Lesson 5: Charles Darwin's Origin of Species

This is the first of two lessons on Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) and his theory of evolution. In this lesson we will focus on his first major work, The Origin of Species (1859), and in the next we will focus on The Descent of Man (1871). The reading for this lesson is a selection from Darwin’s Origin of Species. I have also assigned a film, “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea,” that examines how Darwin arrived at his theory of evolution by natural selection and discusses some of the subsequent work based on his theory. I will say a little bit about his biography here, and emphasize a few points you should take from the reading and film.

Darwin was born into a very well-to-do family. He was an amiable young man, but he lacked direction. His father sent him to medical school in Edinburgh (Scotland), but he floundered there. Apparently he didn’t have a strong enough stomach for surgery without anesthesia! His father then sent him to Cambridge, figuring the only thing he was good for was to be a priest. While there, the young Charles studied with the leaders in geology, paleontology and zoology (except for Charles Lyell, who he met later), including William Whewell, Adam Sedgwick (a leading geologist), and a botanist named John Henslow. He became captivated with “natural history.” He got his degree, puttered about a bit with Sedgwick, and then decided to sign on as naturalist for the five-year expedition of the Beagle (1831-1836). While traveling around South America, he took volumes of notes and collected many specimens. He was fascinated and intrigued by the geology, fossils, and abundant variety of life that he saw. He also spent time on the voyage reading the works of the geologist Charles Lyell, and he became convinced by Lyell’s arguments about the vast age of the earth and the gradual transformation of the earth over vast eons of time. When he returned to England where he set about getting his thoughts and observations in order. He published a journal of his travels, a record of his geological observations, and other volumes based on his trip.

A key event in Darwin’s intellectual development was his reading of Thomas Malthus’s Essay on a Principle of Population (first published in 1798, and reprinted throughout the first half of the 19^th century). This is covered only briefly in the film, but it’s important so I want to emphasize it here so you don’t miss it. In September of 1838, Darwin read Malthus’s Essay and was deeply struck by the argument. Malthus asserted that the human population increased geometrically, while the available food supply only increased arithmetically. Thus the population tended to be too large to support, and was kept in check by disasters such as wars and famines. When Darwin read this, a light went on. Suddenly he saw ALL life (not just human beings) as engaged in a struggle for existence—to win out, get the food, and reproduce—and any advantage, no matter how small, might mean the difference between life and death. The result was his principle of natural selection, the doctrine of Malthus applied to the whole of the organic kingdom.

Let me give a little more context about Malthus’s ideas. In the first half of the 19^th century, England went through the Industrial Revolution and society changed very rapidly. Large urban centers sprang up within a matter of decades. Huge numbers of people migrated to these new industrial cities and worked in factories. A generation before most of the population was rural and lived in small towns and villages, most not far away from the parish in which they were born. Although the Industrial Revolution created fabulous wealth for a privileged few, it simultaneously created crushing poverty for an enormous number of people. This new group of urban poor was a constant source of fear and annoyance to the middle and upper classes. The larger number of poor meant the cost of taking care of the destitute was an increasing burden on the well-to-do, whose taxes went to provide “poor relief” (what we would call “welfare”). Many middle and upper class observers insisted that the poor were poor because they were lazy and didn’t want to work. Working class radicals, as we saw in the previous lesson, argued that wealthy industrialists were cruel and greedy, refusing to pay workers enough to live on. In 1834, this conflict came to a head with the creation of the “New Poor Laws.” The New Poor Laws drastically reduced the amount of aid provided to the poor. Under the Old Poor Laws, desperate people could get money for food and clothing from their local parishes. Under the New Poor Laws, paupers had to enter workhouses, hospitals or prisons to receive food and shelter. In these institutions they were forced to work, often at dangerous or unpleasant jobs, in return for meager amounts of food and basic shelter. Families were split up in workhouses, and children often hired out to work in factories or mines. Abuse was rampant in these institutions, and the New Poor Laws were highly unpopular, especially among the working poor. You will see a scene in the movie in which Charles Darwin and his brother Erasmus are attacked in their carriage by a group of ruffians. Erasmus guesses that they have been mistaken for Poor Law Commissioners.

The logic of the New Poor Laws was in part indebted to Malthus. Providing aid to poor people would only encourage them to have more children, who they could not afford to feed, and these children would simply be more paupers on the public expense. Better to let the natural force of famine keep the pauper population under control. You are probably already familiar with a very famous piece of anti-Malthusian writing, whether you know it or not. In Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, which was first published in 1843, the central character, Ebeneezer Scrooge, responds to some pious Christian gentlemen who ask him to donate some money to provide the poor with food and clothing at Christmastime, by asking “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?” The gentlemen reply, "Many can't go there; and many would rather die." To which Scrooge retorts: “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

 

So what, you might ask, does all this have to do with Darwin and evolution? It’s important not to see debates about evolution solely as a battle between science and religion. The story is much more complex, and class struggles are as much at play as religious struggles. Evolution, especially Lamarckian evolution, was associated with radicals and socialists, people who wanted a redistribution of wealth and more opportunities for the poor to better their situation. Belief in a static creation was associated with a conservative upholding of the status quo. Evolution was associated with atheism, creationism with orthodox Christianity (which in this context was the Church of England). BUT, Malthusian ideas were certainly not radical or socialist! Quite the reverse, they tended to uphold and validate a hierarchical society ruled by a small elite. It definitely wasn’t clear whether readers would see the implications of Darwin’s theory as socially radical or socially conservative. Further, as the quote from Dickens indicates, the massive upheavals of the Industrial Revolution caused a serious questioning of what it meant to be Christian, both what it meant for an individual to be Christian and what it meant for England, a country which had and still has a state church, to be a Christian nation. The Old Poor Laws were administered by local parishes and were based on the biblical principle that the rich have a Christian duty to help the poor. The New Poor Laws were based on economic rationality rather than Christian charity. In sum, “traditional” Christianity was in the process of changing – dare I say “evolving”? – when Darwin’s work was published.

Readings:

1) Charles Darwin, Origin of Species excerpts (2 parts)

Learning Activities:

1) Video: Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Assignments:

1) Quiz

2) Small group discussion: 19th-century responses to Darwin

3) Class forum: World religions and Darwin