Darwin Revelation

Throughout the course of this year in our Scientific Revolutions class I’ve come across some very interesting ideas. Some of these ideas I’ve already known and was simply made more aware of, while others were completely alien to me. However, one concept stuck out. Charles Darwin postulated that all of mankind is descendant of a lower, baser form. I’ve known this since it was taught to me at a young age in school, but what I’ve recently came across is the concept of evolution leaping from purely natural settings to evolution of society and civilization.

This notion was not directly stated by Darwin, but rather a man following down the same path, a man named Herbert Spencer. Within Appelman’s book this particular section on Spencer is interpreted by another man named Richard Hofstadter, but in either case his contributions are in giving a living voice and context to Spencer’s ideals.

What Spencer puts forth in his philosophy on mankind is that the human race will adapt entirely to civilization, but to do so we must allow for Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest” to take hold within society. What Spencer is saying is that we must allow for the unfortunate to die off. No aid or humanitarian efforts of any kind can be allowed for to help would be to bolster up traits and ideals which are flawed or lead to subpar qualities. To quote Hofstadter, “Nature is as insistent upon fitness of mental character as she is upon physical character, (pg. 392)” so stating that being physically or mentally unfit ends with death in the natural world. And to emphasize Hofstadter’s point, Spencer says, “If they are sufficiently complete to live, they do live, and it is well they should live. If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, as it is best they do die. (pg. 392)”

However, how could we ever do this? The general masses of people are far too kind hearted to allow someone to perish on their very doorstep for the sake of the overall effect of evolution. Even if you were to take away this humanitarian aspect of helping those in need, we would still be left with the very basic survival instinct of safety in numbers. In some instances we save others to save ourselves. Yet even if you take away this base instinct you would find that this theory still doesn’t work. Just consider a world where we allowed the weak to die with impunity. We would stand to lose many great people along the way. Poets and authors who were too poor to get by without help, painters who had no money but that they acquired through begging. If we snuffed out or ignored those in need we would find ourselves in a much less wondrous environment, devoid of things which we take for granted.

I realized through reading about Spencer’s plan that our need to be humane trumps our evolutionary needs. Our society is far better off with those who need help than without them. While I reject Spencer’s notions in society I accept his consideration of evolution within it. Darwin’s belief was that evolution was a multi-pronged assault against extinction, that the myriad of species which inhabit this earth are a result of this assault. Both Spencer and Darwin rely on this notion of steps, that we start from a single point and grow out from it, changing along the way to better suit the needs for that time. However, Spencer’s notion fails to take into account that the civilized world cannot follow the same rules as a flesh and blood animal. Social aspects can be found in other species, but empires and civilizations cannot be, Spencer’s theory is placing biological concepts on abstract principles.

Works Cited

Hofstadter, Richard. Social Darwinism in American Though. Ch. 2. Boston, 1955

Darwin (appleman)



This video describes some of the basic feelings towards the notion of social darwinsim, though it is put into the scheme of the failing market.