السلام عليكم و رحمة الله
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) is known today as the father of palaeontology. Cuvier is not known for racism. When Cuvier had a black servant (captured at age 7 from Guinea) he praised him and he liked him. But something happened during his life, which is unknown until today and he became very racist, giving racism a foundation in biology. People before him like Edward Long (1734-1813), who promoted slavery had similar ideas, Samuel Thomas Soemmering (1755-1830), who promoted that the moor (blacks) have thick nerves, therefore less brain matter which according to him proved that the blacks were inferior in mental faculty, Charles White (1728-1813), who lived in Manchester and was influenced by the work(s) of Long, claimed that Africans had similar features as apes and somehow that because Africans had different lice on their head he believed that it shows that Africans are different from the white. But he did disagree with slavery and believed they had souls. At least he agreed with that.
Cuvier was examining a woman that was strange to him and people in general. She was captured from Africa and she was from the Hottentot tribe. They, with her permission (surprisingly), put her in a cage and exhibited her in London and then sent back to Paris and Cuvier got permission to examine her. She became known as the Hottentot Venus[1]. People went all sensational over her because she had a large posterior. After Cuvier examined her, she later on died. But Cuvier remembers her as,
"She had a way of pouting her lips exactly like what we have observed in the orangutan. Her movements had something abrupt and fantastical about them, reminding one of those of the ape. Her lips were monstrously large. Her ear was like that of many apes, being small, the tragus weak, and for external border almost obliterated behind. These are animal characteristics. I have never seen a human head more like an ape than that of this women."[2]
He carries on describing her as brutal, disgusting and reminding him of a monkey tribe and female Mandrills (a colourful ape).[3]
But the prejudice against Hottentot tribe (and Africans in general) carried on and was used by Charles Darwin (1809-1882) himself who claimed that Africans, South Americans, Native Americans and Australians were all evidence of his theory of evolution.
Charles Darwin in his
Descent of Man[4], in his Introduction said,
"The conclusion that man co-descendant with other species of some ancient, lower, and extinct form, is not in any degree new. Lamarck long ago came to this conclusion, which has lately been maintained by several eminent naturalists and philosophers; for instance by Wallace, Huxley, Lyell, Vogt, Lubbock, Buchner, Rolle, &c. and especially by Hackel"[5]
I want to just give the full name and what they said just so that you know what sort of people Darwin is citing. Alfred Russel Wallace, Thomas Henry Huxley, Charles Lyell, Carl Vogt, John Lubbock, Ludwig Buchner, Friedrich Rolle and Ernst Haeckel.
A very quick understanding of who they are, I shall just quote their words and let you decide who you think they are (but I will not quote Alfred R. Wallace, Charles Lyell, Ludwig Buchner and Friedrich Rolle because I don't know them much).
"It may be quite true that some negroes are better than some white men; but no rational man, cognisant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest on by thoughts and not by bites" - Thomas Henry Huxley [6]
"In the brain of the Negro, the central gyri are like those of a foetus of seven months, the second are still less marked. By it's rounded apex and less developed posterior lobe, the Negro brain resembles that of our children, and by the protuberance of the partial lobes, that of our females. The shape of the brain, the volume of the vermis and of pineal gland, assign to the Negro brain is a place by the side of that of the white child" - Carl Vogt [7]
"Savages may be likened to children, and the comparison is not only correct but also highly instructive. Many naturalist consider that the early condition of the individual [i.e. child] indicates that of the race... So also it is in the case of man; the life of each individual is an epitome of the history of the race, and the gradual development of the child illustrates that of species. Hence the importance of the similarity between savages and children. Savages, like children, have no steadiness of purpose" - John Lubbock (known as Lord Avebury) [8]
"But the apes can grasp with the hind-foot as well as the fore, and so were regarded as quadrumanous. However, the inability to grasp that we find in the foot of civilised man is a consequence of the habit of clothing it with tight coverings for thousands of years. Many of the bare-footed lower races of men, especially among the negroes, use the foot very freely in the same way as the hand. As a result of early habit and continued practice, they can grasp with the foot (in climbing trees, for instances) just as well as with the hand" - Ernst Haeckel [9]
What is common between them all? You're right, they are all racist. They and other racists were used in Darwin's
Descent. If Darwin was not a racist he would not have quoted them or would have at least talked against them but he didn't. In fact he agreed with them. Darwin, in the beginning of his life, was not racist and his grandfather in law, Josiah Wedgewood (1730-1795) and his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) were both against slavery.[10] And surely Darwin was clearly affected by it. His racist ideas were shown very clearly in his
Descent. The
Origin of Species is important but Darwin did not talk about man and since he didn't talk about man then I can't quote it to show his racism. He does mention that some races are favoured over the other which is what natural selection means (and survival of the fittest) but he didn't enumerate which race is favourable but when those that I quoted above read the
Origin, they immediately pointed their fingers at the blacks. Darwin used their work to construct his
Descent. So basically Darwin wrote the
Origin, the racists used it to construct conclusions and these conclusions were used by Darwin in
Descent. A nice circle. [11]
In
Descent Darwin elaborated his views as he himself said "This work... [is] the conclusions at which
I arrived after drawing up a rough draft, appeared to me interesting, I thought that they might interest others"[12], so no one can say that Darwin was showing what society at the time believed rather it's Darwin beliefs.[13] Darwin begins asking if man descended from some lower form then we expect bodily differences and mental faculty differences (so straight from the start Darwin already believes that different races got different level of intelligence),
"He who wishes to decide whether man is the modified descendant of some pre-existing form, would probably first enquire whether man varies, however slight, in bodily structure and in mental faculty..." (9)
Then he asks rhetorical questions about whether man reproduces a lot and rapid which would naturally lead to "beneficial" and "injurious" traits - the beneficial preserved and injurious eliminated,
"The enquirer would next come to the important point, whether man tends to increase at so rapid a rate, as to led to occasional severe struggles for existence, and consequently to beneficial variations, whether in body or mind, being preserved, and injurious ones eliminated."(9-10)
Darwin answers all these rhetorical questions in the affirmative because it is obvious,
"We shall see that all these questions, as indeed is
obvious in respect to most of them, must be answered in the affirmative..." (10, italics are mine and all quotes quoted with italics are mine)
Then Darwin started to list all the alleged evidence to support his claim that there are different levels of superiority between the races of man. I will not mention every single one of them since there are many but a few will be pretty enough. It's also important to understand that his views mirror his evolutionary thinking. Meaning that what Darwin thought is evolution since he was the one who created the idea of unguided evolution and understood it well.
Darwin talked about how fissures and folds (the organisation of the brain) in the brain differs between humans and orangutans because if they were the same then the orangutan would have same mental powers (i.e. intelligence) as humans, which means that if you don't have the same mental power as the white man then the organisation of your brain is
different,
"The brain, the most important of all the organs, follows the same law, as shewn by Huxley and other anatomists. Bischoff, who is a hostile witness, admits that every chief fissure and fold in the brain if has its analogy in that of the orang; but he adds that at no period of development do their brains perfectly agree; nor could this be expected, for otherwise their mental powers would have been the same" (10)
So the logic is clear, the organisation of the brain mirrors intelligence and Darwin was right. Darwin believed that the size of the head mirrors intelligence, but can't be accurately be measured by cubic centimetre,
"No one, I presume, doubts that the large size of the brain in man, relatively to his body, in comparison with that of gorilla or orang, is closely connected with his higher mental powers... On the other hand, no one supposes that the intellect of any two animals or of any two men can accurately gauged by the cubic contents of their skulls." (108)
Then Darwin carries on the next paragraph to quote the famous neurologist Paul Broca (and one other) in order to support his hypothesis that the savages had smaller heads sizes compared to those of civilised people,
 |
This table[14] was used by Darwin to derive his numbers 1484 (number 29) and
1426 (number 23, even though it clearly says 1425, perhaps Darwin misread?).
|
"Dr J. Barnard Davis has proved by many careful measurements, that the mean internal capacity of the skull in Europeans is 92.3 cubic inches; in Americans 87.5; in Asiatics 87.1; and in Australians only 81.9 inches. Professor Broca found that skulls from the graves in Paris of the nineteenth century, were larger than those from vaults of the twelth century, in proportion of 1484 to 1426; and Prichard is persuaded that the present inhabitants of Britain have 'much more capacious brain-cases than the ancient inhabitants" (108)
However Darwin admits that Neanderthal (another type of human, stocky and well built) have larger head size which is an anomaly
but Darwin didn't say much apart from "Nevertheless it must be admitted that some skulls of very high antiquity, such as the famous one of Neanderthal, are well developed and capacious." (108) That is the only time he talks about Neanderthal in his Descent. It doesn't mean he doubted the gradual head size theory rather he left it for future inquiry, perhaps he wished that it wasn't true? Just like the Cambrian fossils, it was and it is a clear anomaly
but he had faith that the future shall solve it (but it didn't). The table above of course "proves" that the Australians and Hottentot have small heads, 1228-1230cc,
compared to the English, 1572-95cc. I'm sure Darwin was chuffed with himself. Savage to civilisation. (The table missed the Arabs!)
Now that you've seen the evidence that Darwin clearly believed that somehow intelligence and head size mirrors each other and that the reason why certain humans are dumber is due to their lack of evolution. So we can make a general law that Darwin believed in - small head = inferior brain organisation = generally black. Whilst big head = superior brain size = white.
Here is a small list of Darwin's racism against the "savage" races:
1. Darwin claims that birds have evolved better "sense of beauty" compared to the savages,
"Judging from the hideous ornaments and the equally hideous music admired by most savages, it might be urged that
their aesthetic faculty was not so highly
developed as in certain animals, for instance, in birds" (49)
2. Darwin claims that there are missing links in human evolution but because the savage races exists, the "gap" between ape-like and the whites is small. However, when the whites exterminates the savages, and they will by the number of centuries, the "gap" will become wider than before,
"But all these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races... The break will then be rendered wider..." (155)
In other words, the savage races of today are like missing links and their disappearance will make the gap bigger than ever.
3. Darwin claims that the black people still have inferior foot, similar but not exactly of apes,
"To gain this great advantage [bipedali
sm], the feet have become rendered flat, and the great toe peculiarly modified, though this has entailed the loss of the power of prehension [grasping with the toe like those of apes]. It accords with the principle of the division of physiological labour, prevailing throughout the animal kingdom, that as the hands became perfected for prehension, the feet should have become perfected for support and locomotion. With some savages, however, the foot has not altogether lost its prehensile power, as shewn by their manner of climbing trees, and of using them in other ways" (106)
So some savages still have ape-like foot because of the "manner" of climbing trees. Darwin never actually cites an example of that sentence, but what does it mean "manner of climbing trees"? Even I climb trees but I am sure I have a foot like any other white person. But whatever Darwin meant it is clear he's saying that some savages have still not evolved.
4. Darwin claims that America became "great" after the people from all over Europe colonised America ten or twelve generations ago,
"The remarkable success of the English as colonists, over other European nations, which is well illustrated by comparing the progress of the Canadians of English and French extraction, has been ascribed to their "daring and persistent energy"; but who can say how the English gained their energy? There is apparently much truth in the belief that the wonderful progress of the United States, as well as the character of the people, are the results of natural selection; for the more energetic, restless, and courageous men from all parts of Europe have emigrated during the last ten or twelve generations to that great country, and have there succeeded best." (137)
Darwin carries on,
"Looking to the distant future, I do not think that the Rev. Mr. Zincke takes an exaggerated view when he says: "All other series of events--as that which resulted in the culture of mind in Greece, and that which resulted in the empire of Rome--only appear to have purpose and value when viewed in connection with, or rather as subsidiary to...the great stream of Anglo- Saxon emigration to the west." (137)
And carries on,
"Obscure as is the problem of the advance of civilisation, we can at least see that a nation which produced during a lengthened period the greatest number of highly intellectual, energetic, brave, patriotic, and benevolent men, would generally prevail over less favoured nations." (137-138)
It should be quite obvious that what happened "ten or twelve generations" ago in America was the slaughter of the native Americans and Darwin himself says that it is legitimate to say "Never, never trust an Indian" (due to their barbaric behaviour) (72). So the slaughter of unevolved people by evolved people brought greatness to the land (ultimately due to natural selection). Not only that, the reason why Greece was superior was due to the "great stream of Anglo-Saxon" (i.e. white) people. Ironically the belief that evolved people causes land in which unevolved people live become great was in fact a belief Hitler shared. Hitler says in Mein Kampf,
"Thus, for the formation of higher cultures the existence of lower human types was one of the most essential preconditions, since they alone were able to compensate for the lack of technical
aids without which a higher development is not conceivable... Hence it is no accident that the first cultures arose in places where the Aryan, in his encounters with lower peoples, subjugated them and bent them to his will."[15]
And Hitler claims that the Aryans,
"...were in reality the originators of all the great cultures" - he mentions the civilisation of Egypt, Persia and Greece [16]
So Greece, Egypt and Persia and basically all Europe owe their greatness to the Aryans, without which there is no civilisation (because the savages can't civilise - as Darwin claims because the savage have "...weak power of self command" (74) (even though the context was about morality).
It's not so surprising that Darwin and Hitler had similar thoughts since both of them were pretty much exposed to similar ideas & both were evolutionists.
4. Darwin claims that the reasons why savages have "low morality... are,
firstly, the confinement of sympathy to the same tribe. Secondly, insufficient powers of reasoning, so that the bearing of many virtues, especially of the self-regarding virtues, on the general welfare of the tribe is not recognised... And thirdly, weak power of self-command; for this power has not been strengthened through long-continued, perhaps inherited, habit, instruction and religion" (74)
Thanks to religion (here Darwin means the belief of unseen spirits), the savage race remained savage. Darwin claims that the reason why savages have religion (belief in unseen spirits) in the first place is due to their "poorly developed" reasoning. (52) Which is why religion is more common "with the less civilised races." (50) He even claims that the belief in unseen spirits is like a dog believing that someone is moving the parasol when it's just the breeze doing so. (51) Darwin also claims there is no evidence for the belief that the belief of an Omnipotent God is innate in people (i.e. there's no such thing as Fitrah as the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله على و سلم told us) (50).
Since we have a pretty good understanding of how Darwin perceived the savages; as morally stupid, mentally degraded, as dogs, ape-like foot, small heads and simply inferior down the evolutionary ladder, it's important what, those who love Darwin, say about Darwin's clear cut racism.
I went on Youtube to see what evolutionist say about Darwin's racism. I clicked on the
video uploaded by "TheAtheistExperience" and the questioner (Joel, from New York) asks about Darwin's racism and just to summarise the 7 min video, the answer was "so what if Darwin was racist?". That was the answer. It's important to understand how idiotic such an answer is, what do you mean "so what if Darwin is/was racist?" I give them credit that they admit that Darwin was racist since many just will not say so but ending it with "so what if Darwin is racist?" is the most horrible thing I've heard.
The claim that Darwin's evolutionary racism does not mirror evolution today is wrong. Just because "scientists" of today deny the racist implications does not mean evolution is not racist. Evolution requires differences in mental faculty and bodily structure - without which evolution doesn't work. Today racism is abhorred and that is the reason why "scientist" deny the racism in evolution. If natural selection integrated into animals the drive force of supplanting the weaker by: extermination, depriving of food or other means, which led to the evolution of higher animals, [17] then divorcing racism from evolution is evidence against evolution from a moral perspective. Individual thoughts must not determine the belief system. The belief system should determine itself or the author of the belief. Which simply means that if the belief itself is racist then all those who follow it, with it's racist belief, are right but if some don't then they are wrong and doubting their very own belief. Darwin's belief is racist and that is enough evidence that evolution is wrong since racism is morally & objectively wrong.
Others claim that because Darwin believed in monogenism (all humans came from one ape-like creature) that proves Darwin isn't racist. I don't see how that alone makes someone not racist, Darwin was still racist with the monogenism belief.
Summarising
What I'm trying to say is something quite simple:
1. Charles Darwin was clearly influenced by racism and is racist and will remain racist despite what others want to say.
2. Charles Darwin read a lot of racist work. If he was not racist he then at least would not have quoted it in his work or he might do but disagree like he did with the belief of polygenism - the belief that difference races of man, like European, African, Asian and American came from different ape-like creatures. However as James MacGregor Allan said back in 1869 "The Darwinist may be monogenist or polygenist" because its "consistent with Darwinism to believe in unity or plurality."[18]
3. The people at the time of Darwin knew the racist implications of the theory and advocated it. For example, Darwin cites William Rathbone Greg in his
Descent. I looked at Darwin's reference and decided to look for that periodical which Darwin referenced. The periodical is entitled 'On the failure of 'natural selection' in the case of man'. And right from the start, Greg summarises the whole theory of evolution in a paragraph, he says,
"Everyone now is familiar with the Darwinian theory of the origin of species, at least in its main principles and outlines: and nearly all men qualified to form an opinion are convinced of it substantial truth. That theory explains how races of animals vary as ages roll on, so as to adapt themselves to the changing external conditions which those ages bring about. At every given moment, in every given spot on the earth's surface, a 'struggle of existence' is going on among all the forms of organic life, animal and vegetable, then and there alive; a struggle in which, as there is not room for all, the weaker and less adapted succumb, while the stronger and better adapted survive and multiply. As surrounding circumstances, climatic or geological, vary and are modified, corresponding variations (such as are always incidentally appearing among the offspring of all creatures) in the inhabitants of each district crop up, increases, spread and become permanent. The creatures that are most in harmony with surrounding circumstances have a manifest daily and hourly advantage over those which are less in harmony; live when they die; flourish when they fade; endure through what kills others; can find food, catch prey, escape enemies, when their feebler, slower, blinder brethren, are starved and slain. Thus the most perfect specimens of each race and tribe, the strongest, the swiftest, the healthiest, the most courageous-those fullest of vitality-live longest, feed best, overcome their competitors in the choice of mates; and, in virtue of these advantages, become-as it is desirable they should be-the originator of the future race. The poorer, specimens, the sick, the faulty, the weak, are slain or drop out of existence; are distanced in the chase, are beaten in the fight, can find no females to match with them; and the species is propagated and continued mainly. increasingly, if not exclusively, from its finest and most selected individuals-in a word, it's
elite." [19]
I am not claiming that Darwin invented racism, obviously he did not, but rather Darwin
justified racism because "
Natural selection was now predicated on the weaker being extinguished. Individuals, races even, had to perish for progress to occur. Thus it was, that 'Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal'. Europeans were the agents of Evolution. Prichard's warning about aboriginal slaughter was intended to alert the nation, but Darwin was already naturalizing the cause and rationalizing the outcome." [20]
If Darwin was not racist then Darwin would have never written Origin of Species or the Descent of Man.
I end with this quote,
"...but for him [Darwin] the 'progress' was writ on a grander canvas - the benefit was to the entire species. Extermination was an axiom of nature - 'strictly applicable to the universe', as he said. Nature herself moved forward, crushing skulls underfoot. 'The varieties of man seem to act on each other; in the same way as different species of animals - the stronger always extirpating the weaker', he wrote in his Journal" [21]
Actually I'll end with this because, you see, Darwin summarised his theory in couple of words,
"On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the
preservation of
favoured races in the struggle for life"
If preservation of "favoured" races is not racist then perhaps you are racist.
الله المستعان و الله اعلم
(Note: I wrote this article swiftly, perhaps, God willing, I will type a more clear and detailed article on the racism of Darwin's faith (since there is much more to explain than just what I showed above). This article is just to give a quick response to a
video uploaded by LDM (London Dawah Movement). The video shows Subboor talking to a black man at a stall called London Black Atheist. Then after talking for a minute about how black people are (majority of them) religious, Subboor talks about polygenists claiming that because blacks and whites have different origins therefore one is evolved more than the other and that's why blacks would believe in some religion rather than atheism. So that man claims that it wasn't Darwin's view and to one extent he's right, Darwin clearly was a monogenist but he still believed that blacks have inferior brain organisation (as I mentioned above) and that is why blacks make religion and why religion is common among savages. The video goes on showing how that man is trying his best to show that all these racism that evolutionists created were irrelevant to Darwin but I beg to differ, Darwin is at the heart of it all and that man is trying to defend the racist Darwin. I feel sorry for the parents that gave birth to you, though most likely you will never read this)
Notes and references
1. A little history of Hottentot Venus http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/books/review/Elkins.t.html?_r=0
2. Georges Cuvier, 1817, Etudes sur l'ibis es Memoire sur la Venus hottentotte. You can find the quote also in Stephen Jay Gould, 2007,
The Richness of Life, Vintage, page 497 and Gustav Jahoda, 1999,
Images of Savages, Routledge, page 79.
3.
Images of Savages, page 79.
4. Charles Darwin,
Darwin: The Descent of Man, Wordsworth Classics of World Literature.
5. Ibid, page 4-5.
6. Thomas H. Huxley,
Collected Essays, Vol III, Chapter, Emancipation-Black and White, page 66-67.
7. Carl Vogt, 1864,
Lectures on Man, page 183.
8. I added the word "child" just for explanation. Sir John Lubbock, 1913 (7th edition. But first edition printed in 1863)
Prehistoric Times, Williams and Norgate, page
562-563.
9. Ernst Haeckel, 1911 (first edition 1876 in German language),
The Evolution of Man 2nd volume, chapter "Our ape ancestors." (I used the Kindle app and there is no page number).
10. A nice history about them in Adrian Desmond and James Moore, 2009,
Darwin's Sacred Cause: Race, slavery and the quest for human origins, Penguin, pages 1-26. But I firmly disagree with the conclusion of the book.
11. Adrian Desmond, James Moore and Janet Browne, 2007,
Charles Darwin, Very Interesting People, page 83
12. ref 4, page 4. (The 'I' being italic was done by me for emphasis)
13. Even though no one said such thing but someone out there will surely think this way.
14. Carl Vogt, 1864,
Lectures on Man, page 88 and this reference was cited in Charles Darwin,
Darwin: The Descent of Man, Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, page 121, ref 71
15. Cited in Richard Weikart, 2009,
Hitler's Ethic: The Nazi pursuit of evolutionary ethics, Palgrave Macmillan, page 76.
16. Ibid, page 77.
17. Charles Darwin,
The Origin of Species, Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, page 369
18. James MacGregor Allan, 1869,
The Anthropological Review, Vol 7, No. 25 (Apr., 1869), page 178
19. William Rathbone Greg, September 1868, Fraser's Magazine,
On the Failure of 'Natural Selection' in the Case of Man, page 353-354
20. Adrian Desmond and James Moore, 2009,
Darwin's Sacred Cause: Race, slavery and the quest for human origins, Penguin, page 151
21. Ibid
