Darwin and Racism
‘Am I not a man and a brother?’
Since people started to travel the world the concept of race has been prominent.
Racism was a feature in the ancient Greco-Roman world. In the 5th century BC Hippocrates, wrote his ‘Airs, Waters, Places’ which contained the idea that ‘dark people are cowards, and light people courageous fighters.’
François Bernier (1620-1688) was a French physician and traveller. In 1684 he published the first theory that divided humanity into what he called "races", distinguishing individuals by the colour of their skin. He published the article anonymously in the ‘Journal des Savants’, the earliest academic journal published in Europe, entitled “New Division of the Earth by the Different Species or 'Races' of Man that Inhabit It.”
Another French historian Henri de Boulainvilliers (1658–1722) divided the French into two races, the aristocratic "French race" descended from the invader Germanic Franks, and the indigenous Gallo-Roman race. The Frankish aristocracy dominated the Gauls by innate right of conquest.
These views about ‘races’ became widespread and unfortunately ‘people groups,’ which is a better term, are still categorised by the association of skin colour, as well as other attributes and habits and their aptitudes. The question is, ‘Are some people groups inherently better or more advanced genetically or are these variations on the essential concept of humanity?’
Darwin’s personal views
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was a movement to try and explain our world without involving God. One preacher summarised the difficulty such people had:
“The existence of the world points to a cause, the order of the universe suggests a mind, the beauty of nature a soul, the bountifulness of life a heart.”
Charles Darwin’s background was Anglican Christian, although his family were Unitarian in their views and were not associated with the evangelical revival. He went up to Cambridge University to study theology with a view to getting ordained; but his major interest was in Natural History so he changed his plans.
Darwin’s famous grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a passionate abolitionist. Erasmus was also a close friend of Josiah Wedgwood who had made his fortune making beautiful porcelain tableware. Wedgwood created a porcelain medallion with the image of a chained slave that bore the caption, “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” This medallion became a symbol of abolitionism and a fashionable way to disclose abolitionist views. This was the environment in which Darwin grew up.
Charles himself married Emma Wedgwood, his first-degree cousin.
The church taught that all men were descended from Adam and therefore all people were related. However by the mid 19th century there were many voices rejecting both the common descent of man from Adam and the equality of all people.
When he embarked on the Beagle expedition he still intended to be ordained and become a vicar in a country parish. Darwin spent five years exploring around South America and the Galapagos Isands on HMS Beagle (1831-1836). He had an encyclopaedia with him which subdivided humanity into fifteen different species. This was clearly untrue because different species cannot procreate together. It was in Brazil that he witnessed some of the horrors of slavery first hand. In his book, ‘Voyage of the Beagle,’ he wrote:
“Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have stayed in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal …. I will not even allude to the many heart-sickening atrocities which I authentically heard of … nor would I have mentioned the above revolting details, had I not met with several people … [who] speak of slavery as a tolerable evil.”
He made his views on slavery clear in the second edition of ‘The Descent of Man’ (1874),
“Slavery, although in some ways beneficial during ancient times, is a great crime; yet it was not so regarded until quite recently, even by the most civilized nations. And this was especially the case, because the slaves belonged in general to a race different from that of their masters. As barbarians do not regard the opinion of their women, wives are commonly treated like slaves.
There was obviously a tension going on in his mind. In his books, ‘The Origin of Species’ (1871) and ‘The Descent of Man’ (1874), Darwin argues that all living species have a common origin, adding that some human ‘races’ are more evolutionarily advanced than others. He was convinced that evolution was progressive and that the ‘Caucasians’ were more advanced than the black races. He argued in ‘The Descent of Man’ that humans had descended from a
“. . . hairy, tailed quadruped … inhabitant of the Old World.”
The main difficulty Darwin saw with this explanation was the high standard of moral qualities apparent in humans. Darwin devoted a chapter of this book trying to suggest evolutionary explanations of the moral sense seen in most humans but not in apes. He doesn’t tackle why the majority of humans believe there is a God.
He also felt that men were more advanced than women, men being,
“. . . more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than women [with] a more inventive genius. His brain was absolutely larger . . . the formation of her skull is said to be intermediate between the child and a man.”
When he proposed the evolution of the species by natural selection, Darwin suggested that Caucasian humans were at the top of life’s evolutionary ladder. The widespread reaction to his views was rejection. They disliked the idea that mankind was nothing more that an over-developed ape. People instinctively felt that human beings were something special. They were also worried that his views did away with the need for God.
Darwin thought that humans were simply part of the animal kingdom and not different from it. He wrote in ‘The Origin of Species’,
“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
The mechanism he suggested for the development of humans was not divine input but natural changes. These changes were later thought to be due to genetic mutations that give a survival advantage, resulting in the demise of the old species and its replacement by the more advanced one.
He clearly thought that his evolutionary ideas applied to all humans. In the ‘Descent of Man’ he wrote,
“ . . . the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace, the savage races throughout the world.”
He thought that man would develop further into,
“ . . .[a] more civilised state . . . even than the Caucasian.”
Darwin did consider that some human races were less developed in evolutionary terms. He described the tribal people of Tierra del Fuego in Patagonia to be “savages.” He writes,
“The sight of a naked savage in his native land is an event which can never be forgotten.”
They were, to him,
“ . . . like the troubled spirits of another world.”
He did not suggest that moral and social pressures would prevent the ‘more primitive races’ from being oppressed or exterminated. He certainly regarded some forms of humanity to be lower on the evolutionary tree than others. He foresaw that these ‘primitive savages’ would disappear, and when this happened there would be a widened gap in life forms. He anticipated that there would then be a gap between civilised Caucasian man and -
“ . . . some ape as low as a baboon, instead of, as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”
Applications of Darwin’s ideas by others
Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, regarded that hereditary genius was passed down through males and Charles was enthusiastic about this idea. Francis also moved the idea of natural selection onto eugenics and Charles cautiously accepted this.
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), was a fervent defender of Darwinism and from it developed the theory of Social Darwinism. Spencer believed, as Darwin did, in the theory of hedonistic utilitarianism. This view was proposed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill who suggested that gaining pleasure and avoiding pain directs all human action. Consequently what gives pleasure to the greatest number determines what is right.
His ‘Social Darwinism’ is mostly understood as,
“an apology for some of the most vile social systems that humankind has ever known,” for instance German Nazism.”
Spencer suggested that the struggle for existence, and survival of the fittest, could be applied to moral issues. He suggested that life is a struggle for human beings and that, in order for the best to survive, it is necessary to pursue a policy of not helping the weak. He said,
“. . . to aid the bad in multiplying, is, in effect, the same as maliciously providing for our descendants a multitude of enemies.”
It was Ernest Haeckel, a Professor of Zoology in Germany and an ardent disciple of Darwin, who popularised the logical consequences of Darwinism. He wrote,
“What good does it do to humanity to maintain artificially and rear the thousands of cripples, deaf mutes, idiots, etc who are born every year with an hereditary burden of incurable disease?”
He encouraged ‘involuntary euthanasia’, the active killing of “the hundreds of thousands of incurables – lunatics, lepers, people with cancer, etc.” Haeckel also recommended the “indiscriminate destruction of all incorrigible criminals.”
Haeckel’s views became very popular in Germany. They were accepted by Hitler and became the basis for the extermination of the Jews, the insane, gypsies and other undesirables such as unwanted children, by the third Reich regime. It is important to remember that many of these killings were undertaken by ordinary doctors and nurses who were following approved protocols.
Hitler developed some of Darwin’s theories into his social ideas and argued that it was acceptable to exterminate the weaker or undesirable people in society in order to strengthen the genetic pool and so make society stronger. Thus he justified to himself the extermination of any that the leaders of society did not want. Darwin thought racial groups such as aborigines and black people were intermediaries between apes and fully developed humans that were both intellectually and morally weaker than Europeans. He had written in ‘The Descent of Man’,
“If we do not prevent . . . the inferior members of our society from increasing at a quicker pace than the better class of men, the nation will retrograde.”
Darwin did also think that human beings should control their own evolution,
“All do good service who aid towards this end.”
It was this doctrine that opened the door to all manner of evils such as involuntary euthanasia, abortions and racism.
Jeremy Rifkin is a New Ager. Towards the end of his book ‘Algeny’ he discusses the effect that Darwinism logically brings with it.
“This is evolution. We no longer feel ourselves to be guests in someone else’s home and therefore obliged to make our behaviour conform to a set of pre-existing cosmic rules. It is our creation now. We make the rules. We establish the parameters of reality. We create the world and because we do we no longer have to justify our behaviour. We are now the architects of the universe. We are responsible, nothing outside ourselves. We are the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever.”
Darwin did try to dissociate himself from these extreme views that were based on his theory but by then the horse had bolted.
Racism Today
Who is most responsible for racism today? There are many in history who used slaves for their own and others’ benefit. Does the toppling of statues of those who became benefactors of society yet who made some of their money through slavery, really help the value of all human beings to be recognised? Even if Darwin and those who tried to apply his theories socially are a root cause of expanding the problem, would it really help to remove memories of him?
After World War II, there was an almost universal revulsion at the way some people mistreated others and as a result the Universal Declaration of human Rights was written and then adopted by the United Nations. One of those involved in producing this Declaration was the philosopher Jacques Maritain. It had been noted that people with very different philosophies of life had come together to produce this Declaration. Maritain liked to say,
“Yes, we agree about the rights, but on condition no-one asks why.”
Instinctively we know that inhumanity to man is wrong but is there a reason behind this? . Surely we need to emphasise loudly that all people matter because all mankind has been made in the image of God. All mankind recognises right from wrong, we all have consciences and seek to find answers to life. Into this world came Jesus who said that he was the answer everyone needed. He said that he alone can give us forgiveness of our sin, he alone can give us admission into the kingdom of God, and he alone can give us a certain future beyond death. His claims can be substantiated, and what he taught resonates with our innermost senses.
The answer to racism is not simply to say that it feels wrong and publicly demonstrate against it but to explain the reason as to why it is wrong. Put simply, this is what God has taught us through his prophets and ultimately through his Son, the Lord Jesus,
“. . .who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:4
This was where Darwin, Spenser and Haeckel went wrong. They had forgotten God.
The Bible emphasises that we are all slaves, slaves to sin, and that we all need to be rescued. Some do not recognise the captive state they are in, yet freedom, and admission into the family of our creator, is on offer to all people, whatever their nationality or people group. The Bible is clear that God is the creator of all people and that he entered this world as,
“. . . the man Christ Jesus who gave himself for all men.” 1 Timothy 2:5-6
It is God himself who has said that there are no distinctions in his eyes between different people groups.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 2:28
BVP
