WHAT IMPACT DID THE
WRITINGS OF DARWIN HAVE ON VICTORIAN ATTITUDES TO RACE?
'The works of Charles Darwin
(1809-1882) have been cited more frequently than read, and read far more often
than understood' (James Moore, Post-Darwinian Controversies, 1979, p125).
This essay will
discuss the Victorian 'mind-set' as applied to racial acceptance and rejection
of both white and black following the publication of the writings of Charles
Darwin. The essay will also describe how Victorians linked their perceived
racial problems in the Empire, and used them to control the impoverished
working classes at home. Lorrimer (1978) says 'Victorian attitudes to race were as much a product of developments in
the white world of England as a result of the multi-coloured world of the
Empire'. The publication of the 'Origin
of Species' (1859) and 'Descent
of Man' (1871) excited much debate and controversy, challenging the
foundations of evolution and Christian doctrine. It nonetheless underpinned the
Victorian concept of progress, relating as it does from 'who we are' to 'what
we are'. Bolt (1971), citing (Bryce (1915)) says 'That no branches of historical enquiry have suffered more from fanciful
speculation than those, which relate to the origin and attributes of the races
of men. Hypotheses are tempting because, though it may be impossible to verify
them, it is, in the paucity of data, almost impossible to refute them'.
Prior to Darwin
the Victorians perception of 'race purity' was underpinned, and grossly
coloured by the genre of early 19th century scientists and medical
men, who published a series of pseudo-scientific papers which purported to show
the undeniable superiority of the white races as a whole, and the 'Englishman'
in particular. Whilst the gross morphology of all mankind was the same, the
white Anglo-Saxon was seen as specific superior genus of the species. The Scottish
anatomist Dr Robert Knox who mixed up many scatterbrained theories together and
proposed in 1850 that 'Black people
were to be hated, feared, fought with, and in the end exterminated'.
Fryer (1992) looked at the work of the pseudo-scientific 'Phrenologists' and
'Craniometrists' of the 19th century. These 'experts', such as James
Hunt (Founder of the Anthropological Society in London in 1863) and Samuel
George Morton (Palaeontologist) in the 1840s filled the skulls of both white
and black cadavers with sand to measure brain capacity. George Morton was
seeking to show that the white skull cavity held more sand than the black
skull, and therefore was not only superior to the black races, but was of a
different genus. Lorimer (1978) says 'That
the European head shape was always the standard of comparison, any deviation
from this ideal was considered inferior'. There was a perceived need at
the time to propose the theory of 'Polygenesis' which allowed the white races
to distance themselves from non-whites.
Thus was the
stage set for the emergence of a truly researched evolutionary treatise that
was to become the most significant work of its kind. The 'Origin of Species' in
1859, followed in 1871 with 'Descent of Man' by Charles Darwin. Hoppen (1998)
says 'That the work [The
Origin] had so enormous an impact that
its author soon became the increasingly protesting victim upon whom all sorts
of evolutionary speculations were indiscriminately lumbered'
Amongst the
Victorian purists (Christian-scientists) Darwinism was resisted for quite a
while. John Dewy (1865) cited in (Moore (1979)) says 'That although the ideas that rose up like armed men against Darwinism
owed their intensity to religious associations, their origin and meaning are to
be found in science and philosophy, not in religion.' Darwin, himself
says 'I see no reason why the views
given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of anyone'
(XLIX,239). Even so, both Cambridge and Oxford refuted Darwinism for a while.
Oxford went so far as to ban its inclusion in the library of Trinity College.
Moore (1979) used 'Festingers (1957) 'Theory of Cognitive Dissonance' to
explain their reluctance to accept Darwinian theory and proposed that the
Christian-scientists were 'Moving from dissonance to consonance by refuting its
existence'.
Whether Victorians where anti-Darwinian or pro-Darwinian,
Darwin's writings threw the then pseudo-science of 'Eugenics' into great
prominence. ('Eugenics: - Production of fine
offspring by improvement of inherited qualities'. (Oxford Concise 1988))
The slow demise of polygenesis and the re-acceptance of monogenesis married to
eugenics allowed the Victorians a self-justifiable reason to subjugate and even
annihilate sections of mankind that did not meet the Victorians perception of
manliness and godliness. It is a myth that Darwinism, evolution, survival etc.
concerned only the black races. Such was the spin put upon Darwinian thought,
that it could be used by many people of learning, to meet their own 'hidden
agendas'. The Victorian urge for racial purification even extended inwardly to
its own race, (albeit, of a lower class).
The rise in
unionisation and worker strikes where often seen in the new Darwinian light,
and used as condemnation, and a form of social or economic control. Bannister
(1979) cites a British popular writer 'William Rathbone Greg (1872)' who using
Darwinian principles coined the phrase 'Non-survival of the fittest'. He also
wrote 'A republic is conceivable in
which paupers should be forbidden to propagate' and that 'Eugenic control would
accrue to everyone' till the human race, both in its manhood and womanhood,
became one glorious fellowship of saints, sages and athletes'. Semmel
(1962) cited by (Wohl (1997)) says 'That
in the 1860s the contentious working classes and the rebellious Jamaicans were
viewed in a similar fashion. In each case they were treated as thoroughly
undisciplined, with a tendency to revert to bestial behaviour, consequently,
requiring to be kept in order by force. They had occasional but severe flashes
of violence; vicious and sly, incapable of telling the truth, naturally lazy
and unwilling to work unless under compulsion'. Some 'Eugenetists' went
even further, Dr John Berry Harcraft argued in 'Darwinism and Race' Progress (1865), that 'If we stamp out Infectious Diseases we
perpetuate Poor Types'. And Henry Smith in 'A plea for the Unborn' (1867) praised working mothers who
smothered deformed babies etc.
Not only where the poor and destitute seen as racially inferior
and as such expendable, but other northern Europeans where also seen as
racially impure. John Beddoe (1869) (President of the Anthropological Society
1889-1891) wrote 'That all men of
genius were orthognathous (less prominent jaw bones) while the Irish and Welsh
were prognathous, and that the Celt was closely related to 'Cro-Magnon Man',
who, in turn, was linked to the 'Africanoid'. Curtis (1968) quotes
Charles Kingsley who referred to the 'White
chimpanzees of Ireland'. These were all arguments of course, which
conveniently supported British rule in Ireland. (I.e. Political control allied
to Darwinism).
Political Darwinism and race was also a subject much discussed
by political writers of the era. Bagehot's 'Physics and Politics, or Thoughts on the application of the Principles
of 'Natural Selection' and 'Inheritance' to political Society (1872)
expresses his fears of regression and of disintegration in the carefully
established equilibrium of modern British constitutional practice. He saw human
development in progressive and evolutionary terms in line with the ideas of
Darwin. He furthermore saw the lower classes cast in the role of destructive
and primitive savages, (His paper should be seen in the light of agrarian
conflict, and the aftermath of the second 'Reform Act' (1867-8)).
The white Anglo-Saxon female was also subjugated, and seen as
inferior to the male. Hoppen (1998) points out 'That the reaction of many of the leading scientists to the rising
demands for women's rights is particularly revealing. He cites Mill (1869)
and his book 'The Subjection of Women' in which Mill says 'Darwin's chapters on 'Secondary Sexual
Characteristics' in 'Descent of Man', laid down two of the basic ground rules
for the ensuing debate: that women had in the past produced few eminent poets,
scientists, musicians, painters and so forth, and that…some, at least, of these
faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore, of a past and
lower state of civilisation'. John Galton (who was a half-cousin of
Darwin) did little to help women with his anthropological reports, that a
deficiency of brain weight hopelessly deprived women of the mental resources
available to men. Therefore with the working classes, Irish and Welsh, and
women already seen as inferior to the English gentleman; what then were their
views on the coloured races.
The average
Victorian man may never have seen an African 'savage/slave' and yet was happy
to go along with the popular belief that things he was told about the African
were truthful. He may well have taken his views from the literary 'giants' of
the time such as Charles Kingsley, author of 'Westward Ho (1855) and 'Water
Babies' (1863). Kingsley a well known anti-Darwinian, and a polygeneticist used
his fame to promote race hatred, and is credited by Desmond et al (1991) as
saying about an Africans life that 'Sacrifice
of life? prove it is life. It is a beast's life. The Anglo-Saxons were
extending Gods kingdom etc.'
Even the 'Jamaican Massacre' of 1865 authored by the then
Governor of the island, Edward John Eyre was originally perceived as a 'black
massacre' until his return to England when the affair became polarised into two
camps. The literary 'giants' such as Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley,
Tennyson, John Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle and Mathew Arnold fully backed Governor
Eyre. Only Darwin, Thomas Huxley and Herbert Spencer spoke out against him.
(Thus we had the Romantics versus the scientists.) Himmelfarb (1968) however
believed that 'Darwin's theory easily
gave comfort to the proponents of slavery and racism, and that the subtitle of
the 'Origin' ('The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life')
made a convenient motto for a more virulent racism' In reality it is
only more recently that reasons other than race have been seen to play a large
part. (Emancipation Act (1833) with its inadequate compensation, the removal of
the sugar maintenance price tariff, poor weather/declining crops and an
inadequate judicial and white collar control.)
Christian missionary work amongst the foreign dependencies was
still seen as a hopeless career at this time, William Reade, who's paper 'The
Efforts of Missionaries among Savages (1865)', says 'That missionaries could put their labour to better uses in caring for
Englishmen who suffered worse misery and starvation in their own cities'
To the question as to, how the writings of Darwin impacted upon
the Victorians, the conclusion must be that Darwin's theories provided
scientific platform open to interpretation by every crank,
pseudo-anthropologist, and serious student alike. Thus were Darwin's theories distorted and adapted to provide an
ideological prop for empire building, a self-justification for a greater
British power. Darwinism furnished a new rationale for almost all the old
beliefs about racial superiority and inferiority. Fryer (1992) says that 'Nineteenth century socialists assumed that
when they were studying human society, they were studying innate racial
characteristics at the same time'. And that 'The application of Darwin's theories to human society 'had a more
pervasive influence in spreading racist assumptions than the comparative
anatomy of the anthropologists'. Darwin in 'Descent of Man' (XLIX,41)
probably did not help matters when he predicted, 'At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the
civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage
races throughout the world'. One cannot help but think that the
Victorians had here, the 'ammunition', and the literary permission to indulge
in all their conquests, their barbarism, and their racial struggles to give the
world their concept of civilisation-the English way.
Whilst the theories improved the claims of the monogenists, in
showing the single source of all mankind, Darwin himself says 'That once evolution was accepted, the whole
attempt to differentiate species became meaningless, and as a consequence, the
dispute between monogenists and polygenists will die a silent and unobserved
death' Victorians although accepting this, continue to attempt subjugation
or even annihilation of what they perceived as a lower version of themselves.
Sadly this innate 'racism' was also used (using Darwin's name) to control the
social and political lives of their own kind. (The poor, the Irish, women etc.)
By using Darwin's theories the Victorians were, in their own eyes justifying
the words of God, and could maintain their ethos of godliness.
REFERENCES.
Bannister,R. (1979) Social
Darwinism (Temple Press, Philadelphia)P 169.
ibid., Gregg (1872)
Bolt, C. (1971) Victorian
Attitudes to Race (Routledge, London)P 206.
ibid ., Bryce (1915)
Desmond,A et al.(1991) Darwin
(Michael Joseph, London)P 211.
Fryer,P. (1992) Staying
Power. (Pluto Press,London)P 170,179.
Himmelfarb,G. (1968) Darwin
& Darwinian Revolution.(Norton Press,London)P 342.
Hoppen, K. (1998) Mid-Victorian
Generation. (Clarendon Press, Oxford)P 474,492.
ibid., Bagehot (1872)
ibid., Harcraft (1865)
ibid., Mill (1869)
ibid., Smith (1869)
Lorimer,D. (1978) Colour,
Class and the Victorians.(Leics. Univ. Press.)P 1,137.
Moore,J. (1979) Post-Darwinian
Controversies.(Cambridge Press, Cambridge)P 214.
ibid., Dewey (1862)
ibid., Festiger (1957)
Wohl,A. (1996) The
Victorian Web.(Internet Access)P 2.
ibid., Semmel (1962)
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(Leics. Univ. Press.1979)
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Eldridge,C. Ed: British
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Hibbert,C. The English
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Himmelfarb,G. Darwin
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Irvine,W Apes,Angels
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Word Count 2008 plus References/Bibliography.