _Vestiges of Creation_, 15
--and Wallace, 23, 183
--on evolution, 7-15, 88
--on Lamarckism, 11
Darwin, F., on Prichard's "Anticipations," 21
Darwinism, Sociology, Evolution and, 17-18
Degeneration, 49-51, 93
Deniker, 137
Descartes, 4
Descent, history of doctrine of, 1
_Descent of Man_, G. Schwalbe on _The_, 111-145
--rejection in Germany of _The_, 156
Diderot, 6, 198
Dimorphism, seasonal, 30
_Dismorphia orise_, 75
Dragomirov, 273
Driesch, Foot Note 67
Dryopithecus, 132