Political Descent Malthus, Mutualism, and the Politics of Evolution in Victorian England
by Piers J. Hale
University of Chicago Press, 2014
Cloth: 978-0-226-10849-0 | Electronic: 978-0-226-10852-0
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226108520.001.0001
ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Historians of science have long noted the influence of the nineteenth-century political economist Thomas Robert Malthus on Charles Darwin. In a bold move, Piers J. Hale contends that this focus on Malthus and his effect on Darwin’s evolutionary thought neglects a strong anti-Malthusian tradition in English intellectual life, one that not only predated the 1859 publication of the Origin of Species but also persisted throughout the Victorian period until World War I. Political Descent reveals that two evolutionary and political traditions developed in England in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act: one Malthusian, the other decidedly anti-Malthusian and owing much to the ideas of the French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck.            
           
These two traditions, Hale shows, developed in a context of mutual hostility, debate, and refutation. Participants disagreed not only about evolutionary processes but also on broader questions regarding the kind of creature our evolution had made us and in what kind of society we ought therefore to live. Significantly, and in spite of Darwin’s acknowledgement that natural selection was “the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms,” both sides of the debate claimed to be the more correctly “Darwinian.” By exploring the full spectrum of scientific and political issues at stake, Political Descent offers a novel approach to the relationship between evolution and political thought in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Piers J. Hale is assistant professor in the Department of the History of Science at the University of Oklahoma. He lives in Norman, Oklahoma.

REVIEWS

“In his exploration of the crucial role of Malthusian thought in the evolutionary theory of liberal radicalism, Hale has provided scholars with a sort of sequel to Adrian Desmond’s Politics of Evolution. Hale shows that the debate over the validity of Malthus split liberal radicals into opposing camps. This is a novel approach to the relationship of evolution and political thought in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. It makes sense of what previously has been a confusing mass of debates involving important political thinkers and scientists who at first glance appeared to be allies. Impressive in its scope, Political Descent is a bold and exciting book.”
— Bernard Lightman, editor of Victorian Science in Context

“In this fascinating new book on the history of evolutionary biology, Hale explores the effects of Darwinism on the intertwined political, social, and natural economies of nineteenth-century Britain. Yet it is Darwinism with a difference. Instead of Charles Darwin, it is Malthus who is the focus of attention—and the rise and fall of Malthus’s ideas of competition, survival, overproduction, and success. Some biological thinkers rejected Malthusian ideas expressly because of their link with capitalism and explored other forms of evolutionary progress in human society. Others such as Thomas Henry Huxley continued to believe in a Malthusian gladiatorial arena. Hale presents incisive accounts of theorists such as Spencer, Mill, Hume, and the Duke of Argyle, and relocates Darwin’s theories of moral and social evolution into the broader context of political change. This new light on the explosion of evolutionary thought after Darwin is extremely welcome.”
— Janet Browne, Harvard University

“Hale’s survey reveals the full complexity of the political views that were derived from Darwin’s theory, with significant implications for how we view that theory today. He also demonstrates the roles played by non-Darwinian evolutionary theories, which influenced both the supporters and opponents of ‘social Darwinism.’”
— Peter J. Bowler, author of Darwin Deleted

Political Descent by Hale is a provocative and fresh rereading of the Victorian debates after Darwin about cooperation and altruism among humans. I never realized that I could learn so much new or that so often I would be forced to go back and reevaluate long-held beliefs. This is scholarship at its best and even better is a really good read. Highly recommended.”
— Michael Ruse, author of The Darwinian Revolution

"[A] wide-ranging historical narrative. . . . Ambitious."
— Frank N. Egerton, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Journal of British Studies

"This book is packed with information about the political dimensions of Darwinian evolution in Victorian England. All the important characters make an appearance, and Hale painstakingly traces the interconnections of their thinking as well as their stark differences. The chapter on Herbert Spencer builds on the groundbreaking work of Robert Richards but adds a number of new dimensions. Darwin’s own contributions regarding the evolution of humans are carefully traced, particularly the evolution of ethics. . . . The last chapter explores the anticipation of the 20th century arising from Darwinism, especially the impact on George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells and the hopes that were dashed by WW I. Finally, a fascinating afterword about the present addresses two central current issues: the attack on evolution by fundamentalist, literalist Christians in the US and the relationship between biology and politics today. Fully indexed, with lengthy references. An excellent text and a treasure for researchers in history, history of science, and political science. Highly recommended."
— CHOICE

"Hale’s welcome study tracks freshly for us the wide array of social and political ends and ideals to which knowledge of natural history could be put. It is an important contribution."
— Alison Bashford, Jesus College, Cambridge, Annals of Science

"A revelatory group portrait of socialist-Darwinian London of the 1880s and 90s."
— Gregory Radick, Times Literary Supplement

"Makes significant contributions to a wide range of interconnected historiographies and will become a standard work on the intersection of biology and politics. . . . The book will also come to be considered also as a significant contribution to an emerging new historiography on Malthus: the figure who seldom appears in person in Political Descent but haunts its discussions throughout."
— Chris Renwick, University of York, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

"Meticulously researched and compellingly argued. . . . Ideas can, and do, take on lives of their own and impact in ways beyond the conception of their originators. One could safely argue that Malthus, a priest schooled in the Church of England’s 39 articles of religion at the University of Cambridge, would at the very least have been troubled by Darwin’s work, just as Darwin disagreed with those who sought to subvert his theory to suit their own views of how the world should look."
— Simon Underdown, Times Higher Education

"Hale's ambitious history of the nineteenth-century politics of human evolution . . . . [offers] challenging departures from Victorian evolutionary thought that reflect in rich and complex ways on the intellectual crosscurrents of Victorian culture and society, as well as the emerging contingencies of modernism. With Hale, we can appreciate in a new comprehensive way the powerful alliance between the naturalism of evolution—T. H. Huxley’s 'Whitworth gun in the armoury of liberalism'—and the secular liberal agenda of political naturalism, an alliance that is under considerable stress in the contemporary modern Western cultures of its origins."
— Isis

TABLE OF CONTENTS

- Piers J. Hale
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226108520.003.0008
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Piers J. Hale
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226108520.003.0001
[Charles Darwin, Beagle, Tierrra del Fuego, Thomas Robert Malthus, Alfred Russel Wallace, evolution, politics, Origin of Species]
The records of Darwin's Beagle voyage reveal the connections he drew between natural, political and moral economies. He explicitly described his encounter with the natives of Tierra del Fuego in terms of prevailing Whig ideology. Letters from home had kept Darwin up to date with political reform in England, and upon his return he socialized with Harriet Martineau and other Malthusian Whig reformers. Origin reflected these political associations, which coloured the book's reception. Where the 1844 Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation had made for sensational society reading, Darwin made evolution scientifically respectable. While many of Darwin's contemporaries interpreted natural selection as an endorsement of the actions of ‘every cheating tradesman’, Darwin thought otherwise. He was impressed by Alfred Russel Wallace's 1864 account of the evolution of mind and morals, but was dismayed to see him later deny that selection could account for these aspects of humanity. (pages 24 - 65)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Piers J. Hale
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226108520.003.0002
[Herbert Spencer, William Godwin, Lamarckism, evolution, Social Statics, neurine]
Following recent scholarship it is clear that Herbert Spencer was no social Darwinist, rather his Lamarckian politics reflected an appreciation of the radicalism of William Godwin and Erasmus Darwin. Unlike many Whigs Spencer was ambivalent about Malthus's claim that population would outstrip resources. In his “Theory of Population” Spencer explained that the struggle for existence would drive the development of human intelligence as people exercised and thereby increased their mental capacities. In doing so they would deplete the neurine in their brains. Citing respected contemporary physiologists Spencer believed neurine was the same chemical substance that fuelled sexual desire, thus solving the Malthusian dilemma. In Social Statics and other early works Spencer articulated limited government as the basis of a progressive evolution towards a utopian socialist future, it was only later, when contemporary socialists embraced statist solutions to social problems, that he drew back from these conclusions. (pages 66 - 105)
This chapter is available at:
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- Piers J. Hale
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226108520.003.0003
[Charles Darwin, evolution, natural selection, ethics, altruism, John Stuart Mill, Walter Bagehot, John Morley, Frances Power Cobbe]
Debates about the implications of evolution quickly moved beyond morphology to focus on mind and morals. Darwin denied that his theory endorsed the ethics of every cheating tradesman, as some clearly assumed. With Wallace backtracking on human evolution Darwin took it upon himself to address the question in Descent of Man. Group selection among social species could account for the evolution of genuinely other-regarding sentiments. Darwin had read Smith and Hume on moral sentiments as well as many contemporary theorists including James Mackintosh, John Stuart Mill, and Walter Bagehot. In contrast to these accounts Darwin argued that human ethics had their origin in the social instincts and in the parental and filial affections rather than in self-interested human reason. This set him apart from Benthamite opinion and upset many with religious belief. John Morley and Frances Power Cobbe were reviewers who engaged with him on this score. (pages 106 - 154)
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    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Piers J. Hale
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226108520.003.0004
[new liberalism, socialism, Fabianism, Charles Darwin, Thomas Robert Malthus, Thomas Huxley, Herbert Spencer, Henry Meyers Hyndman, David George Ritchie]
Liberals and socialists variously accommodated their politics to evolutionary ideas. While historians have noted that liberals embraced social Darwinist ideas to advance either individualist laissez-faire or a collectivist social imperialism, there was a significant middle ground. By the 1870s most liberals embraced evolution to advance a progressive collectivist new-liberalism. Herbert Spencer and Thomas Huxley debated the merits and limits of laissez-faire in this crisis of liberal identity. Socialists were also divided on the politics of evolution and of the Malthusian elements of Darwinism in particular. The anti-Malthusianism that many radicals had brought with the movement coloured the socialist revival of the 1880s and 1890. Marxists like Henry Hyndman were also anti-Malthusian. Lamarckism proliferated throughout their various conceptions of social change. Prominent members of the Fabian Society were exceptions to this trend; embracing Malthus they built their conception of socialism around the management of societies resources. (pages 155 - 205)
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- Piers J. Hale
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226108520.003.0005
[Thomas Huxley, Peter Kropotkin, anarchist, mutual aid, ethics, cooperation, Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, Descent of Man]
In ‘The Struggle for Existence’ (1888) Huxley portrayed nature as a Malthusian gladiators arena in which only the strong survived. While this was the context from which humans had evolved, mankind had formed society to oppose these forces. However, anticipating his 1893 essay ‘Evolution and Ethics’, Huxley concluded that although an ethical society would preserve the lives of those that nature would otherwise have destroyed; they would breed and pass on their traits, becoming an ever-greater burden upon the rest. Society would ultimately succumb to struggle once more. The Russian émigré anarchist Peter Kropotkin communicated his vehement disagreement in a series of publications. Mutual aid and cooperation were just as much a factor in evolution as competition, especially among social species. While Huxley based his account of evolution on the competitive ethic that ran throughout Origin, Kropotkin's account was much closer to what Darwin had written in Descent of Man. (pages 206 - 251)
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- Piers J. Hale
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226108520.003.0006
[William Morris, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Robert Malthus, Friedrich Leopold August Weismann, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, evolution, socialism, natural selection, panmixia]
This chapter focuses on the ways British socialists interpreted evolution. As Fabianism and Marxism became more prominent, the Lamarkian and anti-Malthusian politics of men like William Morris and Peter Kropotkin became increasingly marginalized. H.G. Wells, a one-time admirer of Morris and sometime Fabian, took particular exception to Morris's anti-Malthusian assumptions. This became all the more so in light of his conviction that the German cell biologist August Weismann had undermined Lamarckian inheritance. Without the inheritance of acquired characters any hope of a significant human evolution on a relevant time scale was lost. Further, Wells became convinced that Weismann's theory of panmixia further undermined Morris's vision of socialism. Any ‘epoch of rest’ that ameliorated selective pressure would cause biological degeneration. George Bernard Shaw, was as Malthusian as Wells, but intervened to oppose Wells'sWeismannism. An ardent Lamarckian Shaw ultimately reflected that Morris might have been right. (pages 252 - 300)
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- Piers J. Hale
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226108520.003.0007
[Karl Pearson, Friedrich Leopold August Weismann, Benjamin Kidd, Thomas Robert Malthus, panmixia, socialism, eugenics]
Political Descent closes with a consideration of the young socialist statistician, Karl Pearson. Pearson debated the extent to which Weismann's views had implications for socialist politics. In the pages of Nature as well as in more popular journals he rejected the views of the popular author, Benjamin Kidd, who had repeated the argument that Weismann undermined socialism in his bestselling Social Evolution. Even though Pearson eventually came to accept Weismann's views, he argued that a combination of eugenics at home and an imperialist foreign policy would maintain a sufficiently Malthusian struggle to prevent national degeneration. The onset of the Great War of 1914 is a logical place to bring this history to a close. It was in the wake of the horrors of the First World War that Darwinian arguments went out of favor in British political circles, even though they were picked up again in later years. (pages 301 - 334)
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- Piers J. Hale
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226108520.003.0009
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Piers J. Hale
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226108520.003.0010
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index