The Evolutionary Theories of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer [and Comments and

Replies]
Author(s): Derek Freeman, Carl Jay Bajema, John Blacking, Robert L. Carneiro, U. M.
Cowgill, Santiago Genovés, Charles C. Gillispie, Michael T. Ghiselin, John C. Greene, Marvin
Harris, Daniel Heyduk, Kinji Imanishi, Nevin P. Lamb, Ernst Mayr, Johannes W. Raum and G.
G. Simpson
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Sep., 1974), pp. 211-237
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research
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 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Vol. 15,No. 3, September1974
? 1974 by The Wenner-GrenFoundation for AnthropologicalResearch
The EvolutionaryTheories of Charles
Darwin and Herbert Spencer'
byDerekFreeman
THE RISE OF ANTHROPOLOGY as a science was coincident with
the emergence of evolutionary thought (Penniman
1952:92), and for anthropologistswith an interestin the
history of their discipline the 19th-centurysources of
evolutionaryideas and the nature of those concepts of
Charles Darwin on which the modern biological theory
of evolution is founded are topics of far-reachingimpor-
tance.
Research of recentyearshas revealed marked disparities
withinthe range of evolutionaryideas currentduring the
19th century.My principalaim in this paper is to explore
certaincrucialdifferencesbetweentheevolutionarytheories
of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, and to show that
thehistoryof evolutionarythoughtfromthe 1830s onwards
does not sustain the view that the theories of Darwin and
Spencer constitutedan "evolutionarysynthesis."
Such a view has been advanced by Marvin Harris in
The Rise of Anthropological Theory(1968; reviewed in CA
9:519-33), and the appearance in this book of a synoptic
study of "Spencerism" (together with the present revival
of interestin Spencer)2 provides an appropriate occasion
for a critical appraisal of the relation of Darwinian to
Spencerian evolutionaryconcepts.
Let me begin with the "externalist"interpretation(cf.
Kuhn 1968:78-79) of Darwin's discoveryof the mechanism
of naturalselection-an interpretation(Harris 1968:108-25
passim) in which Darwin is linked with Spencer as one
of the ideologistsof "early industrialcapitalism."
Darwin, so Harris surmises (p. 117), was not lacking in
"ulteriorideology," and "having attributedthe inspiration
for his greatest idea to Malthus, he could not have been
unaware of the largerimplicationsof a 'struggleforsurviv-
al."' And from these uncertain suppositions,withoutany
discussion of the systematicand extensiveinvestigationof
biologicaland other natural phenomena which culminated
in Darwin's discovery of 1838, Harris goes on to claim
DEREK FREEMAN is Professorof Anthropologyin the Research
School of PacificStudies of the AustralianNational University.
He has recentlybeen doing researchon the historyof biological
and anthropological ideas in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries.
The present paper, submittedin final form 18 iv 72, was
sent for comment to 50 scholars. The responses are printed
below and are followedby a reply fromthe author.
Vol. 15 No. 3 1974
September
(pp. 122-23) that "the fact that needs to be established"
is that Darwin's principles "were an application of social-
science concepts to biology."
Charles Darwin, as many schoolboysnow know, served
as a naturalistin H.M.S. Beagle throughout her voyage
around the world fromDecember, 1831 to October, 1836,
during which time he was afforded a succession of excep-
tionalopportunitiesto investigatea wide range of biological
and geological phenomena. In his Autobiography (Barlow
1958:118-19) Darwin stressed the radical significanceof
these investigationsfor the development of his theory of
the origin of species:
Duringthe voyageof the BeagleI had been deeplyimpressed
by discovering in the Pampean formationgreatfossilanimals
coveredwitharmourlike thaton existingarmadillos;secondly,
bythemannerin whichcloselyalliedanimalsreplaceone another
in proceedingsouthwardsover the Continent;and thirdly, by
the SouthAmericancharacterof mostof the productions of the
Galapagosarchipelago,and more especiallyby the mannerin
whichtheydifferslightly on each islandof the group; none of
theseislandsappearingto be veryancientin a geologicalsense.
It was evidentthatsuch factsas these,as wellas manyothers,
couldbeexplainedonthesupposition thatspeciesgradually
become
modified;and thesubjecthauntedme.
This account was writtenin 1876. That Darwin's recollec-
tion of the pivotal significanceof his investigationson the
Galapagos Islands is based on historicalactualitywas con-
firmedin 1935, when Lady Barlow communicatedto Nature
her discovery of a passage (referringto the Galapagos
group) from one of Darwin's then unpublished ornitho-
logical notebooks (see also Barlow 1963:262). The crucial
sentences from this notebook in which Darwin recorded
l I am thankfulto all those who commentedon earlier versions
of this paper. In particular,I am indebted to S. A. Barnett, D.
G. Catcheside, F. H. C. Crick, Sir Gavin de Beer, Raymond Dart,
Theodosius Dobzhansky, A. L. Epstein, A. G. N. Flew, Michael
Ghiselin, Charles C. Gillispie,J. C. Greene, Howard E. Gruber,
L. R. Hiatt, JerryHirsch, G. A. Horridge, H. B. D. Kettlewell,
B. J. Lowenberg, Ernst Mayr, Sir Peter Medawar, J. D. Y. Peel,
J.Pfeiffer,0. K. H. Spate, George Gaylord Simpson, Sydney
Smith,R. V. S. Wright,David Young, and R. M. Young.
I am also gratefulto the ReferenceStaffof the Menzies Library
ofthe AustralianNational Universityfortheirinvaluableassistance.
This paper is concerned specificallywiththediscussionof certain
differences between the evolutionary theories of Darwin and
Spencer. For a general account of Spencer's "evolutionism,"see
Carneiro (1967); fora comprehensiveanalysisof Darwin'sscientific
work and evolutionarythought,see Ghiselin (1969).
2 Cf. Andreski (1971), Carneiro (1967), MacRae (1969), Peel
(1971), and Young (1967, 1970).
211
his thoughts(at some time between September, 1835, and
the end of 1836)3 are these:
. . .when I see theseIslandsin sightof each other& possessed
ofbuta scanty stockofanimals,tenantedbythesebirdsbutslightly
differingin structure& fillingthe same place in Nature,I must
suspect that theyare only varieties . . . If there is the slightest
foundation fortheseremarks,the zoologyof Archipelagoes
will
be well worthexamining;for such factswould underminethe
stability
of Species.
As this evidence indicates, the notion of "descent with
modification"had begun to agitate Darwin's mind during
the final year of the voyage of the Beagle, but it was only
when he had settled back in England that he was able
to pursue systematically the realizationthatbegan to dawn
on him after his exploration of the characteristicsof the
islands and animal species of the Galapagos archipelago.
Thus, it was not untilJanuary,1837, when Darwin began
in Cambridge to sort his collectionsand collate them with
his field notes, that sustained thought could be given to
the enigmaticproblemof the apparent instability of species.
So began the mostactiveand productiveperiod of research
and ruminationin Darwin's lifetime,and, as Smith (1960)
has shown in his analysis of the relevant notebooks and
of the annotationsin the volumes thatDarwin read during
this period, a fundamental appreciation of the general
problemof the originof species was attainedwithina matter
of months. Indeed, on the evidence of his annotations
in the fifthedition of Lyell's Principlesof Geology(which
was published in March, 1837), Smith places Darwin's
"creative moment of imaginative insight" not later than
March, 1837. And soon after this,in July,1837 (De Beer
1959:7), Darwin opened his firstnotebook devoted to the
compilationof evidence on the "transmutationof species,"
with reference to which event he subsequentlymade the
followingentryin hispocketbook: "Had been greatlystruck
from about Month of previous March on character of S.
American fossils-& species on Galapagos Archipelago.
These factsorigin (especiallylatter)of all my views."4
On this evidence the genesis of Darwin's theoryof the
originof species may be traced withprecisionto the month
of March, 1837, when after studyingthem in Cambridge
he was "greatlystruck" by the significanceof the array
of facts which, as a naturalist,he had collected during
the voyage of the Beagle, and which,as he testified,were
the origin of "all" his views. These facts were solely con-
cerned with biological, geological, and cognate natural
phenomena, and it was not until 18 months later that
Darwin's thinkingwas decisivelyinfluencedby his reading
of Malthus.
That Darwin receiveda crucialstimulusfromhis reading
of Malthus is now widely known, but, as the historical
evidence indicates, it was a maieutic stimulus,and not a
pervasive ideological influence of the kind Harris has
conjured up. When Darwin read Malthus, in September,
1838, he had already been conducting his "systematic
enquiry"into the phenomena of descent withmodification
forsome 15 months.Having begun these enquiries Darwin
"soon perceived" (as recorded in his Autobiography) "that
selectionwas the keystoneof man's successin makinguseful
3For a discussion of the dating of this passage, see Gruber
and Gruber (1962:192).
4 These words appear in the section of Darwin's pocket book
in which (in 1837) he noted the opening of his firstnotebook
on the transmutationof species; but, as Sydney Smith (personal
communication,1970) has established,theywere placed thereearly
in July,1844, when (having completed his 230-page essay on his
"species theory")Darwin "dottedclues among his pocketand note
books to help his literaryexecutor in case of his sudden death."
Cf. Darwin's letter(F. Darwin 1888a: 16-17), dated July5, 1844,
to his wife Emma.
212
races of animals and plants"; and further,as De Beer
(1969:57) has documented in his analysis of Darwin's
researchnotebooksfor 1837-38, Darwin had become aware
of the existence of a natural process directlycomparable
to artificialselectionsome monthsbefore he read Malthus.5
But thereremainedthe questionof how thisprocessactually
operated in the case of "organisms living in a state of
nature," and it was towards the solution of this problem
that Darwin's intellectwas moving when, in September,
1838 (Barlow 1958:119-20), he began to read Malthus's
Essay,not as part of his "systematicenquiry," but (as he
later noted) "for amusement."
What it was in Malthus's Essaythat acted as the catalyst
in his "well prepared" mind was recorded by Darwin on
September28, 1838,in a noteon p. 135 ofhisthirdnotebook
on the transmutationof species. It is a highly significant
note, for in it he mentions"one sentence of Malthus" that
deeply impressed him during the course of the thought
processes which culminated in his realization of the way
in which selection operates in animal populations living
in a stateof nature, and, fromthe details in his notebook,
it is possible to identifythis sentence in the edition of
Malthus'sEssayread by Darwin. It is to be found (De Beer,
Rowlands, and Skramovsky1967:162) in the sixth edition
(London, 1826), vol. 1, p. 6, and reads: "It may safely
be pronounced, therefore,that the population, when un-
checked, goes on doubling itselfevery twentyfive years,
or increases in a geometricalratio."
What Darwin principallyowed to Malthus, then, was
the simplebut seminalbit of informationthatwhile "subsis-
tence increases only in arithmeticalratio,"human popula-
tions, when unchecked, increase "in geometrical ratio."
What Darwin did with this informationis evident in his
notes of September 28, 1838: he at once applied it to
the populations of animal species in general, and to the
problem of the transmutationof species in particular,and
so, given his firmgrasp of the way selection operated in
domesticatedproductions,was able toarriveat the following
broad biological generalization (De Beer, Rowlands, and
Skramovsky1967:163): "One may say there is a force like
a hundred thousand wedges trying[to] force every kind
ofadapted structureintothe gaps in theeconomyof nature,
or ratherforminggaps by thrustingout weaker ones."
With the recording of this generalization in Darwin's
notebookon September28, 1838, the mechanismof natural
selection as it operates in animal and other populations
of living organisms had been discovered.6 No discovery
has had greatersigrmificance forthe scientificunderstanding
of the life process, and it was made by Darwin (as the
historicalevidence demonstrates),at the age of 29, on the
basis of his systematicand protractedinvestigations,as a
naturalist,of biological and related natural phenomena,
aided by the maieutic stimulusof a "mathematicaldemon-
of theRoyalSocietyofLondon,SeriesB, Biological
5 Cf. Proceedings
Sciences(1962) 155:331 for a facsimileof an entry in Darwin's
third notebook on the transmutationof species, which contains
evidence, as do otherentriesin Darwin's notebooksrecorded prior
to his reading of Malthus (cf. F. Darwin 1888a:7-8), that he was
aware, as Vorzimmer(1969:537) has expressed it,"thatadaptation
was achieved as the resultof some natural counterpartto artificial
selection."Cf. also Barlow (1963:205).
6 MacRae (1969:21) and Peel (1971:132) have asserted that
Spencer was an evolutionist"beforeDarwin" and Harris (1968:123)
that Spencer had "priority"over Darwin in making "specific
contributions"to evolutionarytheory.As the historicalevidence
shows, Darwin had, by the end of September, 1838, made (and
recorded in his research notebooks) the discoveries basic to his
theoryofthe mechanismof organicevolution.At thattime,Spencer
(who was 11 years younger than Darwin) was a youth of 18
employed on the staffof the Gloucesterand BirminghamRailway
at Worcester(Duncan 1911:22) whose contributionsto evolutionary
theorywere non-existent.
C U R R E N T A N T H RO PO LO G Y
stration"concerningthe behavior of populations which he
derived fromMalthus.
In the appraisal of the process that culminated in his
discoveryof 1838,itis essential,then,to givedue recognition
both to the extensivedevelopment of Darwin's researches,
as a naturalist,priorto his reading of Malthus, and to
how (giventhisdevelopment)certainpropositionsadvanced
in An Essay on thePrincipleof Populationhelped Darwin
to comprehend the way in whichnaturalselectionoperates
(as -he put it) "to sort out proper structureand adapt it
to changes."7 When this is done, the interpretationsthat
"Darwin's principleswere an application of social-science
conceptstobiology"and thattheconceptofnaturalselection
(Harris 1968:129) "arose froman interestin racial,national,
and class forms of war and conflict" are seen to be
inadequate depictions of the actual course of events (be-
tween September, 1835, and September, 1838) that led
Charles Darwin to his historicdiscovery.
Next let me turn to Harris's notions of "the inevitability 29, 38) as "veritablerubbish"and "absurd though clever."8
of Darwin's and Spencer's evolutionarysynthesis"(Harris
1968:113) and of the way in which it took "the combined
geniuses of Spencer and Darwin" to see "in every sphere
of life"the operationof "a singlelaw of evolution"(p. 107),
so completing"the biologizationof historywithoutsurren-
dering the Enlightenment'sdream of universalprogress."
This lumping togetherof the evolutionarytheories of
Spencer and Darwin is, in the light of the evidence,
unwarranted,forthe theoriesof Darwin and Spencer were
unrelatedin theirorigins,markedlydisparatein theirlogical
structures,and differeddecisivelyin the degree to which
theydepended on the supposed mechanismof Lamarckian
inheritance and recognized "progress" as "inevitable." I
shall deal firstwith the concepts of Darwin and then with
those of Spencer.
Darwin, above all else, was a naturalist.As early as 1826
(when only 17 years of age), he began communicatinghis
observations to the Plinian Society of the Universityof
Edinburgh, and by 1831 his flair had so matured that
Henslow (F. Darwin 1887:192) judged him "amplyqualified
for collecting,observing and noting, anythingworthyto
be noted in Natural History." This was no exaggerated
judgment, for young Darwin's keenness of observation,
his capacity to pose probing questions, and his recording
of pertinentfactsenabled him to return fromthe voyage
of the Beagle with a collection of scientificmaterials of
quite exceptional significance.And, as we have seen, his
analysisof these materialssupplementedby his "systematic effect,whatthedevil determineseach particularvariation?"
enquiry"into the "transmutationof species" soon culminat-
ed in his discoveryof what is now recognized, throughout
thebiologicalsciences (Mayr 1964:viii),as "thebasic mecha-
nism of evolutionarychange."
Thus, withintwoyearsof thereturnof the Beagle,Darwin
had "got a theoryby which to work," but so anxious was
he to "avoid prejudice" that he continued to work on his
theory for the next two decades, producing provisional
drafts(in 1842 and 1844), forevergatheringnew evidence,
and testing in every way possible his "presumptuous"
hypothesisof 1838.
In following this course, Darwin was working (Mayr
1964:xxii) in a way broadlycomparable to the now prevail-
ing method of the natural sciences-the testing of an
7Cf. De Beer, Rowlands,and Skramovsky(1967:163). Cf. Ghise-
lin (1969:48 seq.) for an analysis of the way in which Darwin
moved froma typologicalto a populational approach to biological
phenomena followinghis reading of Malthus; cf. Mayr (1959:2
seq.) for an assessmentof the significanceof thisdevelopment.
Vol. 15 No. 3 September
1974
Freeman: DARWIN AND SPENCER
hypothesisdeveloped on the basis of prior observations-
and it was Darwin's employmentof this method that gave
to his essay On theOriginofSpeciesits scientificprepotency,
making it, in Wallace's words (Darwin and Seward 1903,
vol. 2:36), a book that"revolutionizedthe studyof Natural
History"and "carried away captive" the "best men" of the
age.
Furthermore,Darwin's theorymade a decisivebreak with
certain of the evolutionaryconcepts of Lamarck-a point
which for this present paper is of prime importance. Of
this break Darwin was well aware. In January,1844, for
example, when working on the second "sketch" of his
"species theory,"he wrote (F. Darwin 1888a:23) to J. D.
Hooker: "Heaven forfendme from Lamarck nonsense of
a 'tendency to progression', 'adaptations from the slow
willingof animals', &c.! But the conclusions I am led to
are not widely differentfrom his; though the means of
change are whollyso." And, later(also in lettersto Hooker),
he described Lamarck's work on the species question (pp.
Again, in a letterto Lyell, dated October 11, 1859, written
soon afterhe had passed the final proofs of On theOrigin
ofSpecies,Darwin (p. 215) noted that Lamarck's work was,
in his judgment, "extremelypoor" and that he had, in
his own researches,"got not a factor idea fromit."
As these statementsshow, Darwin was, at the time he
wrote On the Origin of Species,no uncriticalfollower of
Lamarck; nor did he ever become one. Natural selection,
Darwin was convinced (1859:170), had given rise to "all
the more importantmodificationsof structure";yet,there
were in the firstedition of the Origin various concessions
to the possibilitythat such factorsas "the direct effectof
the environment"9and "use and disuse" were ancillary
agents in evolutionarychange (cf. Mayr 1964:xxv-xxvi;
Vorzimmer 1970:12).
Darwin'stheoryofevolutionbymeans of naturalselection
depended on the presence of variationin natural popula-
tions(Flew 1959:28), but whilevariationwas an undeniable
natural phenomenon, its etiology,in 1859, was entirely
obscure. As soon as he had finishedreading his advance
copy of the Origin in November, 1859, T. H. Huxley (F.
Darwin 1888a:231) voiced the objection: ". . . it is not
clear to me why, if continual physical conditions are of
so littlemoment as you suppose, variationsshould occur
at all." To which Darwin replied (p. 232): "You have most
cleverlyhit on one point, which has greatlytroubled me;
if,as I must think,externalconditionsproduce littledirect
It was this problem that was to plague Darwin to the end
9
It is likely that these judgments applied primarilyto the
Lamarckian doctrineof "necessaryprogression"(i.e., to Lamarck's
Firstand Second Laws of 1815), whichDarwin (1859:315) rejected
completely. Darwin also rejected (F. Darwin 1888a:276) "the
Lamarckian doctrine . . . of habits of life being all-important"
(i.e., Lamarck's Fourth Law of 1815, which states, "All that has
been acquired, laid down, or changed in the organization of
individuals in the course of their life is conserved by generation
and transmittedto the new individuals that proceed from those
which have undergone these changes"; cf. Zirkle 1961). Here,
however, the rejection was of the all-inclusiveand unqualified
character of Lamarck's "law" of the inheritance of acquired
characters, for Darwin was prepared to recognize, in certain
instances,the inheritanceof the "effectsof use and disuse" and
in the firstedition of On the Origin of Speciesdevoted several
pages (pp. 134-37) to the discussionof thismatter.
Lamarck, as he made plain in his PhilosophieZoologique,pub-
lished in 1809, did not believe in "the directeffectof the environ-
ment";cf.Lamarck (1963 [1914]:107): ". . . whateverthe environ-
ment may do, it does not work any direct modificationwhatever
in the shape and organizationof animals."
213
of his days. None of his attemptsto solve it was successful,
and a fewmonthsbefore his death he remained perplexed
about "the direct action of conditions" as he had been
when,over 20 yearspreviously,he confessedhis puzzlement
to Huxley.
With the Origin out of the way, Darwin turned again
to the enigmaticproblem of variation,focussinghis atten-
tion on animals and plants under domestication.By the
end of 1862 his researches had inclined him to believe
"rathermore" than hithertoin the "directactionof physical
conditions"(F. Darwin 1888a:390), althoughwithconsider-
able misgivings,for it was, as he confided to Hooker, "so
confoundedlydoubtful." In this state of frustratedbewil-
dermentDarwin's preoccupationwiththe problemof varia-
tionintensifieduntil,unable any longerto endure "so many
large classes of factsall floatingloose" in his head (Darwin
and Seward 1903, vol. 2:371), it became a "passion" with
him (F. Darwin 1888b:44) to tryto connect them all by
"some sort of hypothesis."
By May, 1865, he had drafteda sketchof what he called
pangenesis, which, "very rash and crude" though it was,
he sent to Huxley for his comments. Huxley was not
impressed,and fora timeDarwin stroveto persuade himself
(F. Darwin 1888b:44) "not to publish."Eventually,however,
he succumbed to the "positive comfort" of having an
"explanation"-however conjectural-of a problem that
had so "greatlytroubled" him, and in 1868, pangenesis
was formallylaunched as chap. 27 in vol. 2 of Variation
ofAnimalsand PlantsunderDomestication.
Darwin feared that this chapter mightbe called "a mad
dream" (F. Darwin 1888b:73),and was at pains to emphasize
(1882a[ 1868], vol. 2:349) thathis"explanation"of variation
by pangenesis was "merely a provisional hypothesis or
speculation." We now know that it was indeed no more
thana speculationborn of his insistentstrivingforexplana-
tion. There can be no doubt, however,thatDarwin himself
believed in pangenesis (F. Darwin 1888b:73), and with its
hypothesizedmodificationof "gemmules" it did provide
a supposed mechanism for the "inheritedeffectsof use
and disuse, &c."
A few years later, in a final revision of the Origin of
Species (1882b [1872]:421), Darwin restated his general
conclusions. In 1859 (p.6) he had circumspectlyranked
natural selection as "the main but not exclusive means of
modification." In 1872, having, he thought, "formerly
underrated" some of the lesser agencies, he made further-
qualifications,givingit as his opinion
. . .that specieshave been modified. . . chieflythroughthe
naturalselectionof numeroussuccessive,slight,favourable
varia-
tions;aided in an important mannerby the inheritedeffectsof
theuse and disuseof parts;and in an unimportant manner,that
is in relationto adaptivestructures,
whetherpast or present,by
thedirectactionof externalconditions,and by variationswhich
seemto us in our ignoranceto arisespontaneously.
Some historiansof science have made much of this restate-
ment of 1872, but it was not, in effect,a decisive revision
of Darwin's theoryof 1859, for the mechanismof natural
selectionstillremained markedlypredominant.
As long as he lived, Darwin remained utterlyconvinced
of the predominant importanceof natural selection,but,
during the 10 years between the publication of the sixth
edition of On theOrigin of Speciesand his death in 1882,
there was an appreciable weakening of his opinions con-
cerning the importance of both "the inherited effectsof
use and disuse of parts" and "the directaction of external
conditions." His views concerningthe inheritedeffectsof
use and disuse were influenced by a series of com-
municationswhich Romanes made to Naturein 1874 (cf.
Romanes 1893:501); and, towards the end of his life, as
his friendThiseltonDyer (1890: 247) has recorded,Darwin's
214
mind "became more and more fluid on the question of
the 'direct action of conditions."' Less than a year before
his death, for example, Darwin was "staggered" by Hoff-
man's (1881) review of his painstakingresearches (carried
out over a period of 25 years) on variabilityin plants;
and, in a letterto Semper, dated July19, 1881 (F. Darwin
1888b:345), remarkedthatif Hoffmann'sconclusionswere
valid "the astonishing variations of almost all cultivated
plants must be due to selection and breeding from the
varyingindividuals." And Darwin then continued: "This
idea crossed my mind many years ago, but I was afraid
to publish it, as I thought that people would say, 'how
he does exaggerate the importanceof selection."'
Darwin's difficulty,as Dyer has pointed out (1890:247),
"was exactly that of everyone else," for, in the absence
of any knowledge of the mechanisms of genetics, the
inheritance,in certaininstances,of the effectsof "the use
and disuse of parts" and of the "direct action of external
conditions" seemed plausible enough and was accepted
by virtuallyall the leading biologistsof the 1870s. Indeed,
as late as the beginning of 1882, littlemore than a year
before he launched his critique of the doctrine of the
inheritance of acquired characters (so initiatinga major
revolution in biological thought), Weismann (1882:xvii),
like Darwin, stillgave some credence to the "transforming
influence" of "direct action." To a limited extent, then,
such transforming influencesas "use and disuse" and "direct
action" were accepted by Darwin until his death in 1882
and by Weismann as late as that same year. However, as
the evidence shows, Darwin had always given marked
predominance to natural selection,'0 and when, by the late
1880s, Weismann's radical critiqueof Lamarckismand the
advent of major advances in cytologyhad convinced many
of the leading experimental biologists of the day that
acquired characterswere notinherited, itwas a simplematter
to eliminate from Darwinian theory "that small amount
of doctrine" (Lankester 1890:415) made obsolete by the
basic reappraisal of the nature of hereditywhichhad taken
place during the seven or so years since Darwin's death.
Those evolutionarybiologistswho undertook this revision
of Darwinian theory-its central feature (which has re-
mained valid to the present day) being the affirmation
of the pervasiveimportanceof natural selectionin organic
evolution-came to be known as Neo-Darwinians. Their
adversarieswere the Neo-Lamarckians,chiefamong whom
was Herbert Spencer, to whose markedlydifferentevolu-
tionaryviews I shall now turn.
Darwin's opinion that Lamarck's theory was "veritable
rubbish"had been derived, in part, fromLyell's Principles
of Geology,over which he had pored during the voyage
of the Beagle, and which contained, in Huxley's words (F.
Darwin 1888a:189), a "trenchantand effectualcriticism"
of Lamarck's arguments. In Spencer's case, however, his
interesthaving been stirred,in 1840, by the finding of
fossils in railway cuttings,the reading of Lyell's cogent
refutationparadoxicallyproduced in him a "decided lean-
ing" towards Lamarck's ideas. Indeed, as Spencer records
in his Autobiography (1904 [1882], vol. 1:177), the theory
thatorganicformshad arisen "byprogressivemodifications
10 Cf. the conclusions
of Vorzimmer(1970): "In 1859, Darwin's
beliefin the principleof natural selectionwas not merelyan article
of faith; it was grounded as well in the firmconvictionthat he
had effectively demonstratedits validity"(p. xviii); "Darwin spent
a great part of the last twenty-threeyears of his life trying
unsuccessfullyto establish the necessityand sufficiencyof the
process of natural selection as the sole mechanism of evolution"
(p. 270); and "Darwin died consistentin at least one thing-his
faithin the theorythatbears his name" (p. 267).
C U R R E N T A N T H R O PO LO G Y
physicallycaused and inherited" came to have for him
such an "irresistibleattraction"thathis beliefin Lamarckian
inheritance"never afterwardswavered." From 1840, then,
untilhis death in 1903, HerbertSpencer remaineda fervent
Lamarckian,and his own versionof evolutionas it applied
to the human species was based at firstexclusivelyand
always predominantlyon Lamarckian assumptions.11
In his book Social Statics,forexample, published in 1850,
Spencer's beliefsin "human perfectibility" and the "neces-
sity" of progress were made to rest on the supposed
operation of a "law" underlying the whole of organic
creation thatwas unreservedlyLamarckian (Spencer 1954
[1850]:60): ". . . as surely as the same creature assumes
the differentformsof cart horse and race horse, according
as its habits demand strengthor speed . . . ," Spencer
argued, "so surely must man become perfect."And soon
afterthis,in March, 1852, Spencer published a shortessay
entitled"The DevelopmentHypothesis"whichwas (Spencer
1904 [1882], vol. 2:8) his "professionoffaith"in the "theory
of Lamarck."12 Anyexistingspecies-animal or vegetable-
when placed under conditionsdifferentfromits previous
ones, he asserted, "immediatelybegins to undergo certain
changes of structurefittingit for new conditions," and
"in successive generations these changes continue," this
being due to a "modifyinginfluence"at work "throughout
all organic nature."
During the next few years Spencer became increasingly
preoccupied with the implications of his Lamarckian
hypothesis.His Principlesof Psychology, on which he began
workin August, 1854, whileon vacationat Treport,sprang
fromthe implication(Spencer 1904 [1882], vol. 2: 10) "that
not only had bodily organization been naturallyevolved,
but mental organization too," and was based on the La-
marckian premise (Spencer 1855:526) that "a modified
form of constitutionproduced by new habits of life, is
bequeathed to futuregenerations."And it was at Treport
while engaged in his audacious attempt(1904 [1882], vol.
2:11) to trace out in Lamarckian terms "the genesis of
mind in all its forms,sub-humanand human" thatSpencer
(p. 167) was "suddenly led to the perception" (reaching
far beyond his "hypothesis"of 1852) thata change "from
the homogeneous to the heterogeneous" is a "universal
trait of progress, inorganic, organic and super-organic,"
and to the realization, which he felt to be momentous,
that"the multiplicationof effectsis everywherethe cause."
This was Spencer's intellectual climacteric.In a blaze
ofconvictionhe came (1904 [1882], vol. 2:12) to "recognize"
the "essentialnature" of evolutionarychange as "a physical-
ly-determinedtransformationconformingto ultimatelaws
of force"; his transcendental"general doctrine of evolu-
tion,"fromwhichhis entireSyntheticSystemof Philosophy
stemmed,had been enthusiasticallyconceived. His conclu-
sions,he determined(Duncan 1911:547), he would set forth
in an essay entitled"The Cause of all Progress," and his
work, as he confided to his fathersoon afterwards(1904
[1882], vol. 2:75), would, he believed, "ultimatelystand
beside Newton's Principia."
Because of his subsequent nervousbreakdown,Spencer's
firststatementof his "general doctrine" did not appear
l I am using the epithetLamarckian to referto the assumption,
popularized by Lamarck in his Fourth Law of 1815 (Cannon
1959:52), that acquired characters are heritable (Schmidt 1960).
This now widelyaccepted usage wascommonplaceduringSpencer's
lifetime(Ball 1890:145 passim).It should be noted, however,that
Neo-Lamarckian doctrine of the late 19th century differed in
certainfundamentalrespects from the systemof belief advanced
by Lamarck in his PhilosophieZoologiqueand HistoireNaturelledes
Animauxsans Vertebres. For a discussion of thispoint, see Simpson
(1961:238).
12 In a later version of "The Development Hypothesis"
(1868:377), he referredinstead to "the Theory of Evolution."
Vol. 15 No. 3 * September
1974
Freeman: DARWIN AND SPENCER
until April, 1857, when "Progress: Its Law and Cause"
(Spencer 1891a [1857]) was published in the Westminister
Gazette.In this essay Spencer's view of organic evolution
remained whollyLamarckian, but in it he also attempted
to explain evolutionat large by the formula(Spencer 1891b
[1857] :81), conceived in 1854, that "the transformation
of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous,in which all
progress,organicor other,essentiallyconsists,is consequent
on the production of many effectsby one cause-many
changes by one force." The "persistence"of this "force,"
Spencer maintained,made progressinevitable.At no point,
however,then or later, was the nature of this"force" and
its "persistence"explained in empirical terms.13 His "ulti-
mate principle" of the "persistenceof Force," so Spencer
declared (1904 [1882], vol. 1:554), was an aspect of a
"Power" that "transcendshuman knowledge and concep-
tion."
The disparitybetween Spencer's "general doctrine of
evolution" and Darwin's theory of the origin of species
was thus immense. Spencer's doctrine,not having resulted
fromany kind of sustainedempiricalenquiry,'4was explic-
itlydeductive in itsstructure,and restedon the metaphys-
ical supposition that all evolutionarychange was due to
the persistenceof an immanent"Power" thatwas (Spencer
1904 [1882], vol. 1:554) both "unknownand unknowable."
In marked contrast,Darwin's theory,as he published it
in 1859, was authenticallyscientific,for,withoutrecourse,
forall practicalpurposes,to metaphysicsor "finalcauses," 15
it postulated, on the basis of massive factual evidence,16
a non-teleologicalmode of evolutionarychange and incor-
porated a precise definitionof the mechanism of natural
selection which (as has since been conclusively demon-
strated)7 does indeed result in the genetic evolution of
populations of livingorganisms.
"As Bertrand Russell has noted (Webb 1926:90; cf. Russell
1914:9), Spencer's "general doctrineof evolution,"as enunciated
in First Principles,ignored "the implications of the second law
of thermodynamics."These implicationswere elaborated by Clau-
sius and by Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) from 1851 onwards
(Richardson 1969:605), and Clausius's concept of entropy dates
from 1854 (Gray 1958:90), the year when Spencer succumbed
to the blandishmentsof metaphysical,finalcauses. That Spencer's
"general doctrineof evolution" was inconsistentwiththe findings
of science was thus well known during his lifetime.For example,
John Stuart Mill (Elliot 1910:4-5), after his second reading of
Spencer's First Principles,wrote to Bain (in March, 1864): "His
a priorisystemis more consistentthan Hamilton's, but quite as
fundamentallyabsurd. .-. surelyitis contraryto all our knowledge
of material forces to suppose that a motion either of bodies or
of particles can be perpetually going on for a cycle of ages in
a resistingmedium withoutdiminution." In the judgment of P.
B. Tait, then Professorof Natural Philosophy at the University
of Edinburgh,and co-authorwithThomson of Treatiseon Natural
Philosophy (Thomson and Tait 1867), Spencer's "formulaof evolu-
tion" was (Tait 1880:8 1) "a definitionand nothing more." Cf.
Medawar (1969:67) for a more recent assessment of Spencer's
Systemof General Evolution.
14 Cf. De Beer (1962:19): "Herbert Spencer's adoption of evolu-
tionwas a theoreticaldeduction fromthe impossibility of accepting
special creation,an argumentof reductioad absurdumwithoutany
observationalobjective basis fromwhich inductiveevidence could
be derived." Cf. Spencer (1852a:280).
15 It is true thatin the penultimateparagraph of the firstedition
of On the Origin of Species Darwin made a brief reference to
"the Creator," but nowhere in his theory of 1859 were divine
purpose and design evoked as explanatory principles. Indeed,
it was chieflyon this ground (i.e., "because it utterlyrepudiated
finalcauses") that Sedgwickjustifiedhis "detestation"of Darwin's
theoryin his review of On theOrigin of Speciesin the Spectator
of March 24, 1860 (F. Darwin 1888a:298).
6 Cf. Lyell's (1860:95) reference to Darwin's forthcomingOn
theOrigin of Speciesas "the result of twentyyears of observation
and experimentsin Zoology, Botany and Geology."
17Cf. Ford (1964:229): "The techniques of ecological genetics
have made it possible not only to detect evolutionarychanges
215
 In Spencer's First Principles(which appeared in book
form in mid-1862, over two and a half years after the
publication of On the Origin of Species),the Lamarckian
assumptions embodied in his "general doctrine" as pub-
lished in 1857 were left unaltered-discussion of Mr.
Darwin's "natural selection"being confined to a footnote.
A fewmonthslater,in the autumn of 1862, Spencer began
work on his Principlesof Biology.As instalmentfollowed
instalment,the problem of what to do about Darwin's
already celebrated theorybecame increasinglyacute, but,
on June 9, 1864, in a letter expressing satisfactionwith
the progress of his next instalment,Spencer was able to
report to his father (1904 [1882], vol. 2:99): ". . . yesterday
I arrived at a point of view from which Darwin's doctrine
of 'Natural Selection'is seen to be absorbed intothe general
theoryof Evolution as I am interpretingit."
When this next instalmentappeared in October, 1864,
"that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection"'
(Spencer 1864:444) had been unequivocallyabsorbed into
Spencer's "general doctrine of evolution" by being cate-
gorized as a "process" (Spencer 1904 [1882], vol. 2:100)
"resultingfrom the redistributionof matter and motion
everywhereand alwaysgoing on." Furthermore,afteronly
a fewpages (i.e., pp. 444-49) devoted to Darwinian "natural
selection,"Spencer at once went on to argue (p. 449) that
there was "a moietyof the phenomena which this key will
not unlock." Darwin, Spencer contended (1864:449), had
left unconsidered "a mass of morphological phenomena
which are explicable as results of functionally-produced attentionof scientificmen."
modifications,and are not explicable as resultsof natural
selection."
In an earlier instalmentof his PrinciplesofBiology,issued
in January,1864, Spencer had formallydeduced the inher-
itance of "functionally-producedmodifications"from his
"ultimateprinciple" of the "persistenceof force."'8 This
he regarded as an irrefutableproof of his long-standing
Lamarckianconvictions,and he thusfeltjustifiedin criticiz- his inaugural lecture as Pro-Rector at the Universityof
ing Darwin's theory as forthrightly as he did. Again, in
thesecond editionof Principles ofPsychology (whichappeared
in 1870) Spencer made it plain thatalthough he no longer
held Lamarckian inheritanceto be the sole cause of human
evolution (as he had up till 1858), he still believed it to
be the chiefcause.
Thereafter, Spencer (1884:446) continued to maintain
that "the inheritance of functionally-producedmodifica-
tions" was "the chief factor throughout the higherstages
of organic evolution,bodilyas well as mental,"and in 1873
he systematically extended his ferventlyheld Lamarckian
beliefs to human social evolution. The "process of social
evolution,"Spencer pronounced (1873:676-77), was "limit- views had excited widespread interest among biologists,
ed by the rate of organic modificationin human beings";
before there could "arise in human nature and human
institutions, changes having that permanence which makes
them an acquired inheritancefor the human race," there
had to be "innumerable recurrencesof the thoughts,and
feelings,and actions,conducive to such changes,"and there
was thus "no way from lower forms of social life to the
higher,but one passing throughsmall successivemodifica-
tions."
By 1873, then, Spencer had opted for the theory that
the mentaland social evolutionof the species Homo sapiens
was primarilycaused by theinheritanceof acquired charac-
ters, producing a gradual and inevitablemodificationof
in three or four generationsof formsreproducing annually but
to witnessselection in operation and to observe and analyse its
immediateeffects."
18 Cf. Spencer (1864:256): "It involvesa denial of the persistence
of force to say that A may be changed into A', and may yet
beget offspringexactly like those it would have begotten had it
not been so changed."
216
human natureand human institutions, and itis thisextreme
Lamarckian doctrinethatmay properlybe termed Biologi-
cal Spencerism.It was a doctrineto whichSpencer became
increasinglycommittedduring the remaining 30 years of
his life.
In 1883 (littlemore than a year after Darwin's death),
Spencer confided to his American friendE. L. Youmans
(Duncan 1911:237) his intention(which he had "for some
time contemplated")of making "a general criticismon the
Darwinian Hypothesis," which would "flutterthe strict
Darwinians considerably."This critiqueof "the Darwinian
view" firstappeared in The Nineteenth Century in April and
May of 1886, and, under the same title, The Factorsof
OrganicEvolution,was republishedearly the followingyear
as a pamphlet.Spencer's principalintentionwas to establish,
once and for all (Duncan 1911:269), as a prime "cause
of Evolution"theLamarckianmode of inheritanceon which
large sectionsof his syntheticphilosophy,in particularhis
Psychology,Sociology,and Ethics,were founded. His confi-
dentlystated conclusion (Spencer 1886:589) was that "the
inheritance of functionally-producedchanges" had been
"not simplya co-operatingfactorin organic evolution,but
.. a co-operatingfactorwithoutwhichorganicevolution,
in its higher forms at any rate, could never have taken
place." His essay,so Spencer hoped, would lead to a general
realizationof the crucial importanceof Lamarckian inheri-
tance, this being, he believed (1887:iv), an issue which
"beyond all other questions whatever" demanded "the
As it happened, a number of leading scientificmen had,
during the very years that Spencer was working on his
"Darwin articles,"been devotingmore searching attention
than ever before to the dogma that"functionally-produced
modifications"were inherited.This developmentwas effec-
tivelyinitiatedon June 21, 1883, when August Weismann
(1889:104-5), having chosen "Heredity" as the subject of
Freiburg,rejected "the assumption of the transmissionof
acquired characters"and propounded in itsstead his theory
of "the continuityof the substance of the germ-cells,or
germ-plasm."
This fundamentaladvance in biological thought (Weis-
mann 1883) was based on discoveries from about 1875
onwards in cytology,and during the years immediately
followingWeismann's historicaddress there were further
importantdiscoverieswhichlaid the foundationof modern
biological knowledge of the behaviour of chromosomes
during mitosisand meiosis (cf. Wilson 1966 [1896]; Stras-
burger 1909; Hughes 1959). By the mid-1880s,Weismann's
and in 1887, when he attended the 57th meeting of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science in
Manchesterto lectureon his theoryof heredity(Weismann
1887:607), a special symposiumwas arranged devoted to
the question: "Are Acquired Characters Hereditary?"
This symposiumand the disseminationof Weismann's
views in Nature and elsewhere made the "theory of the
Non-Inheritance of Acquired Characters" (E. Romanes
1896:238-40) "the most importantquestion" which had
been raised in biology "since the promulgation of Mr.
Darwin's great doctrine";and, in August, 1889, Romanes,
in the Contemporary Review(1889:248-49), referredto the
widespread abandonment of "Lamarckian principles"that
was being broughtabout byWesmann, Wallace, Lankester,
and othersas "a mostextraordinaryrevolutionof biological
thought"and "the turningof a tide of scientificopinion."
From that time,the tide of scientificopinion concerning
Lamarckianinheritancewenton turning,and has ever since
remained turned. In 1889, Weismann's Essayson Heredity
and KindredBiological Problems.the "pith and kernel" of
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY
which was his critique of the doctrine of the inheritance
of acquired characters,was published, and interestin his
"conclusions and arguments" (Mitchell 1889:618) became
"verygeneral." In 1893, thisinterestwas furtherheightened
by the appearance of The Germ-Plasm: A TheoryofHeredity
(Weismann 1893a),'9 in which Weismann identified"the
hereditarysubstance"withthe "chromosomes"of the "cell
nucleus." The researches of the previous decade on the
"wonderfullyexact apparatus" of the cell nucleus had
provided, as Weismann (1893b:607), was able to report,
"abundant facts to enable us to conclude with certainty
that the hereditarysubstance is contained in the nucleus
of the germ-cell,that it is in a manner shut up there,
and carefullypreserved;and thatit never as a whole leaves
the nuclear capsule."
By about 1893, then, Weismann, with the support of
numerous other experimentalbiologists,had produced in
biological thoughta "sea change" which accomplished the
abrupt decline and ultimatelyled to the demise of the
age-old dogma of the inheritanceof acquired characters.20
The overthrowof Lamarckian theory,initiatedby Weis-
mann in the 1880s, was later described by Goodrich
(1912:32) as "the mostimportantcontributionto the science
of evolution since the publication of Darwin's Origin of
Species."As I have already noted, because of the limited
recognitionwhich Darwin accorded to the inheritanceof
acquired characters, the revision of his theory by the
Neo-Darwinianswas a simplematter,and Darwinian natural
selection has survived as the fonset origoof the modern
" The German edition had been published in Jena in 1892.
20As Zirkle (1946:91) has shown, the inheritanceof acquired
charactershad been "almostuniversally"believed in forthousands
of years before it was rejected by Weismann. However, although
it wentinto abrupt decline fromabout 1889, Lamarckian doctrine
lingered on well into the present century,the last of the papers
fromW. E. Agar'slaboratoryinvalidatingtheconclusionsof William
McDougall's "Lamarckian experiment" (McDougall 1927, 1938)
being published as late as 1954 (Agar et al. 1954). At about that
same time, Medawar (1957:79) wrote: "As to 'the inheritanceof
acquired characters',itslastsolemn riteshave been capably intoned
by Woodger (1952), and there can be no case for having it
disinterred."This remains the clear consensus of contemporary
biologists,but, for an account of the acceptance, until recently,
in the U.S.S.R., of the Lamarckian doctrines of Lysenko, see
Medvedev (1969); see also Koestler's recent advocacy (1971:130)
of what he calls "Mini-Lamarckism."The systematictransmission
of acquired characters from somatic to germ cells, as believed
in by Spencer and others, is now seen to be inconsistentwith
the "central dogma of molecular biology." This dogma (Crick
1970:561) is a formulationof "the general rules for information
transferfrom one polymerwith a defined alphabet to another,"
and some years ago the principal of these rules was stated in
the form (Crick 1958:153) "once [sequential] informationhas
passed into proteinit cannot get out again" (cf. Watson 1965:298).
It is importantto note that the central dogma (Crick 1970:562)
does not rule out, in special circumstances,what is called reverse
transcription(i.e., RNA -* DNA); But there are three transfers
"whichthe centraldogma postulatesnever occur:
Protein Protein
Protein DNA
Protein RNA."
Until the postulate that informationcannot be transferredfrom
proteinto nucleic acid has been experimentallyinvalidated,scien-
tistswillremainincredulousconcerningthe inheritanceof acquired
characters. As Maynard Smith (1966:66) notes in his discussion
of this issue, "the process whereby informationis passed from
DNA to protein is now fairlywell understood in chemical terms,
and it seems certain that this process could not work backwards.
The greatest virtue of the central dogma is that it makes clear
whata Lamarckistmustdo-he must disprove the dogma." Given
the methodology of science, the possibilitythat some special
exception to the principal postulate of the central dogma might,
at some future time, be demonstrated must ever remain open.
What can certainlybe said, in the light of modern knowledge,
is thatthe transmissionof acquired characterson thescale postulat-
ed by Spencer for "the higher stages of organic evolution" has
no basis in reality.
Vol. 15 No. 3 September
1974
Freeman: DARWIN AND SPENCER
biological theory of evolution (cf. Waddington 1968:18,
Smith 1969:62).
In marked contrast,the overthrowof Lamarckism was
fatalto Spencer's theoryof evolution,and of this Spencer's
contemporarieswere well aware. In October, 1890, for
example, in a letter(to Platt Ball)2' discussing"use-inheri-
tance" (Huxley 1900:268), T. H. Huxley commented:
"Spencer is bound to it a priori-his psychologygoes to
pieces withoutit." And, A. J. Balfour, on November 26,
1891, in his address as Lord Rector of Glasgow University,
noted (1905 [1891] :247) that "so persistently" had Spencer
applied the principleof the inheritanceof acquired charac-
ters "in everydepartmentof his theoryof Man, that were
it to be upset, it is scarcelytoo much to say that his Ethics,
his Psychology,and his Anthropologywould all tumble
to the ground." While Poulton (one of the editors of
Weismann'sEssaysof 1889), in his reviewof the evolutionary
ideas of the late 19thcentury(1931:348), records that one
result of the revolutionin biological thoughtwhich from
1887 onwards awoke evolutionistsfrom their "dogmatic
sleep" was "the collapse of Herbert Spencer's 'Synthetic
Philosophy'so largelybuilt upon Lamarckian principles."
In 1885, when he was working on his "criticismof the
Darwinianview"(Duncan 1911:246), Spencer seems to have
had littleinkling of the fundamentaladvances that were
taking place in cytologyand of their deadly implications
for the flatlyLamarckian assumptions of his own theory
of evolution. By 1890, however, he had become aware
of the general threat being posed to the central edifice
of his life's work by Weismann and others (Duncan
1911:343), and as the situationworsened he set to work
(in ill health though he was) to justify "in a conclusive
way" his Lamarckian convictions. The resulting article,
entitled "The Inadequacy of 'Natural Selection,"' was
published in the Contemporary Reviewearly in 1893, and
contained the intransigentdeclaration (1893a:446):
either there has been inheritanceof acquired characters
or therehas been no evolution."He had (he later confided
to his supporters)been "alike astonished and exasperated"
at the manner in which "biologistsat large" had received
Weismann's theory (Duncan 1911:350); and its "wide ac-
ceptance" was, he thought (Duncan 1911:348), "discred-
itable to the biological world." It was indeed the end of
an era.
I cannot here recount the controversywith Weismann
thatfollowed(Spencer 1893b, 1894, 1895; Weismann 1893b,
1895). It was, from the outset, an unequal contest, for
by 1893-94 the experimentallyestablishedconclusions of
cytologywere of a kind thateven Spencer's rhetoriccould
not blanket; and, as Mitchell observed in his review in
Natureof the famous controversy(1894:374), "To anyone
who has seen under the microscope the intricatemethod
in which nuclear matterprepares for division, Spencer's
suggestionthatitpasses fromcell to cell,leavingtheembryo
and reaching the tissuesof the mother,must seem absurd
"22
21 Ball's influentialbook AretheEffects
ofUse and Disuse Inherited?
was publishedin 1890. It was his opinion thatLamarckian doctrine
was "a broken reed."
22 In supportof his Lamarckianviews,Spencer (1893a:448) made
use of the Earl of Morton'scommunicationof November 23, 1820,
to the Royal Society of London concerning the Quagga-like
markings on two foals of a "seven-eighthsArabian mare" and
an Arabian stallion,the mare having had connection some years
previouslywith a Quagga stallion (Morton 1820:20). Spencer's
interpretationof these Quagga-like markings on the foals was
that some of the "germ-plasm"of the Quagga stallionhad passed
into "the mass of somatic cells" of the mare, and that some of
this "introduced germ-plasmeverywherediffused"had then be-
217
 Absurd it certainlywas, but Spencer, who was nothing
if not obdurate in his beliefs,clung to this and his other
antiquatedLamarckianconvictionsto the end23 and, during
his declining years, "never wavered" in his "faith" that
the transmission of acquired characters was (Spencer
1898a:690) "an all-importantfactor"in human evolution.
In 1898, in the revised edition of his Principlesof Biology,
his numerous articlesagainst Neo-Darwinismwere reprint-
ed as appendices,and in his finalsummaryofthe "evidence"
Spencer (1898b:695) came to the defiantconclusion (repre-
sentinga virtualregressionto his impassioned Lamarckian
convictionsof the 1850s) "thatnaturalselectionis less clearly
shown to be a factor in the origination of species than
is the inheritanceof functionally-wrought changes."
The evolutionarytheories of Spencer and Darwin thus
differeddecisivelyin the extent to which they depended
on the supposed mechanismof Lamarckian inheritance.
From 1864 onwards,as I have shown,Spencer insistently
rejected the predominance that Darwin gave to natural
selectionand, duringthelast twodecades ofhislife,engaged
in public disparagement firstof "the Darwinian view" per
se and then of the more scientificallyexact Neo-Darwinian
versionof evolutionby means of natural selection.Spencer
was thus no Darwinian. Moreover, his polemical insistence
as to thecorrectnessofhisextremeLamarckianassumptions,
far from resultingin a synthesiswith Darwinism,helped
to create a division which led to the overshadowing and
ultimatelyto the eclipse of the misconceivedevolutionary
theory which, from 1840 until his death in 1903, held
for him a "irresistibleattraction."24
* ** * statement:"I believein no fixedlaw ofdevelopment,causing
That the evolutionarytheories of Darwin and Spencer
differed in a number of fundamentallyimportant ways
is, moreover, no recent realization. In March, 1905, for
example, in the course of the firstHerbertSpencer Lecture
at Oxford, Frederic Harrison (who had for 40 years
"enjoyed the friendship and valued the advice of Mr.
Spencer") reminded his audience (1905:13): "Spencer's
conception of Evolution, though it incorporated Darwin's
laws as to the mutabilityof species, is not only utterly
differentfrom pure Darwinian Evolution,but is not com-
mensurablewithit."
This, moreover, was a point on which Spencer himself
had been quite explicit.In his preface to the fourthedition
come included "in the reproductive cells subsequently formed"
(i.e., when the mare was impregnated by the Arabian stallion).
By Spencer and othersthis"singular"processwas termedtelegony.
23 Spencer's final defence of his Lamarckian convictions was
published in 1902 (the year before his death) in a paper entitled
"Some Light on Use-Inheritance." In this paper he asserted
(Spencer 1902:128-29) that while "inductive proof of the use-
inheritancedoctrine" was "not wholly wanting," there was "no
inductiveproof whateverof natural selection."
24 If, during the present century,the inheritanceof acquired
charactershad been experimentallyvalidated,Spencer would now
be (as he envisioned in 1854) the Newton of the behavioural
sciences. Instead, biological researchhas shown Spencer's extreme
Lamarckian assumptionsto have been "totallyerroneous" (Young
1970:189), and has confirmedthe drastic conclusion of Bourne
(1910:189) that the "sociological conclusions" founded on the
"biological principles" set forthin Spencer's SyntheticSystemof
Philosophy are "vitiated." So, as Huxley and Balfour foresaw,
Spencer's systemsof psychologyand sociology and his theoryof
human evolution have been shown to rest on an irremediably
flawed foundation.Yet thissituationstilltends to be glossed over
or ignored. Carneiro (1967:xv), MacRae (1969:21), and Andreski
(1971:24) make only indirectand casual referenceto the Lamarck-
ian basis of Spencer's sociology; while Peel (1971:224-48 passim),
in his analysisof the "obsolescence whichovertookSpencer's ideas"
at the end of the 19th century,does not discuss in any detail
the major revolution in biological understandingwhich resulted
in the invalidationand downfallof Spencer's uncompromisingly
Lamarckian systemof thought.
218
of FirstPrinciples(1880:v-vii), for example, Spencer noted
that his "general formula of Evolution," having been "set
forth"before the firstpublicationof Darwin's theory,"had
an origin independent of, and prior to, that which is
commonlyassumed to have initiatedit." And, a year or
so later,in a letterto The Athenaeum (Spencer 1882a: 112),
he complained that "ninety-nineout of a hundred" did
not know what his "Doctrine of Evolution" was, supposing
it to be "simplyanothername forthe doctrineof the origin
of species by natural selection."
Yet, there are stillhistoriansof evolutionaryideas who
treat the theories of Spencer and Darwin as though they
were indistinguishable.This, not surprisingly,leads to
plumb errors, as, for example, the coupling of Darwin
withSpencer as one who accepted the doctrineof inevitable
progress (Harris 1968:116-17).
As Young (1969:135) has noted, "Spencer agreed with
Lamarck that nature had an inherent progressive ten-
dency," and the "inevitableness"(Spencer 1857a:485) of
progress (including human progress) was, as the evidence
demonstrates,integralto Spencer's "Doctrineof Evolution"
(cf.Greene 1959:438). In markedcontrast,itwas "Darwin's
deeply rooted beliefthatorganic naturecontained no force
withinit which tended towardits own perfectionor evolu-
tion" (Vorzimmer 1970:94); and, on numerous occasions,
Darwin wentout of his way to make it plain thathis theory
did not involve any notion of "necessary progress" such
as that to which Spencer, followingLamarck, had unreser-
vedly committedhimselfin 1857.
In his firsteditionof On theOriginofSpecies,forexample,
Darwin (1859:314) included the following very specific
all the inhabitantsof a country to change abruptly, or
simultaneously,or to an equal degree." And to make quite
sure that he was understood he reiterated the point (p.
351): "I believe, as was remarked in the last chapter, in
no law of necessarydevelopment."
This was a conclusion to which Darwin had come at
least as early as 1844 (cf. Darwin and Wallace
1958[1858]:231). And, almost 30 years later, in a letter
writtento the American zoologist Alpheus Hyatt at the
end of 1872, Darwin (Darwin and Seward 1903, vol. 1:344)
reiteratedhis lifelongrejectionof the doctrineof necessary
progress in the followingconclusive words: "After long
reflectionI cannot avoid the conviction that no innate
tendencyto progressivedevelopmentexists .... 25
Darwin, furthermore,explicitlyextended his rejection
of the notion of necessary progress to the species Homo
sapiens.Thus, in his discussion of progress in relation to
human populations living in a civilized state, Darwin
(1901 [1871]:216) stressed that "we must remember that
progressis no invariablerule."
As for the view that progress is "normal" in "human
society,"Darwin (1901 [1871] :204) considered that"history
refutes this"; and the etiology of such progress as had
occurred in human societieshe regarded as unknown,for,
as he put it (p. 204), "Progressseems to depend on many
concurrent favourable conditions far too complex to be
followedout."
As will be apparent, thisevidence refutesHarris's asser-
tions (1968:116) that Darwin, in the case of man, saw
"perpetual progress"in the "struggleforsurvival"and that
he "attributed"thisprogress to "unremittingstruggle"and
regarded it as "the product of 'nature, red in fang [SiC] 26
and claw.'"
25 In thus rejectingthe doctrineof "necessaryprogress"Darwin
was in marked opposition to many of the biologists of his day,
and was much criticizedby them on thisscore; cf. Ridl (1930:56).
26
What Tennyson wrote in his poem in memoryof his friend
Arthur Hallam was, of course, "Nature, red in tooth and claw
C U R R E N T A N T H R O PO LO G Y
 The excerpt from Darwin's writingscited by Harris, in
whichthe word progressdoes occur, is part of the penulti-
mate paragraph of On the Origin of Species (1859:489),
the last sentence of which reads: "And as natural selection
workssolelybyand forthe good of each being,all corporeal
and mental endowments will tend to progress towards
perfection."
Here, it is important to realize, Darwin is using the
language employed by the naturalistsof his day to refer
to the remarkable adaptations to be found in certain of
the organs of living creatures. Thus, Darwin's essay of
1859 contains a formal discussion (pp. 186-94) of such
adaptations (the vertebrateeye being an example) under
the heading "Organs of Extreme Perfectionand Complica-
tion."
It was Darwin's view (in contradistinctionto thatof Paley
and others) that "organs of extreme perfection"did not
argue for Design. For Darwin the mechanism of natural
selection, given sufficienttime in which to work, could
produce adaptationsof thiskind. In the passage in question
Darwin does not, it will be noted, postulate any kind of
necessaryprogress,but only a tendencytowardsincreasing
"perfection"in the adaptations of living organisms. Nor
did Darwin believethatnaturalselectioncould ever produce
"absolute perfection."Indeed, as he emphasized in chap.
6 of On theOrigin of Species(1859:201), the "perfection"
of adaptations is always relative to those of other species
inhabitingthe same "country"(or ecosystem,as we would
now say), and is ever liable to be rendered "injurious"
by "changing conditions of life," a vicissitude which, as
Darwin noted, has resulted in "myriads" of organisms
becoming extinct.
When the true import of the passage cited by Harris
is comprehended, it is plain that it does not provide any
basis forthe inferencethatit was an expression of Darwin's
support for a doctrineof human perfectibility. As we have
seen, Darwin was convinced therewas "no innate tendency
to progressivedevelopment"and dismissedthe Lamarckian
belief(held by Spencer and others) thatprogressin human
societieswas a "a necessity"; nor did he (as did Spencer)
ever give credence to any peremptorydoctrine of human
for such a doctrinewas quite incompatible
perfectibility,28
withhis theoryof evolutionbymeans of naturalselection.29
The ways of thought of Darwin and Spencer, it will
now have become apparent, had little in common. Yet
. . ."; and, composed as it was some years before the publication
of On the Origin of Species,this phrase had no connexion with
Darwin or his theory. Hallam died in Vienna on September 15,
1833, and Tennyson's poem In Memoriam A. H. H. Obiit
MDCCCXXXIII, having been composed during the years from
October, 1833, onwards, was published in March, 1850 (Ricks
1969:853). As Rutland (1940:17) has shown, it is likely that
Tennyson was influenced by his reading of Chambers's Vestiges
oftheNaturalHistoryofCreation,whichwas firstpublished,anony-
mously,in October, 1844; see also Millhauser (1959:156).
27 This was fullyrealized by Darwin's contemporaries.Lyell, for
example, notedin hisjournal on March 10, 1860 (Wilson 1970:359):
"Lamarck introducedspontaneous generations,but Darwin's natu-
ral selection implies no innate tendencyto perfection& develop-
ment is necessary."
28 Spencer (1954 [1850]:60) argued: "As surely as the tree
becomes bulkywhen it stands alone, and slender if one of a group
. . . so surelymustthe human facultiesbe moulded into complete
fitnessfor the social state; so surely must the thingswe call evil
and immoralitydisappear; so surelymust man become perfect."
29 Cf. Williams (1966:34), who in his discussion of "natural
selection,adaptation and progress" shows that "there is nothing
in the basic structureof the theoryof natural selection thatwould
suggest the idea of any kind of cumulative progress." Cf. Mayr's
remark concerning Darwinian evolution (1968:51): "Probably
nothing in biology is less predictable than the future course of
evolution."
Vol. 15 No. 3 September
1974
Freeman: DARWIN AND SPENCER
fromthe 1860s onwards,when Spencer became established
as a fashionable publicist both in Great Britian and the
U.S.A., his reputationwas of a kind of whichDarwin could
not but take note. In their occasional correspondence
Darwin was always formallypolite and tactfullycompli-
mentary.30 His true feelingsabout Spencer and his consid-
ered assessmentof the scientificsignificanceof Spencer's
workhe recordedin his Autobiography (Barlow 1958:108-9):
HerbertSpencer'sconversation seemed to me veryinteresting,
but I did notlikehimparticularly, and did not feelthatI could
easilyhavebecomeintimate withhim.I thinkthathe wasextremely
Afterreadinganyofhisbooks,I generally
egotistical. feelenthusi-
astic admirationfor his transcendent talents,and have often
wonderedwhether in thedistantfuturehe wouldrankwithsuch
greatmen as Descartes,Leibnitz,etc.,about whom,howeverI
knowverylittle.NeverthelessI amnotconsciousofhavingprofited
in my own workby Spencer'swritings. His deductivemanner
of treatingeverysubjectis whollyopposedto myframeof mind.
His conclusionsneverconvinceme: and overand overagain I
havesaid to myself,afterreadingone of his discussions,-"Here
wouldbe a finesubjectforhalf-a-dozen years'work."His funda-
mentalgeneralisations(whichhavebeencomparedin importance
bysome personswithNewton'slaws!)-whichI daresaymaybe
veryvaluableundera philosophical pointof view,are of such
a naturethattheydo notseemto metobe ofanystrictly scientific
use. Theypartakemoreof thenatureof definitions thanof laws
of nature.They do not aid one in predicting whatwillhappen
in any particularcase. Anyhowtheyhave not been of any use
to me.
As this passage (written in 1876) indicates, Darwin's
attitudeto Spencer was decidedly ambivalent,3'and recog-
nition of this fact is basic to any true understanding of
their relationship. Yet Harris (1968:129), in support of
hisclaim thatDarwin subscribedto "Biological Spencerism,"
has written:"Finally,there is the esteem in which Darwin
himself held Spencer, calling him 'about a dozen times
my superior' and insistingthat 'he will be looked at as
by far the greatestlivingphilosopher in England; perhaps
equal to any thathave lived."'
The description,citedby Harris,of whatDarwin suspect-
ed32 mightbe the status of Spencer as a philosopher in
the future is taken from a letter that Darwin wrote to
Ray Lankesteron March 15, 1870. In thisletter(F. Darwin
1888b:120), Darwin was echoing a common opinion of the
day, for by 1870 Spencer had become so fashionable a
philosopher (Elliot 1917:305) that "his name produced an
almost magical effectin many social circles." John Stuart
Mill, T. H. Huxley, and other prominentintellectualshad
writtenof FirstPrinciples(whichSpencer publishedin 1862)
in adulatory terms,and it soon came to be looked on in
England, the U.S.A., and elsewhere as a philosophical
masterpiece.William James,for example (who by the late
1870s had come to regard Spencer's First Principlesas
"almost a museum of blundering reason"),33 confessed
30Again, in the sixth edition of the Origin Darwin amended
his reference to "psychology"to include mention of its being
"securelybased on the foundationalready well laid by Mr Herbert
Spencer" (Peckham 1959:757).
31 These commentswere thoughtto be too harsh for publication
during Spencer's lifetime and were entirely omitted from the
autobiographicalsection in The Life and Lettersof CharlesDarwin
(F. Darwin 1887:26-107).
32 Darwin did not, as reported by Harris, insiston his opinion
as to Spencer's future standing as a philosopher. The relevant
sentencein Darwin's letter(F. Darwin 1888b: 120) begins"I suspect
that.. . ."
33 It is thisview of Spencer's significance
as a philosophicthinker
that has prevailed among philosophers; cf. Passmore (1966:41):
". . . we shall look in vain to Spencer for any rigorous discussion
of philosophicalissues. He is the nineteenth-century publicistpar
excellence."
219
(Perry 1935:474) that at firsthe was "carried away with
enthusiasm by the intellectual perspectivesit seemed to
open up." Darwin, who was no expert when it came to
philosophy,was obviously carried away too; but when it
came to the field in which he was an expert,he was under
no illusions as to Spencer's unimportance as a scientific
thinker,and, as we have seen, he was never convinced by
Spencer's conclusions.Spencer's "A Theory of Population"
(1852b), for example, Darwin considered to be full of
"dreadful hypotheticalrubbish."34
As thisjudgment indicates,the great defect thatDarwin
found in Spencer's writingswas "his deductive manner
of treating every subject." In 1880, for example, when
F. M. Balfour, the Professor of Animal Morphology at
Cambridge, in the course of an address to the British
Association for the Advancement of Science (1880:644),
presented evidence to refute a deduction which Spencer
had published as to the genesis of the nervous system,
Darwin (Darwin and Seward 1903, vol. 2:424) wrote to
him: "I always feel a malicious pleasure when a priori
conclusionsare knocked on the head: and thereforeI felt
somewhatlikea devilwhen I read yourremarkson Herbert
Spencer .
Darwin also had great difficultywith Spencer's styleof
expression. Having met him at the Lubbocks' in October,
1866, Darwin afterwardsremarked (Irvine 1955:166) on
the "awesomelylong words" that Spencer used, and when
writingto thephilosopherFiske,some yearslater(F. Darwin
1888b:193), he had this to say: "With the exception of
special points I did not even understand H. Spencer's
general doctrine; for his styleis too hard work for me."
Between 1863 and 1867, as partof hisgrandioseSynthetic
System of Philosophy, Spencer-despite the fact that he
lacked formalinstructionin any of the biological sciences
and had never engaged in either field or laboratory re-
search-issued in 12 80-page instalmentsa treatiseentitled
The Principlesof Biology.This, without question, was a
remarkablefeat; yet,in discussingcomplex biological phe-
nomena of which he had only a limited understanding,
Spencer came to adopt a prolix style of expression that
often became wonderfullyevasive and vague. It is a style
thatcan be savoured in the "formula"basic to the "general
doctrine of evolution" that defeated Darwin's powers of
comprehension (Spencer 1870:396): "Evolution is an in-
tegrationof matterand concomitantdissipationof motion;
duringwhichthe matterpasses froman indefinite,incoher-
ent homogeneityto a definite,coherentheterogeneity;and
during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel
transformation." 35
Spencer was able to produce such "knowledge of the
highestgenerality"in the instalmentsof his "philosophical
serial" with prodigious facility,taking up its dictation,as
Elliot (1917:63) has described, "almost at any moment-
eitherin theintervalsofrowingon theSerpentineor playing
games of racquets withhis amanuensis."
It was to these aspects of Spencer's styleand behavior
that Darwin pointedlyreferredin a letterhe wrote to his
closestof friends,JosephHooker (the Directorof the Royal
Botanic Gardens at Kew), on December 10, 1866, after
havingjust read the latestinstalmentof Spencer's Principles
ofBiology.And it is fromthisletterthat Harris and others
3 Cf. Himmelfarb(1959:186), citingDarwin's letterto Lyell of
February 25, 1860 (Darwin-Lyell Mss., American Philosophical
SocietyLibrary).
35 It was an earlier variant of this "formula" of which the
mathematicianKirkman made, as Tait called it in Nature20:264
(1879), the "exquisite translation": "Evolution is a change from
a nohowish, untalkaboutable,all-alikeness,to a somehowish and
in-general-talkaboutable,not-all-alikeness,by continuous some-
thingelsifications
and sticktogetherations."
220
(e.g., Carneiro 1967:ix; Goldthorpe 1969:78) have cited
the truncated phrase "about a dozen times my superior"
in apparentlytellingevidence of the high esteem in which
Spencer was held by Darwin.
The sentence (F. Darwin 1888b:55-56), fromwhich this
phrase has been detached, in which Darwin does indeed
reveal to an intimate friend his private feelings about
Spencer, runs as follows:"I feel rathermean when I read
him: I could bear and rather enjoy feeling that he was
twice as ingenious and clever as myself,but when I feel
that he is about a dozen times my superior, even in the
masterart of wriggling,I feel aggrieved."And the immedi-
ately followingsentence reads: "If he had trained himself
to observe more, even if at the expense, by the law of
balancement, of some loss of thinkingpower, he would
have been a wonderfulman."
"Would have been ...." Even though it be at the risk
of becoming prosaic, let me go on to record that Joseph
Hooker and Charles Darwin were educated men of no
small intellectual distinction,with sufficientsubtlety of
mind to appreciate the apposite uses of hyperbole and
irony; and that in the vernacular with which they were
familiar, "wriggling"refers to getting out of a fix "by
evasion, mean artifice or contrivance"-meanings which
in TheOxfordEnglishDictionary are illustratedbya quotation
from Darwin's letter to Hooker of December 10, 1866.
In fine, it is unlikelythat Hooker would have construed
Darwin's mordantlyironic comment that Spencer was his
superior "even in the master art of wriggling" as an
expression of high esteem when it is obviously quite the
reverse. Nor is it likely that Darwin would have dreamt
that Hooker would fail to grasp what he was gettingat,
for,as another letterof this same period36proves (Irvine
1955:373), Darwin was privy to Hooker's view that H.
Spencer of the "awesomely long words" was "not a small
bore."
* ** *
Finally,let me consider what, from an anthropological
mpintof view, is perhaps the most serious of all the
misconceptionsliable to result from the error of lumping
togetherthe evolutionarytheoriesof Darwin and Spencer:
the conclusion(Harris 1968:121) that,likeSpencer, Darwin
was "utterlyincapable of separating changes in a group's
learned repertoryfromhereditarymodifications."
Spencer, as is apparent in his interpretationof human
social evolution (18.73:676-77), was indeed "incapable of
separating changes in a group's learned repertoryfrom
hereditarymodifications."Any such general and extreme
Lamarckianinterpretationwas, however,never entertained
by Darwin, and that Darwin was, in fact, aware of the
distinctionbetween heredity and culture is evident in
numerous passages in his writings.
For example, in comparing the "mental powers" of man
and infra-humananimals, Darwin (1901 [1871]: 121) re-
markedofman: "That he is capable ofincomparablygreater
and more rapid improvementthan is any other animal,
admits of no dispute; and this is mainlydue to his power
of speaking and handing down his acquired knowledge."
Here, Darwin is recognizing the cultural transmissionof
informationas a prime characteristicof Homo sapiens.
Again, in discussing the ancient Greeks in relation to
European civilizationas it existed in about 1870, Darwin
(1901[1871]:217) had this to say: "The western nations
of Europe, who now so immeasurablysurpass theirformer
savage progenitors,and stand at the summitof civilization,
36 An unpublished letter of October 2, 1866 (Darwin Papers,
Cambridge UniversityLibrary).
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY
owe littleor none of theirsuperiorityto directinheritance
fromthe old Greeks, though theyowe much to the written
worksof thatwonderfulpeople." Here, itwillbe discerned,
not only does Darwin distinguish between heredity and
learned repertory,but he also attributesthe superiority
in civilizationof certain 19th-century"western nations of
Europe" over their own "savage progenitors" predomi-
nantlyto elements in ancient Greek civilizationwhich (as
we would now say) had been culturallytransmitted to them.
As I have alreadyshown,Darwin consideredthatprogress
in human societieswas "no invariable rule" and, further,
that progress depended on "many concurrentfavourable
conditionsfar too complex to be followed out." However,
while thus refraining from any premature attempt to
analyse the complex etiology of such human progress as
had occurred, Darwin (1901 [1871] :220) was prepared to
venturea broad general opinion as to the probable nature
of the significantvariables: "The more efficientcauses of
progressseem to consistof a good education during youth
whilst the brain is impressible, and of a high standard
of excellence, inculcated by the ablest and best men,
embodied in the laws, customsand traditionsof the nation
and enforced by public opinion." Here again, Darwin
explicitlyrecognized the learned repertoryof a societyas
one of the "more efficientcauses" of progressin civilization,
while specificallystatingthat naturalselectionacts, in such
conditions,"onlytentatively" (p. 217) and in "a subordinate
degree" (p. 220).
That Darwin did indeed recognize the superordinate
importance of what are now called cultural adaptations
is furtherconfirmedby his restatement,in summary,of
his views on thisissue (1901[1871]:945):
Importantas the struggleforexistencehas been and even still
is, yetas far as the highestpart of man's natureis concerned
thereare otheragenciesmoreimportant. For themoralqualities
are advanced,eitherdirectly or indirectly,
muchmorethrough
the effectsof habit,the reasoningpowers,instruction, religion,
&c., thanthroughnaturalselection;thoughto thislatteragency
maybe safelyattributed the socialinstincts,
whichaffordedthe
basisforthedevelopment of themoralsense.
Here, Darwin adopted, in embryonic form, what today
would be called an interactionistposition. That is, while
acknowledging the superordinate importance of learned
behaviour as the adaptation on which human civilization
is founded, he at the same time recognized that some
learned behaviour has, in part, a biological basis. Darwin's
view thus foreshadowedthe contemporaryscientificpara-
digm succinctlyexpressed byDobzhansky(1969:290): ".
mankind'sprincipaladaptive instrumentis culture.Culture
is acquired and transmittednot through genes; symbol
formationand symboliclanguage are the chief modes of
transmission.Yet thisnon-genetictransmissionhas a genetic
foundation."
In other words, while some of his interpretationsare
at errorand require substantialrevision,Darwin did recog-
nize (and at a time when the concept of culture was in
a rudimentarystate of development) that human history
had long since reached a phase in whichlearned behavioural
adaptations had become "much more" important than
genetic variables in determiningsocial change, while still
attachingimportanceto the nature of the brain and body
of man as these evolved, in earlier times, predominantly
by means of natural selection.
As Stocking (1968:365) has shown, the propounding of
the theorythatculture is "a thing sui generis" by Kroeber,
Lowie, and others was linked with the overthrowof "the
Lamarckian notion of the inheritanceof acquired charac-
Vol. 15 - No. 3 - September
1974
Freeman: DARWIN AND SPENCER
ters." At that time, the conceptualizationof culture as a
"closed system"(Jenks1918:490) was seen byLowie (1917:5)
as "a declaration of independence against the older 'more
general' sciencesof biologyand psychology."By the 1950s,
however, the limitationsof the cultural deterministpara-
digm thatemerged in the wake of Kroeber's (1915) "eight-
een professions" had become apparent; and in 1955,
Kroeber himselfgave it as his opinion (1955:198) that the
period during which "generic human nature" had been
discounted by the great majorityof anthropologistswas
"drawingto a close." The course of events since then has
borne out Kroeber's prediction,37and it has now become
evident that an authentic science of anthropology must
be based on a paradigm that gives recognition to the
interactionof cultural,biological,and environmentalvari-
ables in historicaland contemporarysituations,as during
the evolutionarypast of the human species (cf. Freeman
1970:68).
The modern biological theory of evolution is basic to
such an anthropologicalparadigm, being in no way incom-
patible with the recognitionof the emergence of learned
behaviourand symbolicsystemsas factorsof ever increasing
significancein human evolutionand history.It is of impor-
tance,therefore,thatcontemporaryanthropologistsshould
have an accurateunderstandingofthoseconceptsof Charles
Darwin on whichthe modern biologicaltheoryof evolution
is founded, and thattheseconceptsshould not be confused
with the obsolete Lamarckian evolutionism of Herbert
Spencer. It is hoped that this paper will be a contribution
to that end.
Abstract
In thispaper certaincrucial differencesbetweenthe evolu-
tionarytheories of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer
are explored. Particularattentionis givento the Lamarckian
basis of Spencer's evolutionarydoctrine.
Comments
by CARL JAY BAJEMA
Allendale,Mich., U.S.A. 2 xi 73
The resurgenceof interestin evolutionarytheoriesamong
anthropologistsmakes Freeman's paper very timely. My
only criticismis that sometimesit doesn't go far enough.
For example, thedifferingviewsthatSpencer and Darwin
held with respect to "progress" led to their adopting
differentdefinitionsof evolution. Spencer was the first
person to extend the meaning of the word evolution to
include some of the changes in species over time. Spencer
(1857b:446[1891a:10]) defined evolution as change in a
particulardirection-change of thesimpleintothe complex
("a change fromthe homogeneous to the heterogeneous").
Darwin (1859:171,340,443,456) essentially considered
evolution to be any hereditarychange occurring within
a species over time("descentwithmodification")regardless
of the directionof the change. Although "evolved" is the
last word of the firstedition of On theOrigin of Species,
"Cf. Chapple (1970:viii-xv) for a listing of "the advances in
biology and anthropologyover the last twenty-five years which
have contributedso much to the formulationof a consistentand
integratedapproach to human behaviour and to culture."
221
Darwin rarely used the term evolution in his published
works-perhaps because Spencer had defined evolution
as progressfromthe simple to the complex. Spencer's idea
thatevolutionmustbe progressivehas become so ingrained
in the minds of some modern anthropologiststhat they
have even resortedto using the termdevolutionto describe
changes whichlead to a decrease in complexityof organiza-
tion (Carneiro 1972). Freeman's analysisshould help make
anthropologistsmore aware that not all scientistsdefine
evolutionin the same way and thatdifferencesin definition
lead to differentconclusions.
Second, Spencer (1864) invented the phrase "survival
of the fittest"to describe natural selection, and Darwin
(1869) adopted this phrase to define natural selection in
the fifthand subsequent editions of the Origin of Species.
This has probably led many modern scientiststo believe
thattheremusthave been a greatdeal of similaritybetween
theevolutionarytheoriesof Darwin and Spencer. Freeman's
paper helps dispel this misconception.Interestingly,while
the phrase "survival of the fittest"led many people to
the erroneous conclusion that natural selection operates
to perpetuate the individual (longevity), both Darwin
(1859:62) and Spencer (1864:444) understood that natural
selectionoperates to bringabout the multiplication(repro-
duction) of individualswithfavorablevariations.
We owe Freeman a debt of gratitudefor his effortsto
help us better understand the historicalroots of some of
the controversiesthathave occurred (and in some instances
are stillraging) in evolutionaryanthropology.
by JOHN BLACKING
Belfast,Northern Ireland. 18 xi 73 a moralist,that is, before he began to contemplateit from
Freeman is to be congratulated on his characteristically the standpoint of science. Thus in Social Staticshe wrote
thorough and scholarly examination of the evolutionary that "every phenomenon exhibited by an aggregation of
theories of Darwin and Spencer. Although Harris was
justified in noting the effectof contemporarysocial and
economic structureson the development of theory and
methodsin the social and natural sciences,Freeman makes
it clear that even if Darwin published his resultslong after its units" (1891 c:41 1). By the 1870s, however,Spencer was
Spencer and Marx he had worked out his theory earlier.
Moreover, although Darwin had been reared in a culture
in which evolutionaryideas had been under discussion for
over halfa century,itwas the arrayof data collectedduring
the voyage of the Beagle thatcrystallizedhis thoughtabout
the origin of species.
If Harris's admirablyprovocativebook has come in for
furtherattack,it is perhaps his fault for not applying his
own principles to his writing.Why did he fall victim to
the cult of personalities and events and use a personal
label to describe aspectsof a systemthattranscendsindivid-
ual idiosyncracies?The term "Spencerism,"like "Darwin-
ism" or "Marxism" or any other "personal-name-ism," (1890:14). Freeman totallyignores thisevidence of change
suggestsdogma and invites polemic rather than scientific in Spencer's ideas. Though he cites no fewer than 27 of
discussion,testing,and refinement.It is to be hoped that
Freeman'stimelyemphasis on the modern biologicaltheory
of evolution as an integralpart of anthropologicalinves-
tigationwill not cause some to dismiss altogetherHarris's
arguments about Spencer's work, or indeed several of
Spencer's own insightsand analyseswhichare not automat-
ically falsifiedbecause of the faults in his evolutionary
doctrine.
byROBERT L. CARNEIRO
New York,N.Y., U.S.A. 16 xi 73
Freeman wants us to believe that whereas Darwin was an
illustriousscientistwhose work on evolution was rigorous
and illuminating,Spencer was merelya "fashionablepubli-
cist" whose evolutionarywritingswere metaphysicaland
222
unsound. Such a distortedviewof Spencer can be sustained
only by a very careful selection and skillfulinterweaving
ofa limitedbody of evidence. While quite properlypointing
out certainerrorsin Spencer's views on organic evolution,
Freeman neverthelessminimizes, ignores, or suppresses
a much larger part of Spencer's evolutionism.The result
is a serious misrepresentationof intellectualhistory.
Freeman'sattackcenterson Spencer's beliefin the inher-
itance of acquired characteristicsand on the prominent
role he assigned to it in organic evolution. He shows quite
correctlythatin clingingto thisbeliefin thefaceof mounting
evidence against it, Spencer was dogmatic and even per-
verse. Not content with this, however, he goes on to say
that Spencer's social evolutionismalso rested squarely on
the inheritanceof acquired characteristics,and that when
this doctrine fell, his social evolutionismfell with it. But
this contentioncannot be sustained.
Accordingto Freeman, by 1873 Spencer had "opted for
thetheorythatthementaland social evolutionof the species
Homo sapienswas primarilycaused by the inheritance of
acquired characters, producing a gradual and inevitable
modificationof human nature and human institutions."
He adds, moreover,that this doctrine was one "to which
Spencer became increasinglycommitted during the re-
maining30 years of his life." But as far as Spencer's social
evolutionismis concerned,the factsshowquite the opposite.
From 1873 on, Spencer became less, rather than more,
inclined to see social institutionsas arising from changing
attributesof human nature.
Spencer's original belief that the institutionsof a society
werea directreflectionof theinnatequalitiesof itsmembers
dates from a time when he looked at society purely as
men, originatesin some qualityof man himself"(1851:16),
and he continued to hold much the same view as late
as 1873, when he wrote in The Studyof Sociologythat "the
nature of the aggregate is determined by the nature of
becoming increasinglyfamiliarwith a very large body of
cross-culturaldata being collected for his use in writing
his magnum opus, The Principlesof Sociology,and this
exposure clearlychanged his thinking.Spencer now recog-
nized that"social phenomena depend in parton the natures
of the individualsand in part on the forcesthe individuals
are subjectto" (1890:14). Moreover,he saw factorsexternal
to individuals as ptayingan increasinglygreater role as
societiesevolved. Thus he noted that "the ever-accumulat-
ing,ever-complicating super-organicproducts,materialand
mental [i.e., culture], constitutea furtherset of factors
whichbecome more and more influentialcauses of change"
Spencer's works,PrinciplesofSociologyis not among them.
Freeman would have us believe that Spencer found
Darwin's principle of natural selection uncongenial and
accepted it only after he had found a way to subsume
it under one of his own general principles.This is simply
nottrue.Spencer welcomed naturalselectionfromthe start.
Indeed, he expressed his chagrin at not having thought
of it himself (1924:390). His Principlesof Biologymakes
repeated use of natural selection, and his Principlesof
Sociologyis studded with it. Over and over in the latter
workSpencer showsthatcertainformsofsocial organization
became widespread largely by giving some societies an
advantage over othersin the strugglefor existence.
Turning to the inevitability of progress,we findFreeman
again quoting an early opinion of Spencer's as if it were
his mature and final thought.True enough, Spencer once
C U R R E N T A N T H R O PO LO G Y
wrotethat"progress. . . is not an accident,but a necessity"
(1851:65). But even here Spencer is not asserting any
doctrinaireoptimism,as is evident from the sentence that
immediatelyfollows:"Instead of civilizationbeing artificial,
it is a part of nature; all of a piece with the development
of the embryoor the unfoldingof a flower."By the time
he wrote First Principles,Spencer was very clear on this
issue, statingthat"evolution is not necessary,but depends
onconditions. . ." (1896a:588). The same viewis expressed
repeatedlyin Principlesof Sociology,where Spencer wrote:
"While the current degradation theory is untenable, the
theoryof progression,in its ordinary form,seems to me
untenable also. . . . It is possible, and, I believe, probable,
that retrogressionhas been as frequent as progression"
(1890:93).
Freeman's attempt to portray Darwin as consistently
empiricaland Spencer as hopelessly metaphysicalwill not
stand inspection,either.Thus, he glosses over in a footnote
the factthatDarwin clung to the idea of God as a necessary
FirstCause, and that in the last paragraph of the Origin
ofSpecieshe wrote of "life,withits several powers, having
been originallybreathed by the Creator into a few forms
or into one...." At the same time,Freeman failsto note
that,despite an occasional referenceto the "Unknowable,"
Spencer explained the origin of life mechanistically(e.g.,
1904:481-483) and never found it necessaryto invoke God
to account for anything.Indeed, Spencer introduced the
phrase "the survival of the fittest"precisely because he
feltthatDarwin's term"natural selection"had a metaphys-
ical ring. "Selection," Spencer argued, implied a selector,
thus erroneously and unnecessarilypersonifyingnature.
"The survivalof the fittest," on theotherhand, was, Spencer
said, "the plain expression of the fact."Moreover, Darwin
himselfacknowledged the validityof Spencer's argument,
and in later editions of the Origin worked the phrase
"survivalof the fittest"into his text (Merchant 1916:174-
175).
Freeman findsit praiseworthythatDarwin (alone among
his scientificcontemporaries,incidentally)found it difficult
to understand Spencer. Part of this difficulty, we are told,
was the "awesomelylong words" Spencer used-presuma-
bly words like "homogeneity,""heterogeneity,""differen-
tiation,"and "integration."Withthe same evidentapproval,
Freeman quotes Darwin's remark that "progress seems to
depend on conditionsfartoo complex to be followed out."
But Spencer was not so ready to be baffled. In fact, he
devoted the 2,100 pages of his Principlesof Sociologyto
"followingout" theseconditions,and in so doing illuminated
many previouslydark corners of social evolution. But of
this Freeman again tells us nothing.
Freeman's greatestdisserviceto the truth,though, is his
failure to point out that it was Spencer, and not Darwin,
who was the architectof evolutionismas a unified philoso-
phy of nature. Not once in the firstfive editions of the
OriginofSpeciesdid Darwin even use the word "evolution."
When he finallydid so in the sixthedition (1872), he used
it only half a dozen times, withoutattemptingto define
it. As Darwin himself said, in the Origin he "treat[ed]
the subject simply as a naturalist" (F. Darwin 1904, vol.
1:497) and neverventuredto expound evolutionas a cosmic
process.
Spencer, on the other hand, began using the term
"evolution" in the early 1850s and gave it the currency
it came to enjoy. In a series of closely reasoned articles,
he gradually built up the general concept of evolution
eventuallyformulatedwith great acuity and rigor in First
Principlesin 1862. And the terms in which he described
the evolutionaryprocess-as involvingan increasing dif-
ferentiationof structureand specialization of function,
givingrise to successivelyhigher levels of integration-are
Vol. 15 - No. 3 - September
1974
Freeman: DARWIN AND SPENCER
the very termsin whichwe talk about it today. Moreover,
Spencer saw thisprocessas having occurred notjust among
plantsand animals,but at all levelsof phenomena, inorgan-
ic, organic, and superorganic,throughoutthe known uni-
verse.
So it was Spencer rather than Darwin who expounded
thegeneral principleof naturalchange whichso profoundly
transformedand invigorated human thought. For this
immense contributionhe surely merits something better
than the opprobrium and disdain that Freeman has so
lavishlyheaped upon him.
byU. M. COWGILL
Pittsburgh,Pa., U.S.A. 22 x 73
One need only examine a recent issue of CA (14:378)
to realize the necessityfor the discussionof the contrasting
views of Darwin and Spencer provided us by Freeman.
Freeman's paper is clearly directed toward those either
uninitiatedin or at bestunconvincedby the opposing views
of Darwin and Spencer. The zoologist,classicalor modern,
is constantlyfaced with the question of why there are so
many animals. By the same token,the anthropologistmay
well attemptto answer the question why thereare so many
cultures.Witheitherquestion, concentratedthoughteven-
tually terminates with the idea of evolutionary theory.
Certainlypart of the answer to the latter question must
lie in the interfaceof culture, biology, and environment,
examined historicallyas well as contemporaneously.None
of the above was totallyunfamiliarto Darwin. It is always
somewhatdisconcertingto discover thatmany of the ques-
tionsbeing pondered todaywere also consideredby Darwin
and that, in many cases, we are no nearer the answers
than he was.
bySANTIAGO GENOVtS
Mexico,D.F., Mexico.25 x 73
That Harris (1968) chooses to lump the nonscientific
evolutionary theory of Spencer with the painstaking,
monumental scientificwork of Darwin is alien to me and
does not deserve more than a few lines in a specialized
journal like CURRENT We all know the harm
ANTHROPOLOGY.
that the biological extension of Spencerian thought has
done to anthropology,sociology,and biology.Spencer had
an extremelyattractiyepersonality,at least forthe layman,
while Darwin did not, and he provided politicians and
the public with justificationfor their otherwise dubious
behavior or actions. Spencer's "the transformationof the
homogeneous intotheheterogeneous,in whichall progress,
organic or other,essentiallyconsists,is consequent on the
production of many effectsby one cause-many changes
by one force" is "words, words, words." He never went
beyond a Lamarckian misunderstandingof evolution, ig-
noring,even, the previous attemptsof Belon and Buffon.
Spencer's specious rhetoric-very much used at the end
of the last century-continued against Weismann once
Darwin was dead. But Darwin and Weismann,as scientists,
worked outside any orthogenetictrend of thoughtleading
to inevitable,straightforward, necessary,biological lines of
progress. Someone has defined orthogeneticismas more
than a doctrine,the natural need of some human minds
to reason in a straightline. No scientistcan produce valid
research work that way, and Spencer was certainlynot
a scientist.
Freeman correctsthe impressionthat Darwin had great
respect for Spencer that wronglycomes out of Harris's
(I1968)misuseor misunderstandingof Darwin'sletters.Most
223
interestingto me is the "pre-Chomskyan"contemporary
scientificparadigm expressed by Dobzhansky (1969:290)
and quoted by Freeman: ". . . mankind's principal adaptive
instrumentis culture. Culture is acquired and transmitted
not through genes; symbol formationand symboliclan-
guage are the chief modes of transmission.Yet this non-
genetic transmissionhas a genetic foundation." For the
rest,Freeman has painstakinglygone into somethingthat
was well establishedin spite of Harris (1968).
byMICHAEL T. GHISELIN
Bodega Bay, Calif., U.S.A. 18 xi 73
Freeman is basicallyright,butoverlooksan importantaspect
of Darwin's theory.When Darwin read Malthus, but not
before,he realized thatthe propertiesof organisms,includ-
ing men, are the outcome of reproductive competition
between members of the same species. This insight
overthrewthe traditional notion of cooperative societies
and economies withmembers acting in the interestof the
group and to theirown detriment.The classicaleconomists
had assumed that competitionwas a good thing,because
God had ordained laws of nature such that right would
triumphif they were obeyed. For Darwin, life was a sex
contest,moralitya way of gettinginto the gene pool, and
God an unnecessaryhypothesis.He read Malthus because
he was interestedin the evolution of morals, and saw that
to understand groups one must recognize the etiological
priorityof their members. Hence the relationship was
anythingbut "maieutic."There was a connection between
the social and the biological sciences, but the externalist
view of thisis completelywrong.
Spencer, as may be seen from his Social Statics,pre-
supposed the divine order. Hence his outlook, in spite
of the factthat it changed somewhat,was teleological,and
he assumed that individuals act in the ultimate interest
of society. His "survival of the fittest"is antitheticalto
the dysteleologicalreproductive competition exemplified
by Darwinian sexual selection.
Like many social scientists,externalistsbeg the question
when theyinsistthatsocietymusthave dominated Darwin's
reasoning, for he in fact demonstrated that individuals
are prior to groups. The burden of proof lies with them,
and they have given no legitimateevidence. They erect
a straw-manin labelling the opposition "internalists":that
organismsare influencedby theirenvironmentshas never
been an issue. The real point is that the scientificstudy
of man needs a bettermetaphysicalfoundationthan ancient
philosophical misconceptionswhich were demolished in
1859.
byCHARLES C. GILLISPIE
N.J., U.S.A. 7 xi 73
Princeton,
Freeman is exactlyrightin distinguishingDarwin's theory
of evolution categoricallyfrom those of Spencer and La-
marck,and I agree that it is specious to link the formation
of a major scientifictheoryto the social process by making
Darwin out to have been an ideologist of early industrial
capitalism.Nevertheless,Darwin's theorydid depend upon
politicaleconomyforthe possibility ofitsexpression,though
in a way very differentfrodmwhat is often said. It was
not just a question of the Malthusian model's suggesting
the idea of natural selection. That certainlydid happen,
but the influenceof politicaleconomy was more pervasive
than that. Its ambiance provided Darwin, not just with
a solution to his problem, but with a language expressive
of a set of expectations about the way the world works.
That world was an arena in which an individual, by
exploitingsome small fortuitousadvantage, can get ahead
224
of where he was and ahead of his fellowsthroughworking
harder,knowingmore,being stronger,savingand building
on what he gets, correcting or compensating for any
weakness; indeed, he must act so in order to survive; and
the sum of what is true for individuals is true for classes
and societies. Let me quote a single sentence from On
theOrigin of Species(Darwin 1859:179): "When we reflect
on this struggle,we may console ourselves with the full
belief,that the war of nature is not incessant,that no fear
is felt,thatdeath is generallyprompt,and thatthe vigorous,
the healthy and the happy survive and multiply."That
sentence mightequally well have come from Self-Helpby
Samuel Smiles, but it is inconceivable that it could have
been writtenby any Frenchman or German or by an
Englishmanof any other generation.
Darwin's informationwas, of course, biological and geo-
logical, but he formulatedthe factorsof the argument-
profit,increments,persistence,diligence,inheritance,sav-
ing, utility,progressthroughcompetition-in the common
coin, the small change of Victorian social and economic
discourse. The theoryis none the less scientificfor that
since it has repeatedlyproved its strengthwhen expressed
in other terms. To see classical political economy as the
environmentrather than the motivationof the theoryof
evolutionby naturalselectionis merelyto give a Darwinian
ratherthan a Lamarckian account of the relationof social
circumstance to the genesis of a scientifictheory. The
distinctionis no less importantforunderstandingthe origin
of science than for understandingthe origin of species.
byJOHNC. GREENE
Storrs,Conn., U.S.A. 15 xi 73
In pointing to the misconceptionsthat arise from homo-
genizing the views of Spencer and Darwin as "biological
Spencerism,"Freeman tends to underestimatethe common
elementsin theirviews concerningnature, human nature,
and social evolution. The Origin of Speciesowed nothing
to Spencer, but The Descentof Man is Spencerian in two
ways. First,Darwin out-Spencers Spencer in stressingthe
importanceof competitivestruggleas the engine of human
progress, even to the point of deprecating the practice
of vaccination for smallpox. Second, Darwin echoes
Spencer's reliance on the inheritedeffectsof mental and
moral trainingin explaining social progress. Afterquoting
Spencer, "our greatphilosopher,"on the cumulativeeffects
of habitin producing "certainfacultiesof moral intuition,"
Darwin comments (1936:492): "There is not the least
inherent improbability. . . in virtuous tendencies being
more or less stronglyinherited. . . . Except through [this]
principle . . . we cannot understand the differencesbe-
lieved to exist in this respect between the various races
of mankind." As to intellect,Darwin wrote to Lyell (F.
Darwin 1888a:21 1): ". . . I can see no difficultyin the
most intellectualindividualsof a species being continually
selected; and the intellectof the new species thus improved,
aided probablyby the effectsof inheritedmental exercise.
I look at this process as now going on with the races of
man; the less intellectualraces being exterminated."
Thus, Darwin and Spencer agreed that human progress
resulted primarilyfrom a gradual improvement in the
intellectualand instinctualendowment of the human spe-
cies, which, in turn, was caused chiefly by (1) natural
selectionand (2) the inheritedeffectsof mental and moral
training.Progresswas a necessarylong-run outcome of these
processes, however dubious specific short-run develop-
ments might appear with respect to progress. In 1881,
one year before his death, Darwin reaffirmedhis faith
in "natural selectionhaving done and doing more for the
progressof civilization"thanmostmen were readyto admit
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY
(F. Darwin 1887:316): "The more civilizedso-called Cauca- Freeman: DARWIN AND SPENCER

sian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle

forexistence.Looking to the world at no verydistantdate, of lifeformsresultedfromdifferentialreproductivesuccess
what an endless number of the lower races will have been ratherthan frommiracles.
eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the As I have shown (1968:112-14), it was Lyell's Principles
world." Darwin was not a modern "interactionist"anthro- of Geologythat persuaded Darwin that bio-evolution (as
pologist. distinctfrom natural selection) took place. Origin "came
half out of Lyell'sbrain,"wrote Darwin. Similarly,Spencer
says in his autobiographythat it was on reading Lyell that
byMARVIN HARRIS he became convinced that species evolved. Lyell himself
New York,N.Y., U.S.A. 19 XI 73 rejected the materialistimplicationsof his evidence and
Freeman denies that "Darwin's principleswere an applica- damned evolutionismas speculativeand unscientific.Lyell's
tion of social-scienceconcepts to biology." His case is very specificconcernwithdisputingthe doctrineof perfectibility
weak. Mine rests on the fact that Malthus's "notion of and his use of the struggle for survival to explain the
strugglefor survival"was central to Darwin's principle of extinctionof species in the paleontological record were
naturalselection.We knowfromtheautobiographies,notes, importantelements in my attemptto locate both Darwin
and letters of Darwin, Spencer, and Wallace that they and Spencer in the ambient concern with racial, national,
independentlyachieved basicallysimilarinterpretationsof and class forms of armed conflict.Freeman ignores the
the natural processes responsible for bio-evolutionunder chain thatleads from Malthus and Lamarck throughLyell
the directstimulationof Malthus's Essayon Population.That to both Spencer and Darwin (plus Wallace!).
Essay in turn can only be understood in the context of The best evidence against the view that Darwin was the
the 18th-and 19th-century sociopoliticaldebate concerning masterscientistand Spencer the speculativelout is Darwin's
the perfectibilityof human nature and the progress of The Variationsof Animals and Plants Under Domestication
human institutions.Freeman seeks to deflectour sensitivity (1868). Nothing that Spencer ever concocted was more
to thatcontextwithhis proposal thatDarwin was influenced speculativethan the absurd theoryof "pangenesis" set forth
by only one sentence in the Essay,one that contains no in thatbook. The theorystates that each part of the body
reference to "struggle." He would have Darwin's mind throwsoffinvisibleparticles-"gemmules"-that enter the
"well-prepared" by the voyage on the Beagle rather than bloodstream and eventually congregate in the sex cells;
by exposure to the common intellectualthemesof his class the gemmules are continuously modified as a result of
and country.Even if one accepts the inherentlydifficult environmentalinteractionand thus convey environmental
notion thatonly one sentence in the EssayaffectedDarwin, effectsto the new generation. That this book became an
Freeman's choice is still a singularlyimportantsentence. embarrassmentand no one reads it anymore helps to
It contains the idea of geometric increase upon which explain whyDarwin's image seems so good compared with
Malthus relied for his explanation of the struggle for Spencer's. But Darwin's pangenesis definitivelydiscredits
existence. That the struggle for existence is not one jot Freeman's belief thatDarwin and Spencer differedsignifi-
less integralto Darwin's evolutionismthan it is to Spencer's cantlyconcerningthe role of Lamarckianprocesses.Darwin
or Wallace's must be admittedby all who are familiarwith not only repeatedly affirmedthe importance of use and
the full titleof On theOrigin ofSpeciesand thePreservation disuse of parts, but developed the idea of gemmules to
of FavoredRaces and its conclusions (Darwin 1927:503-4): show how other formsof direct environmentalinfluence
a
There is struggle for existenceleadingto the preservation of were transmittedthroughthe sex cells. Darwin and Spencer
profitable ofstructure
[sic]deviations or instinct... . The struggle disagreed on the emphasis to be given to natural selection
forexistencenecessarily followsfromthe highgeometrical ratio and direct environmental effects, but they were both
of increasewhichis commonto all organicbeings.... More fundamentallyguiltyof the error that we associate with
individualsare bornthancan possibly survive... . As theindivid- the names of Lamarck and Lysenko. The strict anti-
uals of the same species come in all respectsinto the closest Lamarckian view that Freeman attributesto Darwin is a
competition witheach other,thestrugglewillnecessarily be most post-Darwiniandevelopment.Here is what Darwin himself
severebetweenthem. said on the subject in 1872 in the last chapter of the sixth
edition of On theOrigin ofSpecies:
I am at a loss to comprehend why any scholar with an
I havenowrecapitulated thefactsand considerations whichhave
interestin the historyof ideas should attemptto separate thoroughly convinced methatspecieshavebeenmodified, during
these tenetsfromtheirhistoricalprecedents.The evidence a longcourseof descent.This has been effected chieflythrough
against Freeman's view is overwhelming. the naturalselectionof numeroussuccessive,slight,favourable
While I am reluctant to be drawn into a defense of variations; aided in an important mannerbytheinherited effects
Spencer beyond what I have already done and what has of the use and disuseof parts;and in an unimportant manner,
been done betterby Carneiro (1967), Freeman's adulatory thatis in relationto adaptivestructures, whetherpastor present,
regard for Darwin's scientismas contrastedwithSpencer's bythedirectactionofexternalconditions, and byvariationswhich
"metaphysicalspeculations" cannot be left unchallenged. seem to us in our ignoranceto arisespontaneously. It appears
thatI formerly underrated thefrequency and valueoftheselatter
Freeman claimsthatDarwin'stheory,unlikeSpencer's,"was formsof variation,as leading to permanentmodifications of
authenticallyscientific"because "it postulated on the basis structure independently ofnaturalselection.Butas myconclusions
of massiveevidence a non-teleologicalmode of evolutionary have latelybeen muchmisrepresented, and it has been stated
change." What this tortured logic covers up is that far thatI attribute themodifications to natural
of speciesexclusively
fromhaving massive evidence, Darwin had virtuallynone. selection, I maybe permitted to remarkthatin the firstedition
His work on the Beagle produced evidence of gradations of thiswork,and subsequently, I placed in a mostconspicuous
in species and varieties for which a natural explanation position-namely, at thecloseof theIntroduction-the following
was lacking. It did not produce uninterruptedpaleonto- words:"I am convincedthatnaturalselectionhas been themain
logical series or instancesof observed speciation under the but not the exclusivemeansof modification." This has been of
no avail.Greatis the powerof steadymisrepresentation; butthe
influenceof natural selection. There was no massive evi- of scienceshowsthatfortunately thispowerdoes notlong
history
dence in 1838, and this situationhasn't changed in 1973. endure.
Instead there was a massive economy of thought waiting
to be achieved by adopting the principlethat the diversity Darwin was wrong. Freeman's article conclusively demon-
Vol. 15 No. 3 September
1974 225
 stratesthe invincibilityof steady misrepresentationwhen
it is supported by popular social myths.
Freeman argues that, unlike Spencer, Darwin did not
of progress. He quotes Darwin's
believe in the inevitability
"I believein no fixedlaw of development"but not Spencer's
"Though, taking the entire assemblage of societies,evolu-
tion may be held inevitable . . . yet it cannot be held
inevitable in each particular society,or even probable"
(quoted in Harris 1968:173). Once again, Freeman has
misrepresentedboth Darwin and Spencer. It was to the
practicaladvantage of Spencer and Darwin thattheyexag-
gerate theirdifferences.It is to our intellectualadvantage problemafter1838 was notlack of data but lack of courage.
to minimizethem. I could produce as many quotes from
Spencer denying the inevitability of progress as Freeman
does fromDarwin,but the penultimateparagraph in Origin
sufficesto prove that Darwin did believe in progress and
perfectibility:"all corporeal and mental endowments will
tend to progress toward perfection." Freeman says it's
importantto realize thatDarwin is referringin the language of scientificpeers eager to support the new doctrine of
of theday to"adaptations."But that'spreciselywhatSpencer
was referringto-in fact,it was Spencer who introduced
the term "adaptation" in the context of the struggle for
survival.
As for Darwin's opinion of Spencer, I concede that the
oft-quoted "about a dozen times my superior" may have
been sarcasm. But what about Darwin's adoption of
Spencer's "Survival of the Fittest"as the chapter heading
in the fifthedition of Origin? My interestwas not in what
Darwin "really"thoughtabout Spencer but in the ideological
effectof two eminences' reconcilingstruggleand progress
in fundamentallyparallel ways. Freeman's insistencethat
Darwin was ambivalent about Spencer rather than uni-
formlyenthusiastic is undoubtedly a great contribution, at the roots of evolutionary social theory (for example,
but it does not modify my thesis. Spencer and Darwin
both achieved the biologized synthesisof the apparent
contradictionbetween struggleand progressand thus were
equally heirsof the controversyinitiatedby the philosophes.
Spencer published first,and his influencewas greater (but
not more enduring). In that sense, I reaffirmthe need
to relabel Social Darwinism"Biological Spencerism."
For Freeman, the most serious of all the misconceptions the firstplace significantthatDarwin's statusas an indepen-
to whichreaders of my book may fallvictimis that Darwin
was not capable of separating"changes in a group's learned
repertoryfromhereditarymodifications."Freeman quotes
the same paragraph thatI do (1968:121) from The Descent significantthat Darwin did not address himself to the
of Man, but without the additional clarificationswhich
indicate that Darwin did not have any clear idea of the
separationof culturaland hereditarychange. Darwin stated
that man's moral qualities are advanced through "the
reasoningpowers,"but elsewherehe statedthatthe reason-
ing powers are advanced throughnaturalselection.Darwin
also statedthatthecontemporaryhuman races were distinct
not only physicallybut also emotionallyand to some extent
intellectually.Of course, Darwin's contributionto the devel- ence on the developmentof social theoryhas been substan-
opment of scientificracism is not as direct as Spencer's.
That's one of the reasons I prefer"Biological Spencerism"
to "Social Darwinism."
Freeman's suggestion that Darwin contributed to the
formulationof the Boasian cultureconcept greatlydistorts
the historyof anthropology.The raciology and struggle-
for-survivalismin The Descent of Man were among the
principal obstacles Boas had to overcome (along with the
strictlySpencerian heritage).
There is one fact above all others that inclines me to
dismiss Freeman's picture of Darwin as the paragon of
the true scientistwhose ideas arose from pure research
and who owed no part of his eminence to the contribution
his theoriesmade to the ideology of industrialcapitalism.
Darwin waited 21 yearsbefore he published his speculative
notionsabout the principleof naturalselection.The school-
226
boy viewof thislapse is thatDarwin was patientlyamassing
more evidence on behalfof his theory,but I defy Freeman
to show how Darwin's evidence improved between 1838
and 1859. Darwin published because someone else had
gotten the same idea and was about to publish it. And
that someone else-Alfred Wallace-independently
achieved the concept of natural selection by lying in his
hammock in Ternate and thinkingabout Malthus's Essay
onPopulation.In otherwords,enough was knownto present
a rather strong case for natural selection withoutbenefit
of Darwin's 20 yearsof additional data collection.Darwin's
(Let none call it prudence!) The materialistimplications
of the principle of natural selection were unacceptable to
the majorityof the people upon whose support and esteem
he depended. By the 1850s, the ideological balance had
shifted.Not only was there the simultaneous inventionof
natural selection by Wallace, but there was an audience
spiritual and material progress based on the survival of
the fittest.There is no more strikingproof of the vulnera-
bilityof scientificparadigms to political-ideologicalforma-
tions than that 20 years during which Darwin kept his
disturbingideas to himself.
byDANIEL HEYDUK
Lewiston,Me., U.S.A. 19 xi 73
Freeman offersa clarificationof the positions of Darwin
and Spencer relativeto one anotherand to the development
of evolutionarytheory.This more substantialperspective
is importantin viewof the formervogue of placing Darwin
Montagu 1952:32-33) and the more recentone of asserting
the precedence of Spencer (for example, Carneiro 1967,
Harris 1968).
While Freeman refutes Harris's point "that Darwin's
principles were an application of social-science concepts
to biology,"his expositiondoes not much improveDarwin's
position as a direct contributorto social theory. It is in
dent evolutionarytheoristcan only be establishedthrough
carefulconsultationof his notebooks,while Spencer's posi-
tion is defined from numerous published works. It is also
evolution of socioculturalphenomena until The Descentof
Man (1871), while Spencer's considerationof sociocultural
evolutiongoes back at leastto SocialStatics(1850). Freeman's
presentationdoes not, therefore,refute the recent assess-
ments that give Spencer preeminence in social theory. It
merelyremovesthe label of "Biological Spencerism"(Harris
1968:129) fromDarwin's work.
I would maintain,however,that Darwin's indirectinflu-
tial.His empiricaldocumentationofthe processof evolution
in biology certainlylent substantialsupport to the more
general and less well-documentedtheoryof sociocultural
evolution.Moreover,the proponentsof the opposing socio-
culturaldegenerationtheory,mostof whom also supported
the Genesisversionof creation,undoubtedlysufferedunder
a simultaneous evolutionaryattack on two fronts.Lastly,
it was Darwin's initialseparationof biological and sociocul-
turalphenomena ratherthan Spencer's unificationof them
thatmostinfluencedsuch theoristsas Tylor, Lubbock, and
Morgan.
byKINJI IMANISHI
Kyoto,Japan. 12 x 73
Freeman examines Darwin's and Spencer's theories on
evolution and suggests that the fundamental difference
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY
is that the former is anti-Lamarckian and the latter
thoroughlyLamarckian. Darwin may be anti-Lamarckian
as a result of his theoreticaldevelopment,but his theory
was not an attack on Lamarck's theory. Established
independentlyfromLamarck's,it was an attemptto explain
evolution by natural selection and in this sense could be
labeled "selectionism."
If Lamarckism is defined narrowly as an attempt to
explain evolution only in terms of the inheritance of
acquired characters,we will have to admit thatit no longer
has a raisond'etre because the presuppositionofinheritance
of acquired characters has lost its scientificvalidity. In
a littlebroader sense, however,Lamarckismcould be labeled
"antiselectionism,"and thereforeanti-Darwinism,for La-
marck thoughtthat evolution took place by means of the
actions of living things themselves,not natural selection.
In this regard, it can be said that Lamarckism still has
theoreticalvalue.
In spite of the acceptance of the inheritanceof acquired
characters,I think Spencer's theoryof evolution may be
labeled "selectionism"inasmuch as it explains evolution
by natural selection.
It is a basic presumptionofall sortsoftheoriesof evolution
that all living things evolve, but the theories set forthto
explain the process of evolution are not always verified
by proven facts. Even the orthodox theoryof today, that
evolution takes place by means of mutation and natural
selection,is no differentfromthe Lamarckian theorythat
evolution takes place by the actions of living thingsthem-
selves,because neitherhas been proven.
As more factsthat cannot be explained by the orthodox
theoryare found, more biologistsare becoming suspicious
of it and leaning toward antiselectionism.These antiselec-
tionists-among whom I am one (Imanishi 1970)-are not
necessarilyLamarckian in the strictsense, but they are
close to the Lamarckian standpointin that theyare antise-
lectionistand thereforeanti-Darwinian.
However, Lamarckian theory has often presupposed
"innatetendencies"or "autonomous performance"because
sayingthatlivingthingsevolve by themselvesis not persua-
sive enough. This has become a target of criticismfor
reductionistDarwinians. NeitherLamarckiansnor Darwin-
ians have fully recognized that nature is a system.They
have not differentiated the individualfromthe species and
have thought that the species can be explained in terms
of the individual. However, an individual is merely a
constituentof a systemcalled a species. Thus it is necessary
to reconsider holisticallythe relationshipsand regulations
among these systems.From this point of view, we will be
able to reevaluate both Lamarckism and Darwinism and
find a way of creating a new evolutionarytheorybeyond
them.
byNEVEN P. LAMB
Lubbock,Tex., U.S.A. 16 xi 73
This paper makes a neat and elegantlyclear addition to
a sometimesconfusing Darwiniana. In view of the gross
inaccuraciesmade by Harris in his zeal to rebuildthe image
of Spencer, it is especially good to have reviewed for us
the basic differencesin philosophy and methods between
Darwin and Spencer, particularlywithrespect to Darwin's
major contribution.
I might add as salve for social scientistswho may feel
that Darwin's star unduly outshines their heroes' that no
one really believes the notion of natural selection sprang
fromDarwin's browto his 1838 notebookand subsequently
was elaborated by him wholly unaided. Before 1838, at
least three men had published some version of the idea,
and by 1859 so had another five (Darlington 1959, Eiseley
Vol. 15 No. 3 September
1974
Freeman: DARWINI AND SPENCER
1961). Not all were biologists,but none was Spencer, as
Freemanmakesclear. But ifDarwin in factpaid no attention
to others,his star could be dulled a differentway: it must
certainlybe a simple idea to have occurred to so many
differentpeople. As Huxley remarked, "How extremely
stupid not to have thoughtof that!" (T. Huxley 1959:551).
Thomas Huxley's thoughts regarding these men are
particularlyinteresting,since he was a friendof both and
a close reader of their works. Before 1859, Huxley was
notan evolutionist,partlybecause "no suggestionrespecting
the causes of transmutation . . . had been made . .
[which] was in anywayadequate to explain the phenomena"
(T. Huxley 1959:542). Although Spencer "habituallysub-
mitted"copies of all his biological writingsto Huxley for
comment before publication and had every opportunity
to argue withhimbyletteror as a frequentguestin Huxley's
home, he did not succeed in convincinghim. "[E]ven my
friend'srare dialectic skilland copiousness of illustration,"
Huxley wrote (1959:542), "could not drive me from my
agnostic position." What did was Darwin's "suggestion"of
natural selection and his detailed, accurate, documented
argument.The "mischievousa priorimethod"couldn'thope
to do this, for, as Huxley was "so fond of rubbing into
. . .Spencer, a priorireasonings are most bosh . . ." (L.
Huxley 1901b:407, 223). Nor could use-inheritance,in
which Huxley (L. Huxley 1901b:285) "absolutely disbe-
lieve[d]."
What of the phrase "the survival of the fittest,"which
Spencer inventedand Darwin adopted? Huxley (L. Huxley
1901 b:284) dubbed it the "unluckysubstitution"which"has
done much harm."
However insignificantor negativeSpencer's contribution
was to the developing theory of organic evolution, this
shouldn't obscure the very importantsupport he gave to
it. While the idea had been whispered and writtenabout
for a very long time, it was not generally known, much
less accepted,in the 19thcenturyand was in need of popular
advocates. Robert Chambers was one. His 1844 Vestiges
(whichHuxley reviewedsavagely)was a titillating best-seller
which helped "the world of fashion discover evolution"
(Eiseley 1961:138). Spencer was another,and a sympathetic
reviewof his receptionby the public willprobablyconclude
thathe was an effectiveone. Here his "brilliantspeculations"
and "inexhaustible wealth of suggestion" (L. Huxley
1901a:358; F. Darwin 1959:371) were most likely to be
effective.Here, too, his use of what is in effecta simple
culturalanalogy-inheritance of acquired characteristics-
would be appealing.
Also, it is significantthat however many holes Huxley
poked in his friend's arguments, Spencer was the only
"thorough-goingevolutionist" that Huxley knew in the
half-dozenyearsbefore 1859 "whose knowledgeand capac-
itycompelled respect" (T. Huxley 1959:542).
Finally, a connection between environmentallycaused
phenotypic changes and the genotype (developmental
canalization and genetic assimilation) has been demon-
stratedbyWaddington(1957) and has been a major advance
in our understandingof adaptation. Although thisprocess
is totallydifferentfromuse-inheritance,perhaps Spencer's
insistenceon the importanceof phenotypicchange could,
generously,be considered to his credit.
byERNST MAYR
Cambridge,Mass., U.S.A. 23 xi 73
I agree totallywithFreeman'ssuperbanalysis.If one wanted
to criticizeanything,it would be a number of omissions.
Freeman would have strengthenedhis case even further
227
if he had stated more emphaticallythat the "struggle for
existence"was a widelyheld concept before Darwin's time.
It was discussed in detail in Lyell's Principlesof Geology,
based in turn largely on the writingsof the botanist De
Candolle, and has antecedentsall the wayback to antiquity.
Whetherthe marked interestin struggleand competition
encountered in the biological literaturein the firsthalf
of the 19th centurywas stimulatedby concurrentevents
and publications outside of biology (like Malthus's) is a
moot question,but Darwin certainlydid not get thisconcept
fromMalthus.
Nor did Darwin getthe conceptof selectionfromMalthus.
As Darwin himself stated repeatedly, he got it from the
animal breeders. Several recent essays trace the concept
to Bakewell, Sebright,and others.
What Darwin got from Malthus, as Freeman points out
quite correctly,was a purely mathematicalidea, the expo-
nential growthof populations. This suddenly made clear
to Darwin whyabundant materialfor selectionis available
in everygeneration.
I hope Freeman's article will finallydo away with the
misinformation and misconceptionsabout Darwin so widely
prevalentin the anthropologicalliterature.
by JOHANNES W. RAUM
Munich,Germany.17 xi 73
There is today a deplorable tendency to misrepresent
19th-centuryintellectual historyby lumping together-
under fashionable catchwords such as "evolutionism"or
"materialism"-antitheticaltheories,and thiswithouthav-
ing read the relevantdocumentsconscientiously.Freeman's
essay is a timely castigation of such a slipshod way of
pursuing intellectualhistory.It is also a reminderthat the
primarytaskof any historian,and especiallyof the historian
writing"Geistesgeschichte,"is to differentiateand not to
lump. Freeman's discussion of the essential differencesin
the evolutionary theories of Spencer and Darwin is a
valuable correctiveto a myththathas been gaining ground
in recenttextbooksdealing withthehistoryof anthropology,
where divergent 19th-centuryevolutionary theories are
treatedas if theywere indistinguishable.The blanket term
"evolutionism"is frequentlyused to coverdiverseand often
antitheticalstreamsof thought.I should welcome a move-
mentto ban the termuntilwe obtainclarityon the different
kindsof developmentaltheoriesprevalentin anthropology.
As, in view of the popularityof the term,however,agree-
ment upon such abstinence will hardly be reached, it
remainsa matterof intellectualhonestyforeveryprofessed
evolutionistto state clearly and unequivocallywhat brand
of evolutionarytheoryhe adheres to, that is, whether he
is a Darwinian or a Spencerian evolutionistor the adherent
of any other evolutionaryschool. Furthermore,it should
not be assumed a priorithatan anthropologistwho is either
unwillingto use this ubiquitous catchword or has doubts
as to the validityof evolutionarytheoriesin culturalanthro-
pologyis bythiscriterionalone an out-of-dateobscurantist.
That the influence of Malthus on Darwin was only
maieutic has always been suspected by serious historians.
Schumpeter (1967:435-46), for example, could not but
liken his influence on the great biologist to the cackling
of the legendarygeese on the Capitol thatwoke the Romans
and thus saved the cityfromthe enemy.
Finally,and as an aside, the dating of Darwin's discovery
has implications for Harris's (1968:123) and White's
(1949:169-70, 205-7, 209-11, 292-93) contention that
Alfred Russel Wallace and Darwin are an example for
the "principleof the simultaneity of invention."If Darwin's
moment of creativeinsighttook place no later than 1837
and his reading of Malthus in 1838, then there was an
228
intervalof at least 17 years between the time of Darwin's
discoveryand the time that Wallace startedto thinkabout
theoriginof the species in Ternate-ample timeforcontact
to have taken place, as Chandler (1960:495-98) maintains.
The principle of natural selection, therefore, was not
discovered simultaneously by two scientists working
independently,but only once.
byG. G. SIMPSON
Tucson,Ariz., U.S.A. 21 x 73
I agree with almost everythingthat Freeman has said in
thisarticle,but of course thereare many points that could
usefullybe elaborated further.The only one that I shall
consider here is thatof progressin evolution.
Darwin wrote,"Heaven forfendme fromLamarck non-
sense of a 'tendency to progression' . . .," but he went
on to say, "The conclusions I am led to are not widely
differentfromhis; though the means of change are wholly
so." He added, "I have found out (here's presumption)
the simplewaybywhichspecies become exquisitelyadapted
to various ends" (F. Darwin 1903:41). Clearly Darwin was
not disagreeingwiththeconceptof "progression"(by which
he meant progress),but with its explanation, the "means
of change."
Again, when Darwin wrote that he believed "in no law
of necessarydevelopment,"he indicated disbeliefin neces-
saryor constantchange, but not thatchange, when it did
occur, would be for the better,that is, progress. On the
contrary,when he wrote that "as natural selection works
solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal
and mental endowments will tend to progress towards
perfection," Darwin made clear that he thought when
change did occur it was for the better. (That sentence
was leftunchanged in all editions of the Origin.)
I findthatinterpretation consistentwiththewhole corpus
of Darwin's work.Darwin came to referto natural selection
as "the survival of the fittest,"and indeed to this day
geneticistsoften measure natural selection by what they
call "Darwinian fitness" (e.g., Dobzhansky 1970). Now
"fittest"and "fitness"are evaluativeterms.They implythat
natural selection, considered by Darwin and almost all
geneticistsas the nonrandom factor in evolution, acts in
the direction of progress. It is true that in The Descent
of Man Darwin (1871) did suggest that evolution might
sometimeshave a "downward tendency,"but he was there
speaking of human evolution in a context of cultural and
social factors, and' even there he considered that the
prevailingtendencyhad been for progress from what he
consistentlyand revealinglycalled "lower animals" to civi-
lized man.
Darwin did not compare his views specificallyand in
detail withthose of either Lamarck or Spencer. Neverthe-
less,he clearlyagreed withLamarck thatprogressis typical
and general, although not universal,in organic evolution.
He disagreed on the causes and nature of progress. He
thoughtthat if one is wrong about the causes and nature
of a phenomenon or has inadequate evidence on it one
is talking nonsense even if the phenomenon does exist.
I agree.
For Lamarck, the cause of evolutionaryprogress was
transcendental,in the power of life,whichis no explanation
at all. For Darwin, the explanation was natural selection,
a valid and powerful scientifictheory.For Lamarck, the
direction of progress was from the simplest organisms
("infusoires")to man in one broad path, the "ladder of
beings" (Lovejoy 1953; Simpson 1961, 1974). For Darwin,
progress for any group of organisms was toward better
adaptation to waysof lifeavailable forthatgroup; progress
C URRE NT AN TH RO POLOG Y
for a crab was not to become more human, but to become
a bettercrab.
Spencer could be as obscure as Lamarck on occasion,
and he too referredto an undefined, unexplained, tran-
scendental tendency toward progress. However, Spencer
also came to ascribeevolutionaryprogressto the inheritance
of "functionallyproduced modifications,"a view which has
been generally ascribed to Lamarck. In fact, although
Lamarck was not entirelyclear about this or about much
else except descriptivetaxonomy,he advanced the inheri-
tance of acquired characters to explain the deviationsof
evolutionfromthe straightline of progress.Thus, although
historianshave generallyconsidered Spencer as a follower
of Lamarck, and he seems to have considered himselfso
in a waygreatlysuperiorto Lamarck,in thisessentialfeature
of his workhe was non- or even anti-Lamarckian.Unfortu-
natelythat does not make his views more acceptable than
those of Lamarck.
My commentshave attempted to consider earlier views
on progress in the light of their own times. They do not
necessarily refer to now current views or to my own
opinions, treatedelsewhere (esp. Simpson 1974).
Reply
byDEREK FREEMAN
Canberra,Australia.14 I 74
Let me begin by thanking all those who have given of
their time to comment on my paper. CA*treatment, I
have discovered, is salutary,and I am appreciative of the
stimulationI have received, especially from the pointed
commentsof Carneiro and Harris.
Needless to say,I am gratifiedthatan historianof science
as learned as Gillispie should consider me "exactly right
in distinguishingDarwin's theoryof evolutioncategorically
fromthose of Spencer and Lamarck" and thatevolutionary
biologistsof the eminence of Mayr and Simpson should
be so much in agreementwithmyanalysis.The comments
of Ghiselin (who is the author of a most insightfulstudy
of Darwin's writings)I also greatlyappreciate, though I
remain in slightdisagreement with him over the precise
influence that the reading of Malthus had on Darwin's
thinkingabout "the transmutationof species." Imanishi's
assertion that "more biologists are becoming suspicious"
of the synthetictheoryof evolution is, in my estimation,
mistaken. I wish him well in his attemptto frame a "new
evolutionarytheory."Bajama, Blacking,Cowgill, Heyduk,
Genoves, and Lamb all deal with importantfacets of the
theme under discussion; it is, however, with the major
issues raised by Carneiro,Greene, and Harris thatmyreply
must be principallyconcerned.
Raum's remarks are incisive, and his "aside" on "the
principle of simultaneity"is especially pertinentas it pro-
vides an example of the laxityof Harris'sculturaldetermin-
ist thinking.According to Harris (1968:123), "the simulta-
neous invention"of naturalselectionby Darwin and Wallace
is "a strikingexample" of Kroeber's "principle of the
simultaneityof invention"and shows (p. 327) that history
is "determinedby cultural patternsnot by individuals."
It was "in 1855, while recuperating from an illness on
the island of Ternate," assertsHarris (p. 123), that Wallace
(1905:362) "found the long-sought-forlaw of nature that
solved the problem of the origin of species." It was, of
course, not in 1855 but in February, 1858, that Wallace
had his flashof insight.Further,it occurred, as McKinney
(1972:131) has shown, not on Ternate but on Gilolo (or
Halmahera, as it is now more commonlycalled). Darwin's
Vol. 15 No. 3 September
1974
Freeman: DARWIN AND SPENCER
discoveryof natural selection,as I have shown, was made
in September, 1838. The "discoveries" of Darwin and
Wallace were thus separated by at least 19 years and 4
months. It is these two events, the second of which took
place well over 169,000 hours after the first,that Harris,
forthe sake of his culturaldeterministdoctrine,categorizes
as "simultaneous." Can there, I wonder, be anyone (other
than Harris) willingto espouse this misbegottennonsense?
Despite the factthat Spencer's doctrineshave long been
a dead letter in the life sciences and philosophy,' there
have, in recent years, been attemptsto reinstateSpencer
as one of the seminal thinkersof sociology. Those who
have undertaken this task have been social scientists,with
scant command of biological theory,who have all omitted
properly to relate Spencer's "systemof syntheticphiloso-
phy" (of which his sociology was an integral part) to its
roots in 19th-centurybiology. For example, Carneiro, in
his latestexpositionof Spencer's "evolutionism"(1973:94),
extols its "rigorous,empirical,comprehensive,and illumi-
natingconcepts" and concludes:
manyof theideasof modern
. . .not onlydid Spenceranticipate
evolutionism,he alsoexpressedthemmoreclearly,
moreprecisely,
and moreforcefully thanalmostanyonehas since.We stillhave
muchto learnfromHerbertSpencer,and a thoroughstudyof
his workwill repaythe effortby givingus a firmergrasp of
the principlesand processesby whichevolutionhas broughtus
wherewe are.
Yet nowhere in this exposition does Carneiro so much
as mentionthe Lamarckian basis of Spencer's evolutionism.
It is withthisparticularaspect of recentwritingson Spencer
that my paper (among other things)deals.
In my firstfootnoteI specificallystate that my analysis
is limitedtoan examination oftheLamarckianbasisofSpencer's
thought, and refer my readers to Carneiro (1967) for a
comprehensiveaccount of Spencer's general evolutionism.
In thesecircumstances,itis surelyunreasonable of Carneiro
to charge me with "serious misrepresentation"and great
"disservice to the truth"because I do not include in my
own brief paper any extended analysisof what, given my
announced intentions,are extraneous aspects of Spencer's
voluminous writingson evolution in general.
For those interested,a sympatheticand well-informed
discussion of Spencer's Law of General Evolution has also
been given by Medawar (1969). In Carneiro's judgment,
Spencer's "general concept of evolution" remains "an im-
mense contribution"to human thought.My own study of
Spencer's general evolutionismhas broughtme to the same
conclusion as Medawar (p. 67): that it is a systemwhich
"does not reallywork; the evolution of societyand of the
solar systemare differentphenomena, and the one teaches
us next to nothingabout the other."
It is also Carneiro'sviewthat I wantmyreaders to believe
thatSpencer was "merelya 'fashionablepublicist."' I assure
them I do not. Having in the course of my researches
worked through all ten volumes of his Systemof Synthetic
Philosophy, and much more besides, I unhesitatinglyrate
Spencer as one of the most formidable and ambitious
thinkersof the 19th century: formidablebecause of the
sheer scale of his intellectualenterprise,ambitiousbecause
of his sanguine expectation that his conclusions would
"ultimatelystand beside Newton's Principia."
Anyone reading Spencer's preface of August, 1896, to
the final volume of The Principlesof Sociology,in which
"'That thephilosophicalsystemof Spencer is an objectof derision
is one of the few points on which all philosophers seem now
to agree" (Singer 1962:512).
229
 he surveys his achievements and records his feelings on
having fulfilledthe purpose of his lifeby completing,after
36 years, despite "nervous breakdowns" and "shattered
health," his cyclopean Systemof Synthetic Philosophy, cannot
but marvel at his remarkable fecundityof mind and his
extraordinarypertinacity.If only the inheritance of ac-
quired characters(on whichhis systemof syntheticphiloso-
phywas based) had been experimentallyvalidated,Spencer
would still be the towering figure he was in the 1880s.
By the end of the 19th century,however, this doctrine
had become so suspect as to imperilSpencer's entiresystem
and make him in his old age a beleaguered man. The
picture that Beatrice Webb (1926:37) gives of him in his
last years-"stumbling in total darkness . . . clinging to
his dogmas, but withoutconfidentfaith-with an almost
despairing and defiant pride of intellect"-is both tragic
and moving.
Because science has to do with a search for the truth
(in Popper's sense), I have had no compunctionin pointing
to the erroneous conclusions reached by Spencer and in
depicting relevant aspects of his behaviour and values.
Carneiro is, however, mistaken in supposing that in so
doing I am intent on heaping opprobrium on Spencer
or that I hold him in disdain. Nor do I look on him as
having been any kind of "lout." Who can be blamedfor
errors made in good faith?
In Carneiro's estimationf (1967:xxix, lvi), Spencer "pos-
sessed one of the great minds of the 19th century,"and
"no other thinkerbefore or since has known so large a
proportion of the scientificknowledge of his day, or has
pieced it together in so all-embracing and rigorous a
system."It is understandable, then, that he should strive
tocontrovertmyconclusionthatSpencer's systemofthought
rests on an "irremediablyflawed foundation." He does
not, I submit,succeed.
There can, I think,be no question but thatthe pervasive
"Force," the operation of which, in Spencer's view, made
evolutionarychange "inevitable,"is a metaphysicalentity.
It remains in his systemof syntheticphilosophyfromstart
to finish.In the final volume of The Principlesof Sociology,
for example, Spencer (1896b:175) refers to the "Infinite
and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed." In
contrast, although Darwin was still a Theist (Barlow
1958:93) at the time he wrote On the Origin of Species,
he had recourse to no kind of divine or other force in
his explanation of evolutionarychange. It will be evident
to any reflectingreader that while the operation of an
"unknowable" Force is a metaphysicalnotion, the process
of natural selection is, and has been shown to be, an
empiricalphenomenon. The one is but a supposition,the
other a discoveryof fundamental significancefor all of
the life sciences,includinganthropology.
When itcomes to thecentralthemeof mypaper, Carneiro
challenges the view that Spencer's social evolutionismwas
based on Lamarckian assumptions, and argues that
Spencer's exposure to cross-culturalresearch in the writing
of The PrinciplesofSociology "clearlychanged his thinking."
This interpretationcan readilybe tested.
In my paper I have presented evidence to show how,
in 1873, Spencer systematically extended his Lamarckian
assumptionsto human social evolution.As Carneiro himself
has noted (1967:xlvi), "To, the end of his life Spencer
staunchlysupported the theoryof the inheritanceof ac-
quired characteristics." The question thathas to be resolved,
then, is this: Is there in The Principlesof Sociology(which
was published between 1876 and 1896) any substantial
evidence that during this period Spencer abandoned the
Lamarckian assumptionsof his social evolutionismof the
early 1870s?
What can be said, at once, is that in his discussion of
230
what he called Super-Organic Evolution (i.e., the "growths,
structures,functions,products" exhibitedby human soci-
eties) Spencer formuch of the timeused modes of explana-
tion thatwould todaybe described as "social" or "cultural."
This, however, in no sense involved any rejection of the
Lamarckian foundationsof the theoryof social evolution
which he firstenunciated in 1873.
In the firstchapterof The PrinciplesofSociology(1885:4),
Spencer makes his theoreticalpositionquite clear: "If there
has been Evolution, that form of it here distinguishedas
super-organicmust have come by insensible steps out of
the organic." In the ensuing pages, his PrinciplesofBiology
is repeatedlycited, and Spencer's belief in the inheritance
of acquired characters remains implicit throughout the
whole of his discussion of social phenomena.
From time to time it comes starklyto the surface. In
his discussion of "Political Integration," for example,
Spencer (1882b:270) writes: "the constitutional energy
needed for continuouslabour, withoutwhich there cannot
be civilized life and the massing of men presupposed by
it, is an energy not to be quickly acquired; but is to be
acquired onlyby inheritedmodificationsslowlyaccumulat-
ed"-as extremea Lamarckian assertionas any to be found
in his paper of 1873.
In the concluding chapter to The Principlesof Sociology
(1 896b: 598), in discussingthe "adaptationof human nature
to the social state,"Spencer proclaims:
Though everywhere aroundthemare creatureswithstructures
and instinctswhichhavebeenso gradually mouldedas to subserve
theirownwelfares and thewelfaresoftheirspecies,yettheimmense
majority ignoretheimplication thathumanbeings,too,havebeen
undergoing inthepast,andwillundergointhefuture, progressive
adjustments to thelivesimposedon thembycircumstances.
These words, which are clear evidence of Spencer's con-
tinuingacceptance of his assumptionsof 1873, were written
at the very time he was engaged in his controversywith
Weismann. In the revised and enlarged 1898 edition of
his PrinciplesofBiology,Spencer reprinteda passage which
had firstappeared in one of his essaysattacking"Weismann-
ism" (1894:608). It is a passage of quite crucial significance
for the issue here under discussion. In it Spencer (1898,
vol. 1:690), as well as reaffirminghis belief that "the
transmissionof acquired characters" is "an all-important
factor" in "organic evolution," points out that "a grave
responsibilityrests on biologistsin respect of the general
question . . . since all the higher sciences are dependent
on the science of life,and musthave theirconclusions vitiated
if a fundamental datum given to them by the teachers
of this science is erroneous" (emphasis added).
As I have shown, "the transmissionof acquired charac-
ters" was the "fundamental datum" of Spencer's theory
of social evolution fromits enunciation in 1873 to its final
summation in 1896. By the mid-1890s, Spencer's belief
in the inheritanceof acquired characters had become so
arrant as to make it inconceivable to him that he might
be seriouslyin error. We now know that he was in total
error about the "fundamental datum" on which his psy-
chology and sociology alike were founded, and it follows
(fromthe logical structureof Spencer's theoryas he himself
stated it) that their "conclusions" are, in consequence,
"vitiated."
As Blacking suggests,there are certainlysome valuable
"insightsand analyses" to be rescued from the ruins, but
theSpenceriansystemas such,"all-embracingand rigorous"
as it once appeared to be, is now, looked at in strictly
scientificterms,littlemore than an historicalcuriosity.And
those who would sit at the feet of its architect,whether
theyrealise it or not, are in rubble.
Darwin. so Greene avers,"was not a modern 'interaction-
C U RRE NT A N T H RO POLOG Y
ist'anthropologist."WiththisI mostcertainlyagree. I have
claimed no more than that in someof Darwin's statements
there may be discerned "in embryonicform" an interac-
tionist viewpoint. On other occasions, as some of the
excerptsquoted by Greene show, Darwin exaggerated the
supposed effectsof natural selection,confusingthem with
social and cultural processes. That Darwin made such
mistakes is now common knowledge. Greene's comment
contains, however, a palpable lapse in scholarship on his
own part.
In The Descent of Man, Greene asserts, "Darwin out-
SpencersSpencer in stressingtheimportanceof competitive
struggle as the engine of human progress, even to the
point of deprecating the practice of vaccination for
smallpox." The passage to which Greene is here referring
is to be found in the final part of chap. 5 of The Descent
ofMan (1901:206), where Darwin discusses "Natural Selec-
tion as affecting Civilised Nations." "There is," writes
Darwin, "reason to believe that vaccinationhas preserved
thousands,who froma weak constitution,would formerly
have succumbed to small-pox." In this and other ways,
Darwin notes, "the weak members of civilised societies
propagate their kind." "No one," he comments,"who has
attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt
this must be highly injurious to the race of man." Here
Darwin is both recognizinga state of affairsand drawing
attentionto what he considers to be its "highlyinjurious"
consequences. It is, however, a non sequitur to conclude
from these statements,as Greene has done, that Darwin
activelydeprecated the practiceof vaccinationforsmallpox.
As it happens, his views on this issue are made quite
plain in theimmediatelyfollowingparagraph,whichGreene
has overlooked:
The aid whichwe feelimpelledto giveto thehelplessis mainly
an incidentalresultoftheinstinct
ofsympathy, whichwasoriginally
acquiredas partof thesocialinstincts,
butsubsequently rendered
. .. moretenderand morewidelydiffused. Nor couldwe check
our sympathy, evenat theurgingof hardreason,without deterio-
rationinthenoblestpartofournature.. . . ifwewereintentionally
to neglecttheweakand helpless,itcouldonlybe fora contingent
boiefit,withan overwhelming presentevil.We musttherefore
bear the undoubtedlybad effectsof the weak survivingand
propagating theirkind....
In contrast,in a series of articles which firstappeared
in the Contemporary Reviewearly in 1884 (and were later
published under the general title The Man versustheState),
Spencer went so far as to argue that London's "good-for-
nothings" and "out-of-works"ought not to be kept alive
by charitybut allowed to perish,for it was (as he phrased
it) a "universal law of Nature . . . that a creature not
energetic enough to maintain itself must die . . ." (Spencer
1892 [1884]:297). So much, then,forGreene's unhistorical
assertion that in stressing competitive struggle Darwin
out-SpencersSpencer.
In the firstpart of mypaper I have presented incontro-
vertibleevidence to show that in any scholarly appraisal
of the process that led to Darwin's discovery of 1838 it
is essentialto takeintoaccount boththe decisivelyimportant
influenceof Malthus and the extensivepriordevelopment
of Darwin's specificallyscientificenquiries. I am here intent
on tracing as accurately as possible the course of events
that culminated in Darwin's discoveryof the mechanism
of natural selection. For Harris, however, this empirical
approach is not seen as basic to the scholarly appraisal
of what is now widely regarded as perhaps the most
significantlandmark in the historyof biology. Instead, it
is viewed as an attempt "to separate" Darwin's "tenets"
fromwhat, Harris is convinced,are their"historicalprece-
dents" in Malthus,and in Malthus alone.
It is, I have little doubt, futile to try to reason with
Vol. 15 * No. 3 * September
1974
Freeman: DARWIN AND SPENCER
a convinced ideologist, but I shall, for the information
of others,referbrieflyto the pertinenthistoricalevidence.
As Mayr notes, "the strugglefor existence"was a common
concept in biological writingsof the early 19th century,
and referencesto it occur in Darwin's research notebooks
some timebefore he firstread Malthus. Early in February,
1838, for example, on p. 37 of his firstnotebook, Darwin
jotted down these words (De Beer 1960:46): "With respect
to extinctionwe can easily see that varietyof ostrichPetise
may not be well adapted, and thus perish out, or on the
other hand like Orpheus being favourable, many might
be produced." Here the strugglefor existenceand its most
severe consequence-the extinctionof an entire species-
are clearly recognized. The reading of Malthus was still
more than seven monthsaway.
In reportingthe sentence in Malthus that Darwin found
so significant,I do not for one moment suppose that this
was all that Darwin derived from his reading of Malthus
(nor have I anywhere suggested this). The singling out
was, afterall, of Darwin's doing. However, if one studies
his manuscript notebooks from July, 1837, onwards, it
becomes evident why it was that this particular sentence
so quickened Darwin's understanding.It bore directlyon
the problem that had been in the forefrontof his mind
from about the beginning of 1838: What could it be that
brought about the favouring,in nature, of some varieties
of animal at the expense of others of the same species?
The answer, of course, was the selectionpressure exerted
by the exponential growthof populations, and Darwin was
able to formulate it after pondering the sentence he
subsequentlycopied out fromMalthus's Essay.
The informationfromMalthus that contributeddirectly
to Darwin's discoverywas thus of a limited kind, and in
no sense amounted to any kindof statementof the principle
of natural selection. But it was, none the less, crucial to
Darwin's insight,for by applying it to his already highly
developed appreciation of the struggle for existence and
the consequences of this strugglehe was able to discern
what the process he had long been seeking was; the
mechanism basic to the evolution of all living things had
been triumphantlydiscovered.
In the light of this analysis (which does at least have
themeritof beingbased on therelevanthistoricalevidence),
the stimulusgiven to Darwin's thinkingby his reading of
Malthus may be justlydescribed as maieutic,in the sense
that it had the effectof bringinghis latentideas into clear
consciousnessand fusingtheminto somethingsignificantly
new; as Darwin himselfdescribed it,in his letterto Wallace
of April 6, 1859 (Darwin and Seward 1903, vol. 1:118,
emphasis added): "I came to the conclusion that selection
was the principleof change fromthe studyof domesticated
productions;and then, reading Malthus,I saw at oncehow
to apply this principle."
This interpretation,I reiterate,in no way implies that
there were not other ideas which Darwin derived from
his reading of Malthus. Indeed, in footnote7 to my paper
I directattentionto Ghiselin'sanalysisof the way in which
Darwin moved from a typological to a populational ap-
proach afterhis reading of Malthus. Again, I fullyaccept
Gillispie's point that the concepts of political economy
provided Darwin with a special "language" and "environ-
ment of discourse."
It is, then, most certainlythe case that Malthus exerted
decisive influenceson Darwin's thinkingabout the origin
of species,butto conclude, as Harris has done, thatDarwin's
theory of evolution by natural selection is an ideological
"product" of "early industrialcapitalism," stemming not
fromhis scientificenquiries,but fromMalthusian doctrine
231
 alone, is to distort the facts of history.Moreover, these
factsare now so well knownas to ensure thatsuch specious
interpretationswill be seen for what theyare by all knowl-
edgeable studentsof the historyof evolutionarybiology.
I do notat all suppose thatDarwin in anyway"contributed
to the formulationof the Boasian culture concept." The
only citation from Darwin that Kluckhohn and Prufer
(1959:22) were able to discover in Boas's voluminous
writings(and my experience has been the same) is one
from The Voyageof theBeagle, and this is no more than
a referencein his Vice-Presidentialaddress of 1894, which
he repeated in The Mind of PrimitiveMan (1911:120), to
thewayin whichJemmyButtonand his companions rapidly
revertedto the ways of their countrymenwhen, in 1832,
Captain Fitzroyreturned them to Tierra del Fuego after
theirsojourn in England. In mattersof theoryand inter-
pretation(to the long-lastingdetrimentof American cultur-
al anthropology),Darwin was totallyignored.
In 1859 (as in 1838), Harris asserts,theevidence available
forevolutionby natural selectionwas "virtuallynone," and,
he adds, "this situationhasn't changed in 1973." CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY is not the place to present a survey of the
extensiveevidence on which modern evolutionarybiology
is based, nor do I suppose that this evidence is likely to
change Harris's fixed opinions; but, should there be any
other anthropologistextant who in his innocence believes
that in 1973 there is still virtuallyno evidence for the
process of natural selection, I commend to his attention
Mayr's (1969) AnimalSpeciesand Evolutionand the writings
of Alexander, Carson, Crow, De Beer, Dobzhansky,Dunn,
Fisher, Ford, Goldschmidt,Grant, Haldane, Huxley, Ket-
tlewell, Mather, Muller, Pettendrigh,Romer, Sheppard,
Simpson, Stebbins,Thoday, Tinbergen, Waddington, and
Wrightlisted in its bibliography.
Harris argues that Darwin was indeed an ideologist of
industrial capitalism who, because of "lack of courage,"
kept his "disturbingideas" to himselfuntil the late 1850s,
when a change of socioculturalmilieu ensured theirready
acceptance. He derides as puerile the view that after his
discovery of 1838 Darwin was absorbed in the task of
amassing furtherfacts, and he defies me "to show how
Darwin's evidence improvedbetween 1838 and 1859." This
I am happy to do.
At the time he made his discoveryin September, 1838,
Darwin had filled almost three notebooks with evidence
on the "transmutationof species." From that time until
October, 1856, when he began thewritingof a two-volumed
work entitled Natural Selection,Darwin "never ceased" to
note down, as he put it (F. Darwin 1888b:78), "any sort
of factsbearing on the question of the origin of species."
By mid-1856 these notes had become so voluminous that
he reckoned (p. 72) it would take him "at least a year
to go over and classifythem."
The waysin whichhe indulged his passion for "accumu-
latingfacts"(p. 31) were verydiverse. "Books of all kinds"
and "whole series of Journalsand Transactions" (Barlow
1958:119) were read and the relevantevidence abstracted.
As Staufferrecords (1959:1450),
Whenvisiting theWedgewoods at Maerin Staffordshire,
he made
carefulobservations of the effectsof plantinglarchand Scotch
firon the balance of vegetationon the heath and noted the
accompanying changesin insectand birdpopulations. To become
familiar withvariationunderdomestication, he kepteverybreed
ofpigeonhe couldobtain,associatedwithseveraleminentfanciers
and joinedtwoof London'spigeonclubs.He sentout questions
in all directionsto correspondents who mightsupplyfactsuseful
forhiswork.
Again he "compared the skeletonsof differentbreeds of
rabbits, collected informationon stripes in donkeys and
differentbreeds of horses, and compared the wings of
232
wild and domesticducks to see what differenceshad arisen
between species livingin nature and under domestication"
(De Beer 1968:141).
His motto, as he once remarked to Romanes (Darwin
and Seward 1903, vol. 1:370), was "It is dogged as does
it," and so year afteryear from 1838 onwards the factual
evidence on which he could draw to testhis species theory
steadily grew. During these same years Darwin's under-
standingof theoreticalissues was also greatlyenhanced.
In June,1842 (Barlow 1958:120), he firstallowed himself
"the satisfaction"of writinga brief abstractof his theory
in 35 pages, and this was "enlarged during the summer
of 1844 into one of 230 pages." On January 11, 1844,
Darwin wrote to Hooker announcing (Darwin and Seward
1903, vol. 1:41) that he thought he had found out "the
simple way by which species became exquisitelyadapted
to various ends," and later sent him a copy of the 1844
essay. Hooker, however,was littleimpressed,and Darwin,
havingcompleted his workon the geology of South Ameri-
ca, decided to embark on a taxonomicstudyof the Cirripe-
dia (barnacles).
This research began in 1846 and continued for eight
years. Darwin's findings were published in a series of
monographs (1,220 pages in all) on both living and fossil
forms(Darwin 185 1a, b; 1854a, b). These researches,which
were (Ghiselin and Jaffe 1973:173) "the firstattempt to
reconstitutethe science of taxonomyin the lightof natural
selection and its implications,"enabled Darwin to study
the variationto be found between individualsof the same
species livingin nature and to see how varyingpopulations
had given rise to differentfamilies of barnacles. Thus,
Darwin's completed work on the Cirripedia (Ghiselin
1969:129) was "a rigorous and sweeping criticaltest for
a comprehensive theory of evolutionarybiology." There
can be no doubt thatthese painstakinginvestigationsgreatly
improved Darwin's evidence for his species theory. Many
of the problems he isolated could not have been tackled
withouttheinsightintotheworkingof theprocessof natural
selectionwhich he alone, at that time,possessed. On April
1, 1848 (Darwin and Seward 1903, vol. 1:65), he wrote
to Hooker (after having made a particularlysignific;tnt
observationon an hermaphroditespecies of barnacle): "you
willperhaps wishmybarnaclesand speciestheoryal Diavolo
together.But I don't care what you say, my species theory
is all gospel."
Again, in 1852 (while he was still deep in his barnacle
research), Darwin was able to solve (Barlow 1959:120) a
"problem of great importance" which had eluded him in
1844. This was achieved by his realization that the diver-
gence of organisms in the course of their evolutionary
historyis (De Beer 1968:140) "related to the existence of
a multiplicityof niches to which organisms may become
progressivelyadapted and, in so doing, diverge from one
anothermore and more." Indeed, thisadvance alone, which
led Darwin to graspwhatbiologistsnow call the "competitive
exclusion principle"(Hardin 1973:150), conclusivelyestab-
lishes that his evidence significantlyimproved during the
period under review.
On April 16, 1856, Darwin fullyexplained his ideas for
thefirsttimeto Sir Charles Lyell (Wilson 1970:xlv). Though
by no means convinced, Lyell was sufficientlyimpressed
to writeto Darwin on May 1, 1856 (p. xlvii): "I wish you
would publish some small fragmentof your data, pigeons,
if you please & so out with the theory & let it take date
& be cited & understood."
By this time Darwin was already thinkingin terms of
a major book on natural selection,and his proper course,
he decided, was to writea definitiveaccount of his theory
incorporatingas much as possible of the vast amount of
evidence he had by then accumulated. He settled down
C U RRE N T A N THRO POLOG Y
to this task at the beginning of October, 1856, and toiled
away at it throughout the followingyear. On February
8, 1858, he wrote to his cousin, W. D. Fox (F. Darwin
1888b:110): ". . . I am working very hard at my book,
perhaps too hard. It will be very big, and I have become
most deeply interestedin the way facts fall into groups.
I am like Croesus overwhelmed with my riches in facts,
and I mean to make my book as perfectas ever I can.
I shall not go to press at soonest for a couple of years.
. .." Over 125,000 words had been completed (Stauffer
1959:1450) when,on June 18, 1858, the writingof Natural
Selectionwas interruptedby the arrival in Darwin's hands
of the letterwhich Wallace had dispatched from Ternate
the previous March.
As the account which I have so far presented shows,
Darwin's evidence (in the dictionarysense of information
advanced to establish a point in question) had indeed
improved between 1838 and 1858, measured both in the
huge increase in factualinformationand in Darwin's much
bettergrasp of the operation of natural selectionin a wide
range of natural species. Anyone wishing to test this
conclusion furthercan do so by examining the text of
Darwin's Natural Selection(Stauffer 1973) and comparing
its contents with the very limited informationcontained
in Darwin's firstthree notebooks on the transmutationof
species (De Beer 1960a, b, c).
AfterWallace had "independentlyachieved the concept
of natural selection,"so Harris asserts,"enough was known
to presenta ratherstrongcase fornatural selectionwithout
the benefit of Darwin's 20 years of data collection." This
was plainly not the view of Wallace himself, who, in
discussing this very issue, wrote to Darwin (Darwin and
Seward, 1903, vol. 2:36): "As to the theory of Natural
Selection itself, I shall always maintain it to be actually
yours and yours only. You had worked it out in details
I had never thoughtof, years before I had a ray of light
on the subject,and my paper would never have convinced
anybodyor been noticed as more than ingenious specula-
tion, whereas your book has revolutionisedthe study of
Natural History. ...
Harris also assertsthatby the timeWallace had achieved
his "simultaneousinvention"(sic) the "ideological balance
had shifted"and therewas "an audience of scientificpeers
eager to supportthe new doctrineof spiritualand material
progressbased on the survivalof the fittest."Here, Harris
is concoctinghistoryfor ideological ends.
From Ellegard's enquiry into the reception of Darwin's
theoryin the British periodical press (1958:18) we know
that Darwin's and Wallace's papers of 1858 "passed unno-
ticed in the general press" and were commented on in
only one other scientificjournal, The Zoologist.Darwin's
testimonyon this point is as follows (Barlow 1958:122):
"Mr. Wallace's essay . . . was admirablyexpressed and quite
clear. Nevertheless,our joint productionsexcited verylittle
attention,and theonlynoticeofthemwhichI can remember
was by ProfessorHaughton of Dublin, whose verdict was
that all that was new in them was false, and all that was
true was old." In other words, there was no pronounced
reaction by any "audience of scientificpeers" until some
time afterDarwin had published, in November, 1859, his
essay On theOrigin ofSpeciesbyMeans ofNatural Selection.
In 1860, as T. H. Huxley records (F. Darwin 1888b:186),
"thesupportersofMr. Darwin's views. . . were numerically
extremelyinsignificant." "There is not the slightestdoubt,"
states Huxley, "that, if a general council of the Church
scientifichad been held at that time,we should have been
condemned by an overwhelmingmajority."
Indeed, itwas not forsome yearsafteritsfirstpublication
that Darwin's theoryachieved any widespread acceptance
among scientistsof the day. By 1865, as Ellegard records
Vol. 15 * No. 3 * September
1974
Freeman: DARWIN AND SPENCER
(1958:57), it was being asserted that "naturalists,who best
should know . . . mostlyuphold the hypothesis,"and by
1868 that "nearly all men qualified to form an opinion"
had become convincedof the"substantialtruth"of Darwin's
theoryof naturalselection.This transformation of scientific
understanding,as historicalenquiryhas shown,was brought
about primarilyby the cogency of the evidence which
Darwin, on the basis of his "twentyyears of observations
and experimentsin Zoology, Biology and Geology" (Lyell
1860:95), was able to include in his historicessay On the
Origin ofSpecies.
As Darwin reports (Barlow 1958:124), he had, prior to
the publication of the Origin, "sounded out not a few
naturalists,and never happened to come across a single
one who seemed to doubt about thepermanenceof species."
Even Lyell and Hooker, though theywould listen to him
with interest,"never seemed to agree." After they had
read and pondered the Origin, things began to change.
Lyell (F. Darwin 1888b:206) thoughtthe book "a splendid
case of close reasoning and long substantial argument";
Hooker (p. 241) marvelled at "the wonderful amount of
facts"and at Darwin's skillin "marshallingthem"; Huxley
(pp. 231, 254) noted that all of the principlesDarwin had
laid down were "capable of being brought to the test of
observation and experiment" and was convinced that he
had "demonstrated a true cause for the production of
species"; Asa Gray (p. 268) wrote, in a letter to Hooker,
"It is done in a masterly manner.It might well have taken
twentyyears to produce it. It is crammed full of most
interesting matter-thoroughly digested-well ex-
pressed-close, cogent, and taken as a system it makes
out a bettercase than I had supposed possible.
The factsI have now presentedmake it abundantlyclear
thatDarwin's evidence had indeed improvedbetween 1838
and 1859, and that the success of the Origin depended
primarilyon the cogency of thisevidence.
Harris's aspersion that Darwin's action in not publishing
his theory before he did was due to "lack of courage"
hardly meritsattention:but, as it has been made, I shall
deal withit.
In his Autobiography,in discussinghis research methods,
Darwin notes (Barlow 1958:123): "I . . . followeda golden
rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new ob-
servationor thoughtcame across me, which was opposed
to mygeneral results,to make a memorandumof it without
fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such
factsand thoughtswere far more apt to escape from the
memorythanfavourableones." This is evidence of Darwin's
integrityas a scientificworker, and from 1838 onwards
he continuedsystematically totesthistheoryuntilhe became
fullypersuaded of its scientificvalidity.
The conclusion to which he had come in his essay of
1844 that species were not "immutable"was totallysubver-
sive of the established opinion of his day. As soon as he
completed this essay he wrote to his wife,Emma, making
detailed arrangementsfor its publication in the event of
hisdeath. "If,as I believe,"he told her (F. Darwin 1888b: 16),
"my theoryin time be accepted, even by one competent
judge, itwillbe a considerablestep in science." His problem,
in both the 1840s and the early 1850s, was to find that
"one competent judge." Indeed, as he noted in March,
1854, when his Cirripediaresearchwas nearing completion
(p. 43), the "caution" of Hooker and Asa Gray on "the
species question" made him feel "deuced uncomfortable,"
so much so that he wondered whether, when he finally
got his notes together,the whole thingmightnot explode
"like an emptypuff-ball."Despite these uncertaintiesand
being quite alone in his views,he set to workon his species
233
 notes just as soon as his barnacle researcheswere finished
and, as we have seen, was soon in a position to impress
Lyell withhis theory.
One of the argumentsthat Lyell used in urging publica-
tion of "some small fragment"of the data Darwin had
accumulated was that this would ensure priority.Darwin's
immediate reaction (p. 68) was "I rather hate the idea
of writingfor priority. . .," and he finallycame to the
decision (p. 70) that it would be "quite unphilosophical
to publish resultswithoutthe full details which have lead
to such results." He therefore set about the writingof
NaturalSelection, which,but forthe interventionof Wallace,
would have been publishedin twoweightyvolumes in 1860
or soon thereafter.
There is nothingin thiscourse of actionthatcan remotely
be attributedto any "lack of courage" on Darwin's part.
Rather, it is clear that Darwin was uncommonly resolute
in a climate of opinion that was prevailinglyantagonistic
to his heretical theory. The test of the course he chose
to follow was, surely, the epoch-making effecthis essay
of 1859 had in transformingthe historyof biology and
quite radicallychanging man's understandingof his place
in nature.
Attackson Darwin fromsome quarters afterNovember,
1859, were savage and sustained. Darwin's character and
values can be gauged from his response: "As for the old
fogies in Cambridge . . .," he told Hooker (p. 307), "I
look on their attacks as proof that our work is worth the
doing. It makes me resolve to buckle on my armour."
Dignum laude virumMusa vetatmori.
According to Harris, my paper "conclusively demon-
stratesthe invincibilityof steady misrepresentationwhen
it is supported by popular social myths."This is empty
rhetoric.Anyone who cares to read the excerpt from the
sixthedition of On theOrigin of Species(which both Har-
ris and I have cited) will discern that it was Darwin's view
(1882b [1872] :421, emphasis added) thatorganic evolution
had been "effected chieflythrough the natural selection
of numerous successive, slight,favourable variations." In
contrast,it was Spencer's belief(1898, vol. 1:690) that "the
transmissionof acquired characters"was "an all-important
factor"(emphasis added) in "organic evolution." These are
clearly distinguishable theoretical stances. If, as Harris
contends, it is untrue that Darwin and Spencer "differed
significantly concerningthe role of Lamarckian processes,"
how can he possibly account for the historyof the life
sciences from 1889 onwards, when disbeliefin the inheri-
tance of acquired characters became widespread among
professionalbiologists?At thatcrucial turningpoint in our
understanding of the nature of life processes, it became
apparent to the scientificallywell-informedthat while
Spencer's systemof thoughtmust "tumble to the ground"
(Balfour 1905 [1891]:247), Darwin's theorywould survive.
This was for the good reason that the "small amount of
doctrine"(Lankester 1890:415) whichhad become demon-
strablyerroneous could be readily eliminated without in
any way invalidatingDarwin's theoryof evolutionby means
of natural selection. With this elimination achieved, the
process of natural selection was seen to be even more
significantthan Darwin had originally thought. In the
postscriptto his letterof September 5, 1857, to Asa Gray,
Darwin gave it as his judgment (F. Darwin 1888b:125)
that natural selection was "by far the most important
element in the production of new forms." It is this view
that has prevailed. Indeed, as Mayr notes (1959:212),
"Evolutionarybiology has never been closer to Darwin's
original concepts than it is today."
Darwin, we now know, was mistaken over pangenesis,
which has proved to be a sterile hypothesis.But this (as
Harris fails to comprehend) in no way compromisesDar-
234
winian natural selection,which remains an actual process,
whateverbe the nature of the mechanismswhich produce
the variationon which its operation depends.
Now that the "fundamentaldatum" of Spencer's system
of evolution has been seen to be irremediablyat error,
his once toweringreputation (at least among the scientif-
icallywell-informed)has crumbled.In contrast,as Medawar
has recentlystated (1973:12), "every biologist competent
to express an opinion now recognizes natural selection as
the principalagencyof evolutionarychange," and Darwin's
reputation"has never been higher." Indeed, no informed
biologistcan now have grounds for disagreeingwith Mul-
ler's generalization (1967:443) that "the criterionof any
material'shavinglifeis whetheror not ithas the potentiality
. . .of evolutionby Darwinian natural selection."Anthro-
pology is without question one of the life sciences, and
withthe gradual emergence of an interactionistparadigm
anthropologistswillbecome increasinglyappreciativeof the
modern biological theory of evolution of which Charles
Darwin was the undoubted originator.
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