For
Galton’s part, the rebellion prompted by The Origin of
Species
included
sarcastic attacks on religious dogma, including the belief in
the power
of
prayer. Galton, for example,
asked how
the public might react to a proposal for a “special inquiry”
to
determine
“whether the laws of physical nature are ever changed in
response to
prayer.” Such an inquiry, he
suggested,
might measure whether “success has attended the occasional
prayers in
Liturgy
when they have been used for rain, for fair weather, for the
stilling
of the
sea in a storm, or for the abatement of pestilence.”
He concluded—happily, for him—that “the
modern feeling of this country is so opposed to a belief in
the
occasional
suspension of the general laws of nature, that most English
readers
would smile
at such an investigation.”
Galton
proposed a replacement for traditional religious dogma, the
new field
(with a
name he coined) of eugenics, which he defined as “the study of
agencies
under
social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities
of
future
generations, whether physically or mentally.”
He proposed that after eugenics first gains acceptance
as an
academic
matter and then as a practical matter, that it should enter a
third and
final
stage: “It must be introduced into the national consciousness
as a new
religion.”
As early as 1864, Galton complained of the
scant
attention
society has given improving its own genetic stock, even while
devoting
generations
to improving the quality of pets and livestock.
In an article entitled “Hereditary Character and Talent,”
Galton
speculated about the positive change such attention could achieve: “If a twentieth part of the cost and
pains
were spent in measures for the improvement of the human race that
is
spent on
the improvement of the breed of horses and cattle, what a galaxy
of
genius
might we not create! We might
introduce
prophets and high priests of civilization into the world, as
surely as
we might
propogate idiots by mating cretins. Men
and
women of the present day are, to those we might hope to bring into
existence, what the pariah dogs of the streets of an Eastern town
are
to our
own highly-bred varieties.”
Galton considered whether plausible practical
means
existed to create “a highly-bred human race,” and he determined
that
they
did. By way of illustration, he
demonstrated how simply dividing persons into two castes, A and B
(A
selected
for “natural gifts” and B being “the refuse”), and adopting a
policy
that
hastened marriages in caste A and discouraged marriages in caste
B,
dramatic
improvement in human genetic stock could be achieved in just a few
generations. In short, he concluded,
“I
see no absurdity in supposing that, in some way or other, the
improvement would
be carried into effect.”
Galton
recognized that genetic improvements in human populations
could be
brought
about in two ways: through positive eugenics, the
practice of
encouraging those with natural gifts to produce more children,
or
through negative
eugenics, the practice of encouraging the weak and unfit
to produce
fewer
children. Of the two approaches,
Galton
saw the former as more politically practical and desirable.
Galton’s
ideas about eugenics began to take hold by the early 1900s
when
developments in
Mendelian genetics made it seem more plausible. Leading
universities
such as
Harvard,
Another
person who found considerable merit in eugenics was George W.
Hunter, a
biology
teacher at
Hunter’s
book, however, has importance far beyond the controversial
ideas from
eugenics
it promotes. A Civic Biology
was
the biology textbook prescribed by
The
theory of evolution was itself evolving in 1919, the year
Hunter
published his Civic
Biology, as scientists struggled to reconcile new
findings from
Mendel's work on genetics with Darwinian theory.
Readers
of his biology
textbook could
gain little appreciation of the ongoing controversy that would
eventually lead to a neo-Darwinian synthesis. (EL,
24-25)
The subject of human evolution warranted a
separate
one-page discussion. Unfortunately,
that
discussion reflected the scientific racism of popular at the
time.” (EL, 23)
Hunter reported in his book, “There once lived upon the
earth
races of
men who were much lower in their mental organization than the
present
inhabitants.” (CB, 195)
At first, man was “little better than one of
the lower animals.” (CB, 196)
Hunter indicated that of the “five races or
varieties of men” found today, some are clearly more evolved than
others. There are, Hunter claimed,
the
four lower
types of humans, including the “Ethiopian or negro type,” “the
Malay or
brown
race,” “the American Indian,” and the “Mongolian or yellow race.” “Finally,” Hunter concluded, there is
“the
highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized
white
inhabitants of Europe and
===============================================================
Throughout
his
two-week stay in
In
a speech that he hopes will alert the nation to the dangers of
evolution,
“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon
eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous
state of
health. We civilized men, on the
other
hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build
asylums for
the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor laws; and
our
medical
men exert their utmost skill to save the life of everyone to the
last
moment.
There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved
thousands
who, from a
weak constitution, would have succumbed to smallpox.
Thus the weak members of civilized society
propagate their kind. No one who has
attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this
must
be
highly injurious to the race of man. It
is
surprising how soon…care wrongly directed leads to the
degeneration
of a
domestic race.”
“Darwin,”