Neo-Darwinism

“ Government and exploitation become synonymous under such circumstances; and the world is finally ruled by the childish, the brigands, and the blackguards. Those who refuse to stand in with them are persecuted and occasionally executed when they give any trouble to the exploiters. They fall into poverty when they lack lucrative specific talents. At the present moment one half of Europe, having knocked the other half down, is trying to kick it to death, and may succeed: a procedure which is, logically, sound Neo-Darwinism. ”

“ These are such simple and tangible facts that one would suppose that every reasonable and unprejudiced politician would recommend the theory of descent and the evolution hypothesis in general as the best antidote to the fathomless absurdity of extravagant social leveling.
"Darwinism, I say, is anything rather than socialist! If this English hypothesis is to be compared to any definite political tendency—as is, no doubt, possible—that tendency can only be aristocratic, certainly not democratic, and least of all socialist. ”

“ Even in Socialist Societies which existed solely to substitute the law of fellowship for the law of competition, and the method of providence and wisdom for the method of rushing violently down a steep place into the sea, I found myself regarded as a blasphemer and an ignorant sentimentalist because whenever the Neo-Darwinian doctrine was preached there I made no attempt to conceal my intellectual contempt for its blind coarseness and shallow logic, or my natural abhorrence of its sickening inhumanity. ”

“ This is still the way it appears to me, and consequently, on this point I disagree with some socialists who have thought they could triumph more completely over the objection urged against them in the name of Darwinism by declaring that in human society the "struggle for existence" is a law which is destined to lose all meaning and applicability when the social transformation at which socialism aims shall have been effected. ”

“ The individual or the society which no longer has an ideal to strive toward is dead or about to die. [9] The formula of communism may then be a more remote ideal, when collectivism shall have been completely realized by the historical processes which I will consider further on.
We are now in a position to conclude that there is no contradiction between socialism and Darwinism on the subject of the equality of all men. Socialism has never laid down this proposition and like Darwinism its tendency is toward a better life for individuals and for society. ”

“ What have we to fear from the revolution or from the people?--nothing, absolutely nothing. If to-day they dance round the golden calf, to-morrow they will prostrate themselves the deeper in the dust before Jehovah; if to-day they place the Goddess of Reason on the throne, tomorrow like frightened children they will fly back again into the bosom of Mother Church. And if in reality, as you said yesterday, Darwinism is to be for Germany the religion of the future, so be it; we will be the Darwinians par excellence, and with holy zeal will teach the new faith from the chairs of the universities. ”

“ Mivart. Anti-Darwinian polemics we awaited, but such criticism, if conducted on legitimate—that is, on purely scientific—principles, we should be among the first to welcome, well knowing that in any issue Science must be the gainer. Although believing in Evolution, we have never given to the hypothesis commonly known as "Darwinism" more than a qualified and provisional adhesion. ”

“ Socialism maintains, on the contrary, that this inequality—though greatly diminished under a better social organization which will do away with all the physical and mental imperfections that are the cumulative results of generations of poverty and misery—can, nevertheless, never disappear for the reasons that Darwinism has discovered in the mysterious mechanism of life, in other words on account of the principle of variation that manifests itself in the continuous development of species culminating in man. ”

“ The German coveting greater economic opportunities, knowing himself strong to survive, believes in his divine right to possess. It is conscious Darwinism—the survival of the fittest, materially, which he is applying to the world—Darwinism accelerated by an intelligent will. And the non-Germanic world—the Latin world, for it is a Latin world in varying degrees of saturation outside of Germany—rejects the theory and the practice with loathing—when it sees what it means. ”

“ Socialism and Darwinism, it is said, are in conflict on a second point. Darwinism demonstrates that the immense majority—of plants, animals and men—are destined to succumb, because only a small minority triumphs "in the struggle for life"; socialism, on its part, asserts that all ought to triumph and that no one ought to succumb. ”

“ The higher the advance of human culture, the greater the difference and gulf between the various classes existing. Communism and the demands put up by the Socialists in demanding an equality of conditions and activity is synonymous with going back to the primitive stages of barbarism.”
The English philosopher Herbert Spencer already had a theory on social growth before Darwin. ”

“ The examination of the relations between Darwinism and socialism might lead us much further, but it would go on constantly eliminating the pretended contradiction between the two currents of modern scientific thought, and it would, on the contrary, confirm the essential, natural and indissoluble harmony that there is between them. ”

“ From this time our attention will be mainly focussed upon Darbyism; partly from the necessity of the case, since the Open Brethren—as those that refused to abide by Darby’s decree came generally to be called [3] —are in the proverbially happy condition of scarcely having a history; partly because Darbyism has been by far the most powerful and typical phase of the whole movement, and Open Brethrenism is best dealt with as a species of modified Darbyism.
The distinctive feature of Darbyism was of course the discipline it executed against the Open Brethren ”

“ If you read the critics and speeches of this „Darwinist“, you will be often surprised on finding how firm he is in the belief that only the highest Justice and the victory of the sublime principles of freedom, equality and brotherhood can smooth the cruelty of the struggle for life, the necessity of which he never doubted. ”

“ In all this it were difficult to find a single trait that can be referred to the Darwinian anthropology. The Socialist's "aspiration toward perfection" is associated with his ideal of the equality of mankind. Now, this illusion Darwinism utterly demolishes. The very principle of development negatives the principle of equality. So far does Darwinism go in denying equality, that even where in idea we should have equality, Darwinism pronounces its realization an impossibility. ”

“ The general acceptance of the idea that all things change, that property, marriage, religion, etc., are in process of evolution and are destined to take on new forms prepared the way for Socialism. A man who has read Wallace and Darwin is ready to read Marx and Engels.
Now the story of the birth of Darwinism is itself a proof of the fallacy of the Great Man theory, and a signal confirmation of the view that new ideas, theories and discoveries emanate from the material conditions. The role of the great man is still an important one. ”

“ Yet it was natural for the bourgeoisie to make use of Darwinism against the proletarians. The bourgeoisie had to contend with two armies, and the reactionary classes know this full well. When the bourgeoisie attacks their authority, they point at the proletarians and caution the bourgeoisie to beware lest all authority crumble. ”

“ This sentence gave great offence, and Darby endeavoured to shield himself by a footnote, which does not greatly alter matters. Dorman’s criticism is just. “His adding ‘as a perfect being to learn it for others,’ is not of the least force; because it involves the absolute contradiction of what is affirmed. For a moral condition is a moral condition; and there is but one way of passing through it.” Apparently both Newton and Darby found themselves precipitated by their system on a conclusion against which their heart and conscience cried out. ”

“ It has been reserved for Darbyism to develop a system which upon the smallest basis should erect the most tremendous superstrueture—a superstructure which in the intolerance of its claim, and the boldness of its assertion, reminds us of the days of Papal power in the middle ages. ”

“ Or again they seek in this doctrine a derivative of Darwinism which is an analogous theory only in a certain point of view and in a very broad sense; or again they have the condescension to favor us with the alliance or the patronage of that positive philosophy which extends from Comte, that degenerate and reactionary disciple of the genial Saint-Simon, to Spencer, that quintessence of anarchical capitalism, which is to say that they wish to give us for allies our most open adversaries. ”

“ But even without this experience, a post-Darwinian politician would point to the changelessness of the East as in itself a sign of degeneracy, and the restlessness of the West as a proof of its superiority. ”

“ We are far here beyond looking at sufferings as coming from man. They did and were felt, but men are not before Him in judgment; nor is it His expiatory work, though that which wrought it is here—the indignation and wrath. It is Himself, His own being cut off as man.” In this passage, Darby so abuses his privilege of writing without regard to the principles of grammar that I should be loth to dogmatise as to his meaning; but the meaning that seems to lie the least remote from his words is surely that which Dorman imputes to him. ”

“ Indeed the undoubted power of Darbyism was often a trial to the rival section of the Brethren. John Howard suggested that the “power” might come from a most sinister source; but we are not reduced to this expedient. The strength of Darby’s party lay in its homogeneity. The universal pressure of one iron will ensured a common action. The universal inspiration of one imperial spirit produced a common aim and a common enthusiasm. Discipline was all-pervading and resistless. A party thus equipped for action, and exactly knowing what it wanted, might well be strong ”

“ She may prove to the world that, for one people, at any rate, despotism and demagogy are not the necessary alternatives of government; that freedom and order are not incompatible; that reverence is the handmaid of knowledge; that free discussion is the life of truth, and of true unity in a nation.
"Will England play this part? That depends upon how you, the public, deal with science. Cherish her, venerate her, follow her methods faithfully and implicitly in their application to all branches of human thought, and the future of this people will be greater than the past. ”

“ In respect of the great problems of Philosophy, the post-Darwinian generation is, in one sense, exactly where the prae-Darwinian generations were. They remain insoluble. But the present generation has the advantage of being better provided with the means of freeing itself from the tyranny of certain sham solutions. ”

“ It is not the Darby that Groves and Newman loved for his large-heartedness in Dublin; nor even the Darby to whom his enemies bore honourable witness in Switzerland. I suppose it is well-nigh impossible for a man to be treated as infallible through a long series of years by thousands of his fellow-creatures, without suffering grievous moral deterioration; and arrogance and ruthlessness are obviously the qualities most likely to be developed. ”

“ Darby could scarcely even grasp the familiar conception of a transcendental Christian unity rising supreme above all organised expression, and above all organised contradiction. To the end of his days he had no more sympathy with such a view than when he was what might be called a Puseyite before the time. In like manner, his disgust at the distinction between the visible Church and the invisible is so great that he sometimes argues against it in a manner wholly inexplicable, unless he thought “any stick good enough to beat a dog with”. ”

“ WHY DARWIN PLEASED THE SOCIALISTS
The Humanitarians were not alone among the agitators in their welcome to Darwin. He had the luck to please everybody who had an axe to grind. The Militarists were as enthusiastic as the Humanitarians, the Socialists as the Capitalists. The Socialists were specially encouraged by Darwin's insistence on the influence of environment. Perhaps the strongest moral bulwark of Capitalism is the belief in the efficacy of individual righteousness. ”

“ And so another122 learned Englishman has called the fundamental principle of Darwinism ‘the survival of the fittest, the victory of the best.’
“At all events the principle of selection is not in the slightest degree democratic; it is, on the contrary, thoroughly aristocratic. If then, Darwinism, carried out to its ultimate logical consequences, has, according to Virchow, for the statesman ‘an extraordinarily dangerous side’ the danger is doubtless that it favors aristocratic aspirations.” ”

“ Why, Davy, what are you going to put up against them? Your other civilizations, based on individualism, without responsibility, order, discipline, efficiency? Whatever you may think about it, Germany has a logical conception, worked out to the minutest detail. What have we? A government based on the theory of the consent of the governed. And who governs? Not the people—not the leaders we see—but something which remains in the shadows. We’re plundered, we’re wasteful, we’re inefficient; we don’t even know there is a science of government. Government annoys us. ”

“ But for Darby’s tracts, however, he would have “gone on” with his party “in sadness indeed, and with the oppressive conviction that” his “great theory of subjection to the Holy Spirit, as dwelling in the Church on earth, was practically abandoned”. But Dorman had not so far shown any sign of disaffection, although circumstances had probably, unperceived by him, been loosening his moorings to Darbyism. Hall was before his friend in taking action. In 1865, after three years’ uneasy silence, he engaged in correspondence with Darby, but ineffectually. ”