Page 202 - The Evolution Impasse 2

200 Social Darwinism

SOCIAL DARWINISM sur viv al in na ture from Malthus:
One of the the o ry of ev o lu tion's In October, 1838, that is, fif teen
months aft er I had be gun my sys tem at -
most ba sic claims is that the de vel -
ic in quiry, I hap pened to read for
op ment of liv ing things is based on a
amuse ment Malthus on pop u la tion,
strug gle for sur viv al. According to
and be ing well pre pared to ap pre ci ate
Darwin, there was a ruth less eter nal
the strug gle for ex is tence which ev ery -
con flict in na ture. The strong al ways
where goes on from long con tin u ous
van quished the weak, thanks to
ob ser va tion of the hab its of an i mals
which progress be came pos si ble.
and plants, it at once struck me that
The sub ti tle to his book On The un der these cir cum stan ces, fa vour a ble
Origin of Species summed up his var i a tions would tend to be pre served
view: By Means of Natural Selection or and un fa vour a ble ones to be de stroyed.
the Preservation of Favored Races in the The re sult of this would be the for ma -
Struggle for Life. tion of new spe cies. Here, then, I had at
Darwin's source of in spi ra tion on last got a the o ry by which to work. 228
this sub ject was the British econ o - Influenced by Malthus, Darwin
mist Thomas Malthus's book An ap plied this view to the whole of na -
Essay on the Principle of Population, ture and sug gest ed that in this con -
which im plied a rath er gloomy fu - flict, the strong est and fit test would
ture for the hu man race. Malthus cal - sur vive. Darwin's claim cov ered all
cu lat ed that, left to it self, the hu man plants, an i mals and hu man be ings.
pop u la tion would grow very fast, Moreover, he par tic u lar ly em pha -
dou bling ev ery 25 years. However, sized that the strug gle for sur viv al
food re sour ces could not in crease at was a le git i mate, un chang ing law.
near ly that quick ly. The hu man race He en cour aged peo ple to aban don
would there fore face a con stant their re li gious be lieves by de ny ing
short age of food. The main fac tors cre a tion, and thus tar get ed all those
keep ing pop u la tion un der con trol mor al cri te ria that might stand in the
were such dis as ters as war, fam ine way of the ruth less strug gle for sur -
and dis ease. In short, some peo ple viv al.
would have to die while oth ers For that rea son, Darwin's the o ry
lived. Survival meant con stant war. ac quired a great deal of sup port
Darwin ad mit ted that he had from the mo ment he an nounced it—
drawn the idea of the strug gle for first from the es tab lished or der in

The Evolution Impasse II