Word: darwinism
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Some three-fourths of Author Barzun's book is taken up with biographical sketches of Darwin, Marx, Wagner, which serve as background for the development of their ideas. Barzun describes Darwin's difficulties in getting famed British Publisher John Murray to publish On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (a title whose four great phrases seem to Barzun "a stroke of genius...
Murray considered Darwin's theory "as absurd as contemplating the fruitful union of a poker and a rabbit," suggested that Darwin bring out only his observations on pigeons-"everybody is interested in pigeons." The public thought otherwise, bought up one edition after another...
...Darwin's discovery was "evolution by natural selection from accidental variations." The dynamite, says Author Barzun, was in the phrase "from accidental variations." Reason: it denied the role of God in the universe, ruled out a purpose in existence, made men mere puppets of mechanical forces. Author Barzun confesses that his mind is still "paralyzed with enchantment" when he considers Darwin's theory...
...Darwin. "Darwinism yielded its basic law, and its name, when viewed historically, was Progress. . . Fatalism and Progress are as closely linked as the Heavenly Twins. . . . Mind . . . must be driven from the field, first in the form of God or Teleology, then in the form of consciousness or purpose. These were called illusions, superstitions, metaphysics. "The blind play of forces known as struggle replaced purpose. The vast arena of nature was pictured as a scene of 'desperate' conflict. . . . History was a sieve that worked. Man was the residue...
...Marx took up the theme in the next higher register. History - man's history -was the record of dialectically competing classes whose motives were as simply biological as those found in Darwin. Earning a living and fighting those who make it hard were the two forces that explained the past and propelled history. Environment, as in Darwin, was made up of things . . . man responded like a machine, and out of this same physical necessity ... a perfected society was produced. History was a sieve that worked. The proletarian Utopia was the residue...