Spencer Museum of Art

Charles Robert Darwin (1809-82)

English naturalist who firmly established the theory of organic evolution. His position as official naturalist aboard the H.M.S. Beagle during its world voyage (1831-36) started Darwin on a career of accumulating and assimilating data that resulted in the formulation of his concept of evolution. In 1858 he and Alfred Russel Wallace simultaneously published summaries of their independently conceived notions of natural selection; a year later Darwin set forth the structure of his theory and massive support for it in his Origin of Species. This was supplemented by later works, notably The Descent of Man (1871).

From The Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia © 1994

Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is the application of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to the field of social relations. Throughout human history, wrote the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, society had operated like a jungle, in which only the strongest and best adapted -the "fittest"-survived. Although the process was a cruel one, it promised long-term benefits, for humans were gradually evolving toward a wholly just and peaceful society. He emphasized, however, that this evolutionary process must proceed at its own slow pace; efforts to improve social conditions along the way would be both misguided and futile.

When Spencer's works became popular in the United States in the 1870s, the American business world had itself come to exemplify the struggle for existence that he described. Corporate leaders seized on Social Darwinism as "scientific" justification for their actions. Businessmen such as Andrew Carnegie argued that unrestrained competition was simply natural selection at work, steadily improving the national economy by weeding out the unfit. Social Darwinism also appealed to those who opposed social legislation. Exponents of Spencer's work, like Charles Sumner of Yale University, quoted him to show that human intervention could not hasten the pace of evolution or ease the merciless struggle for existence dictated by natural law.

Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, Social Darwinism provided a powerful defense for the status quo, but toward the end of the century its influence on domestic policy waned as dissatisfaction with the effects of unlimited economic and social laissez-faire began to spread through American society. At the same time, however, the United States was beginning its imperialist adventures abroad, and soon the Darwinian arguments were being used, with a new racist tinge, to justify the conquest of weak countries by strong ones. Social Darwinism was rarely cited after about 1914, but it had helped shape the pattern of American thought, and its influence is still recognizable, even today.

From The Reader's Companion to American History, Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, editors. © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.