Political Descent : Malthus, Mutualism, and the Politics of Evolution in Victorian England

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. Contents 8 Introduction: The Politics of Evolution 10 Chapter 1. Every Cheating Tradesman: The Political Economy of Natural Selection 33 Chapter 2. A Very Social Darwinist: Herbert Spencer鈥檚 Lamarckian Radicalism 75 Chapter 3. A Liberal Descent: Charles Darwin and the Evolution of Ethics 115 Chapter 4. Liberals and Socialists: The Politics of Evolution in Victorian England 164 Chapter 5. Malthus or Mutualism?: Huxley, Kropotkin, and the Moral Meaning of Darwinism 215 Chapter 6. Of Mice and Men: Malthus, Weismann, and the Future of Socialism 261 Chapter 7. Fear of Falling: Evolutionary Degeneration and the Politics of Panmixia 310 Conclusion: Political Descent: Anticipations of the Twentieth Century and Beyond 344 Afterword: Engaging the Present 361 Acknowledgments 364 Notes 368 Bibliography 410 Index 434 Introduction: The Politics of Evolution 1 Every Cheating Tradesman: The Political Economy of Natural Selection 2 A Very Social Darwinist: Herbert Spencer’s Lamarckian Radicalism 3 A Liberal Descent: Charles Darwin and the Evolution of Ethics 4 Liberals and Socialists: The Politics of Evolution in Victorian England 5 Malthus or Mutualism?: Huxley, Kropotkin, and the Moral Meaning of Darwinism 6 Of Mice and Men: Malthus, Weismann, and the Future of Socialism 7 Fear of Falling: Evolutionary Degeneration and the Politics of Panmixia Conclusion: Political Descent: Anticipations of the Twentieth Century and Beyond Afterword: Engaging the Present Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index Historians of science have long noted the influence of the nineteenth-century political economist Thomas Robert Malthus on Charles Darwin. This book 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.