The Connection Between Charles Darwin and Eugenics

The famed author of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, created what would serve as the foundation for the field of evolutionary biology. His main theory posited that both animals and humans had common ancestry and key differences were due to the pressures of natural selection. This idea, which we now know to be correct, shook Victorian society and permanently altered the biological sciences. However, he was not just the founder of a subfield of biology but the inspiration behind the theory of eugenics.

Half-Cousins

Darwin and the founder of eugenics, Sir Francis Galton, shared a grandfather, making the two half-cousins. They were both raised in wealth and had the benefit of being supported by their father’s fortunes throughout their lives and educations. 13 years older than Galton, Darwin entered medical school first and left without graduating. He later (after his famous journey aboard the USS Beagle) encouraged his cousin to pause his medical studies and receive training in the field of mathematics. As a result, Galton never finished medical school.

The Origin of Species

Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. In this publication, he made several comparisons of natural selection to artificial selection (a process in which an organism’s traits are influenced by human control of their breeding). This inspired his younger cousin and led to Galton’s book, Hereditary Genius, in which he claimed that more intelligent individuals had more intelligent children and should therefore have more offspring in order to improve the human race. Interestingly, Galton chose to ignore any implication that human intelligence could be influenced by environmental factors.

Darwin praised Galton’s book; however, their relationship soured a bit when Galton chose to try and publicly disprove his cousin’s theory that traits were distributed to an organism’s offspring via particles called gemmules (the theory of pangenesis). In hindsight, we know that Darwin’s theory was incorrect but that Galton’s experiment used to disprove it was also flawed. Galton later apologized to Darwin and wrote another, more public apology in the journal Nature. Darwin, seemingly began to become disillusioned with Galton’s work, critiquing a paper that Galton wrote utilizing one of Darwin’s own theories.

The Beginning of the Eugenics Movement

Both dead by the year 1912, Galton and Darwin were not alive to attend The First International Congress of Eugenics. The event, inspired by Galton’s theories, was led by one of Darwin’s sons and warned of the apparent risk of allowing the “unfit” to reproduce. These claims, however, were met with disapproval and very few eugenics-based laws were passed in the United Kingdom. This was in contrast to the United States where forced sterilization was supported by legislation.