2.
History of Darwinian Concepts
The ideas of evolution and Social Darwinism didn't just spring up out of nowhere - they "evolved" from observations about life and society.
1. Darwin and Evolution
Charles Darwin was a prominent geologist and biologist of the 19th century, and is best known as the developer of the theory of evolution. He was a keen observer, and noticed in his research that species were adapted to their natural locations. In the 1830s he took a five-year trip aboard The Beagle, after which he wrote The Voyage of the Beagle, detailing his observations.
Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (better known as The Origin of Species), published in 1859, argues that species develop by evolutionary change, or natural selection. The book caused much controversy, especially among believers of creationism, as it implied that life was created without divine intervention. However, despite the initial criticism of his ideas, they gradually became accepted among common society (although some made slight alterations to fit their religious beliefs).
2. Applying Darwin's ideas to Society
Herbert Spencer, philosopher, was the first to apply Darwin's laws of evolution to society. Spencer believed that wealthy and successful individuals had gained their position by adaptation to the economic environment, just as other species survive by adapting to their natural environment. With the same reasoning, those who were unsuccessful had brought themselves to that point by laziness, stupidity, or carelessness. Herbert Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest," which sums it all up nicely.
American sociologist and professor William Graham Sumner was greatly influenced by Spencer's theories. He was an advocate of an extreme laissez-faire policy, with the government having no hand in guiding the economy. With too much intervention, he claimed, society would be unable to properly evolve. In his essay The Forgotten Man, he writes:
“A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be, according to the fitness and tendency of things. Nature has set upon him the process of decline and dissolution by which she removes things which have survived their usefulness.”