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References
Marvin, Harris, The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1968), pp. 116–123.
Derek, Freeman, “The Evolutionary Theories of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer,” Current Anthropol., 15 (1974), 221. Fifteen commentaries and a reply by Freeman follow this essay.
Robert Young, “Malthus and the Evolutionists: The Common Context of Biological and Social Theory,” Past and Present, 1969, pp. 109–145, stresses the Malthusian context of the writings of Spencer, Darwin, Wallace, and others. Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959), chap. 19, takes the position that Darwin was not interested in the bearing of his theory on problems of social evolution. John S. Haller, Jr., Outcasts from Evolution: Scientific Attitudes of Racial Inferiority, 1859–1900 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971), pp. 86–88, recognizes that Darwin believed in the existence of superior and inferior races but does not discuss his social evolutionism. Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, rev. ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), pp. 90–91, seems uncertain whether to regard Darwin as a “social Darwinist” or not, stressing the contradictory character of his utterances in this connection. Jacob W. Gruber, “Darwinism and Its Critics,” Hist. Sci., 3, (1964), 123, states that “Darwin did not use the idea of competition or ‘struggle for existence’ in the interpersonal and aggressive sense in which Spencer and the social Darwinists used it.” Howard E. Gruber, in H. E. Gruber and Paul H. Barrett, Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1974), p. 240, asserts that Darwin “never entertained” the social Darwinist idea of “the pitiless struggle of man against man as a defensible social arrangement.” The foregoing are but a few of the varying and contradictory opinions concerning Darwin's views as a social evolutionist.
Charles, Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), p. 618.
Thomas F., Glick, ed., The Comparative Reception of Darwinism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972).
Letter from Darwin to Charles Lyell, Ilkley, Yorkshire, October 11, 1859, quoted in The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, ed. Francis, Darwin, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1888). II, 211. See also in the same volume, p. 334, Darwin's comment in a letter to Lyell (September 23, 1860): “The white man is ‘improving off the face of the earth” even races nearly his equals.”
As transcribed from Darwin's Notebook E in Gruber and Barrett, Darwin on Man, p. 459.
For some reason Darwin drew a line through “New Zealanders” in this annotation. He also underlined the words “the weeds” in Wallace's account of how the superior physical, moral, and intellectual qualities of the European enabled him to increase at the expense of savage man, “just as the weeds of Europe overrun North America and Australia, extinguishing native productions by the inherent vigour of their organisation, and by their greater capacity for existence and multiplication.” See A. R., Wallace, “The Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity of Man Deduced from the Theory of ‘Natural Selection’,” Anthropol. Rev., 2 (1864), clxv.
Letter from Darwin to A. R. Wallace, Down, Bromley, Kent, May 28, 1864, quoted in Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, ed. James, Marchant, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1916), II, 127. See also Darwin's letter to Wallace, January 26, 1870, ibid., pp. 205–206.
Charles, Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1868), II, 7.
Francis, Galton, “Hereditary Talent and Character,” part 1, Macmillan's Magazine, 12 (June 1865), 166.
Charles, Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), 134.
William R. Greg, “On the Failure of ‘Natural Selection’ in the Case of Man,” Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, September 1868, p. 356.
Letter from Francis Galton to Charles Darwin, 42 Nutland Gate S.W., January 28, 1870 (item 160, vol. 80, Darwin Correspondence, Cambridge University Library.
Walter Bagehot, “Physics and Politics,” The Fortnightly Rev. April 1, 1868, p. 456.
Ibid., p. 467.
Charles, Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1868), pp. 46–47.
Charles, Darwin, More Letters of Charles Darwin, ed. Francis, Darwin, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1903), I, 298.
David, Page, Man: Where, Whence and Whither. Being a Glance at Man in His Natural-History Relations (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1867), p. 91.
Letter from Charles Darwin to Charles Lyell, Down, April 27, 1860, quoted in More Letters, II, 30: “I cannot explain why, but to me it would be an infinite satisfaction to believe that mankind will progress to such a pitch that we should [look] back at [ourselves] as mere Barbarians.” Sec also the quotation in n. 3 and Darwin's letter to Lyell dated January 4, 1860 Life and Letters, II, 262.
David, Page, Man: Where, Whence and Whither. Being a Glance at Man in His Natural-History Relations (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1867), p. 92.
Charles, Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), p. 128.
Charles, Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), p. 129.
Charles, Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), p. 130.
Charles, Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), p. 132.
Charles, Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), pp. 123–124.
Charles, Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), p. 124.
Charles, Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), p. 140.
Charles, Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), p. 143.
Charles, Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), p. 618.
Letter from Darwin to G. A. Gaskell, Down, November 15, 1878, quoted in More Letters, II, 50.
Letter from Darwin to William Graham, Down, July 3, 1881, quoted in Life and Letters, I, 316.
John W., Burrow, Evolution and Society: A Study in Victorian Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966).
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Greene, J.C. Darwin as a social evolutionist. J Hist Biol 10, 1–27 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00126092
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00126092