Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:41:46.618Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Eugenics and Progressive Thought: a Study in Ideological Affinity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Michael Freeden
Michael Freeden
Affiliation:
Mansfield College, Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The issues raised by eugenics are of more than passing interest for the student of political thought. In itself a minor offshoot of turn-of-the-century socio-biological thought which never achieved ideological ‘take-off’ in terms of influence or circulation, there was certainly more in eugenics than nowadays meets the eye. The following pages propose to depart from the over-simplistic identification of eugenics, as political theory, with racism or ultra-conservatism and to offer instead two alternative modes of interpretation. On the one hand, eugenics will be portrayed as an exploratory avenue of the social-reformist tendencies of early-twentieth-century British political thought. On the other, it will serve as a case-study illustrating the complexity and overlapping which characterize most modern ideologies. While recognizing, of course, the appeal of eugenics for the ‘right’, a central question pervading the forthcoming analysis will be the attraction it had for progressives of liberal and socialist persuasions, with the ultimate aim of discovering the fundamental affinities the ‘left’ had, and may still have, with this type of thinking.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , September 1979 , pp. 645 - 671
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, for example, Haldane, J. B. S., ‘Eugenics and social reforms’, Nation, 31 05 1924Google Scholar; Montagu, Ashley, Man's most dangerous myth: the fallacy of race (5th edn, New York, 1974), p. 236Google Scholar.

2 I am using the term ‘progressive’ as an abbreviation for liberal social reformers and moderate socialists, while recognizing that they are not an ideologically monolithic group.

3 Galton, F., Memories of my life (London, 1908), p. 321Google Scholar; Forrest, D. W., Francis Galton: the life and work of a Victorian genius (London, 1974), p. 260Google Scholar.

4 Galton, F., ‘Eugenics: its definition, scope and aims’, Sociological Papers (London, 1905), p. 45Google Scholar.

5 In the non-doctrinaire sense. See Freeden, M., The new liberalism: an ideology of social reform (Oxford, 1978), ch. 11Google Scholar.

6 Pearson, K., Nature and nurture: The problem of the future (London, 1910), p. 27Google Scholar.

7 See Hobhouse, L. T., Social evolution and political theory (New York, 1911), p. 54Google Scholar.

8 Ellis, H., ‘Individualism and socialism’, Contemporary Review, CI (1912), 526Google Scholar. Reprinted with revisions in H. Ellis, The task of social hygiene (London, 1912).

9 Thomson, J. A., ‘Eugenics and war’, the second Galton lecture, Eugenics Review, VII (1915), 6, 14Google Scholar.

10 Herbert, S., ‘Eugenics and socialism’, Eugenics Review, 11 (1910), 122Google Scholar.

11 Huxley, J., ‘The case for eugenics’, Sociological Review, XVIII (1926), 289Google Scholar; ‘Eugenics and society’, Eugenics Review, XXVII (1936), 13.

12 ‘Eugenics, socialism and capitalism’, Eugenics Review, XXVII (1935), 113Google Scholar. J. Huxley in debate at members' meeting.

13 Lens, , ‘Imperial eugenics, V. nurtural eugenics’, New Statesman, 26 02 1916, p. 489Google Scholar.

14 Webb, S., ‘Eugenics and the poor law: the minority report’, Eugenics Review, II (1910), 235–7Google Scholar. Italics in original.

15 Laski, H. J., ‘The scope of eugenics’, Westminster Review, CLXXIV (1910), 30Google Scholar.

16 Quoted in Castle, W. E., Genetics and eugenics (Cambridge, Mass., 1916), p. 266Google Scholar.

17 ‘The dangers of eugenics’, Nation, 13 Mar. 1909.

18 Lens, , ‘Imperial eugenics, VI. The racial prospect’, New Statesman, 4 03 1916, p. 516Google Scholar. See also Lens, , ‘Two decades of eugenics’, New Statesman, 17 05 1924, pp. 154–5Google Scholar.

19 More, L. T., ‘The scientific claims of eugenics’, Hibbert Journal, XIII (1914–1915), 355Google Scholar.

20 Shaw, G. Bernard, Man and superman: The revolutionist's handbook and perfect companion (London, 1971), pp. 751, 755Google Scholar. Even eugenists regarded his support with unease. Galton wrote to Pearson on 26 Feb. 1910: ‘Bernard Shaw is about to give a lecture to the Eugenics Education Society. It is to be hoped that he will be under self-control and not be too extravagant’ (Pearson, K., The life, letters and labours of Francis Galton (3 vols., Cambridge, 1930), III, 427Google Scholar). His fears were founded, for Shaw caused a furore in the press, which responded with sensational headlines about free love and lethal chambers.

21 Ellis, H., ‘Eugenics and St Valentine’, Nineteenth Century, LIX (1906), 780–1Google Scholar.

22 See editorial comment, Eugenics Review, XII (1920), 40, quoting from Dr C. G. Seligman.

23 Lindsay, J. A., ‘Eugenics and the doctrine of the super-man’, Eugenics Review, VII (1915), 258–61Google Scholar.

24 Huxley, J., ‘The vital importance of eugenics’, Harper's Monthly Magazine, CLXIII (1931), 330–1Google Scholar.

25 Darwin, L., ‘The future of our race: Heredity and social progress’, Eugenics Review, XVI (1924), 96–7Google Scholar.

26 Freeman, R. Austin, ‘Segregation of the fit: a plea for positive eugenics’, Eugenics Review, XXIII (1931), 207Google Scholar.

27 Carr-Saunders, A. M., ‘Eugenics in the light of population trends’, Eugenics Review, XXVII (1935), 11–12Google Scholar.

28 Inge, W. R., ‘Some moral aspects of eugenics’, Eugenics Review, 1 (1909), 32, 28Google ScholarPubMed.

29 Tayler, J. Lionel, ‘The social application of eugenics’, Westminster Review, CLXX (1908), 418–20Google Scholar.

30 Saleeby, C. W., Parenthood and race culture (London, 1909), p. 230Google Scholar; Paul, M. Eden, Socialism and eugenics (London, 1911), p. 13Google Scholar; Blacker, C. P., ‘Citizenship and eugenics’, Journal of State Medicine, XLII (1934), 135Google Scholar.

31 ‘Social biology and population improvement’, statement printed in Nature, 16 Sept. 1939. pp. 521.

32 Inge, ‘Some moral aspects of eugenics’, p. 29; Darwin, L., ‘Heredity and environment’, Eugenics Review, VIII (1916), 112Google Scholar; Herbert, ‘Eugenics and socialism’, p. 121.

33 Baker, J. R., ‘Eugenics and snobbery’, letter to the editor, Eugenia Review, XXIII (1932), 379Google Scholar.

34 Huxley, ‘Eugenics and society’, p. 18.

35 ‘Social biology and population improvement’, ibid.

36 Kidd, B., Social evolution (London, 1894)Google Scholar.

37 Churchill, S. in ‘Eugenics, socialism and capitalism’, Eugenics Review, XXVII (1935), 111Google Scholar; Herbert, ‘Eugenics and socialism’, p. 123.

38 Paul, Socialism and eugenics, p. 13.

39 Whetham, W. C. D., ‘Eugenics and politics’, Eugenics Review, II (1910), 246Google Scholar.

40 Darwin, L., ‘Quality not quantity’, Eugenics Review, VIII (1916), 305Google Scholar.

41 See Freeden, The new liberalism, pp. 73, 89–91, 185–6.

42 Thomson, ‘Eugenics and war’, pp. 7–8.

43 Schiller, F. C. S., ‘Eugenics and politics’, Hibbert Journal, XII (1913–1914), 244, 249Google Scholar.

44 Saleeby, Parenthood and race culture, p. 118. What Galton had intended was again a moot point. Unlike Saleeby some pointed out that Galton had wanted to build up a sentiment of caste among the naturally gifted and to create class consciousness within each social group (Field, J. A., ‘The progress of eugenics’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, XXVI (1911–1912), 11)Google Scholar.

45 See, for example, Herbert, S., ‘The discovery of the fittest’, Westminster Review, CLXXV (1911), 39–41, 43Google Scholar; Carr-Saunders, ‘Eugenics in the light of population trends’, p. 14; ‘Social biology and population improvement’, ibid.; Hobson, J. A., Free-thought in the social sciences (London, 1926), pp. 214–15Google Scholar.

46 Russell, B., Marriage and morals (London, 1929), pp. 261–2Google Scholar; Fisher, R. A., ‘Family allowances’, Eugenics Review, XXIV (1932), 90Google Scholar; Huxley, ‘The vital importance of eugenics’, 328–9. In a note to a review Huxley had written a few years earlier about L. Darwin's The need for eugenic reform, the editor of the Sociological Review had taken exception to Huxley's tendency to accept conventional criteria of success in life too much at their face value (‘The case for eugenics’, p. 279).

47 It must be emphasized that ‘race’ was not primarily used in the now common sense of biologically exclusive determinants, but applied, as Watson, G. has shown, to a ‘community of cultures’ (‘Race and the socialists’, Encounter, 11 1976, p. 16)Google Scholar.

48 Crackanthorpe, M., ‘Eugenics as a social force’, Nineteenth Century, LXIII (1908), 966Google Scholar. See also White, A., ‘Eugenics and national efficiency’, Eugenics Review, 1 (1909), 109Google ScholarPubMed.

49 ‘Report of the committee on Poor Law reform’, Eugenics Review, II (1910), 170Google Scholar.

50 Saleeby, C. W., Heredity (London, 1905), p. 26Google Scholar; Parenthood and race culture, pp. 12, 203.

51 Herbert, ‘Eugenics and socialism’, p. 123.

52 Laski, ‘The scope of eugenics’, p. 34.

53 Armstrong, C. W., ‘The right to maim’ Eugenics Reviews, supplement no. 1, XVI (1924–1925)Google Scholar; Webb, ‘Eugenics and the Poor Law’, p. 240.

54 Shaw, G. Bernard, written communication to symposium on ‘Eugenics: its definition, scope and aims’, Sociological Papers (London, 1905), pp. 74–5Google Scholar.

55 Laski, ‘The scope of eugenics’, p. 34.

56 Russell, Marriage and morals, p. 270.

57 Inge, Dean, ‘The population question’, Eugenics Review, supplement no. 1, XVI (1924–1925)Google Scholar.

58 Webb, ‘Eugenics and the Poor Law’, p. 237.

59 Wells, H. G., A modern utopia (London, 1905), pp. 183–4Google Scholar.

60 Darwin, ‘Quality not quantity’, p. 308; ‘The eugenics policy of the Society’, Eugenics Review, XVIII (1926), 92Google Scholar.

61 Russell, Marriage and morals, pp. 262–3; R. Austin Freeman, ‘Segregation of the fit’, p. 209.

62 L. T. Hobhouse in discussion during symposium on eugenics, Sociological Papers, p. 63; ‘The value and limitations of eugenics’, Sociological Review, IV (1911), 281–302Google Scholar. Reprinted as ch. III of Hobhouse, Social evolution and political theory.

63 Hobson, J. A., ‘Mr Kidd's “Social Evolution”’, American Journal of Sociology, 1 (1895), 309CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The social problem (London, 1901), pp. 214–17Google Scholar; ‘Eugenics as an art of social progress’, South Place Magazine, XIV (1909), 168–70Google Scholar; ‘Race-regeneration’, Manchester Guardian, 10 10 1911Google Scholar; Free-thought in the social sciences, pp. 200–21; The recording angel (London, 1932), pp. 71–3Google Scholar.

64 Hobson, J. A., ‘The cant of decadence’, Nation, 14 05 1910Google Scholar.

65 Hansard, 5th ser., XXXVIII, 1468–9, 1474 (17 May 1912).

66 For a more detailed discussion, see Freeden, The new liberalism, pp. 190–3; Searle, G. R., Eugenics and politics in Britain 1900–1914 (Leyden, 1976), pp. 106–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jones, K., Mental health and social policy 1845–1959 (London, 1960), pp. 61–72Google Scholar.

67 Schiller, F. C. S., review of Ginsberg, M., Studies in sociology in Eugenics Review, xxv (1933). 42Google Scholar.

68 Mental Deficiency Bill, 1926 [16 & 17 Geo. 5] [H.L.]; Hansard, 5th ser., cc, 966–9 (29 Nov. 1926).

69 Mental Deficiency Act, 1927 [17 & 18 Geo. 5]; Hansard, 5th ser., CCIII, 2333–9 (18 Mar. 1927); see, for example, Daily News, Westminster Gazette and Daily Chronicle for 19 03 1927Google Scholar.

70 Crackanthorpe, M., ‘The friends and foes of eugenics’, Fortnightly Review, XCII (1912), 746Google Scholar; Darwin, ‘Quality not quantity’, p. 298; Armstrong, ‘The right to maim’.

71 Saleeby, Parenthood and race culture, p. 149.

72 Inge, ‘Some moral aspects of eugenics’, p. 27.

73 Ellis, H., The problem of race-regeneration (London, 1911), p. 50Google Scholar; ‘Eugenics and St Valentine’, p. 781.

74 Blacker, C. P., Eugenics in retrospect and prospect, the Galton lecture 1945 (London, 1950). p. 9Google Scholar.

75 ‘Thinking for the future’, Nation, 23 Dec. 1916; Ellis, H., ‘War and the birth-rate’, Nation, 25 09 1915Google Scholar; Ellis, H., ‘Birth-control and eugenics’, Eugenics Review, IX (1917), 34, 38–41Google Scholar.

76 Ellis, ‘Birth-control and eugenics’, p. 34.

77 The declining birth-rate: Its causes and effects. Being the Report of and the chief evidence taken by the National Birth-Rate Commission, instituted, with official recognition, by the National Council of Public Morals – for the promotion of race regeneration – spiritual, moral and physical (London, 1916), pp. 282–98Google Scholar. Among others, original members of the inquiry included Inge, Saleeby, Hobson and Hobhouse (who was unable to attend).

78 ‘The falling birth-rate’, Nation, 24 June 1916.

79 ‘Malthus up to date’, Nation, 12 June 1920; ‘The demand for birth control’, Nation, 17 Mar. 1923.

80 Sturt, H., Socialism and character (London, 1912), p. 89Google Scholar.

81 Harrod, R. F., The life of John Maynard Keynes (Harmondsworth, 1972), p. 396Google Scholar.

82 See Harris, J., William Beveridge: a biography (Oxford, 1977), pp. 341–2Google Scholar; Harrod, Keynes, p. 397.

83 ‘Malthusian moonshine’, New Statesman, 22 Sept. 1923.

84 ‘The problems of birth-control’, Nation, 6 June 1925.

85 Harris, Beveridge, p. 342; Beveridge papers, London School of Economics, III, 19, MS notes on ‘The population problem today. B. The special problem’.

86 ‘Malthusian moonshine’, New Statesman, 22 Sept. 1923.

87 See Stocks, M. D., Eleanor Rathbone (London, 1949), pp. 84–99Google Scholar; Hopkinson, D., Family inheritance: a life of Eva Hubback (London, 1954), p. 134Google Scholar.

88 Saleeby, Parenthood and race culture, pp. 167, 194, 173; Field, ‘The progress of eugenics’, p. 47.

89 Herbert, ‘Eugenics and socialism’, p. 120: Hobson, The recording angel, p. 74.

90 Darwin, L., The need for eugenic reform (London, 1926), 419Google Scholar; MacBride, E. W., review of books, Eugenics Review, XII (1920), 219Google Scholar.

91 Harben, H. D., The endowment of motherhood, Fabian tract no. 149 (London, 1910), 20Google Scholar. See also evidence of Mary Stocks to National Birth-Rate Commission, Problems of population and parenthood (London, 1920), 235Google Scholar; Gotto, S., ‘The eugenic principle in social reconstruction,’ Eugenics Review, ix (1917), 194–5Google Scholar; Webb, S., The decline in the birth rate, Fabian tract no. 131 (London, 1907), 18Google Scholar.

92 Rathbone, E. F., The ethics and economics of family endowment (London, 1927), 112–13Google Scholar; The disinherited family (London, 1924), pp. 241–2Google Scholar; ‘Family endowment in its bearing on the question of population’, Eugenics Review, xvi (1924), 270–3Google Scholar.

93 ‘An outline of a practical eugenic policy’, Eugenics Review, xvii (1926), 98Google Scholar; ‘Aims and objects of the Eugenics Society’, Eugenics Review, xxvi (1934), 135Google Scholar; Fisher, ‘Family allowances’, p. 89.

94 Rathbone, ‘Family endowment’, p. 275.

95 Hopkinson, Family inheritance, pp. 108, 135. For the underpopulation argument in the 1930s see Charles, E., The menace of under-population (London, 1936)Google Scholar; Blacker, C. P., Eugenics: Gallon and. after (London, 1952), 147–8Google Scholar.

96 See the retrospective remarks in the Eugenics Review, xxxi (1940), 203–5Google Scholar.

97 Report of the joint committee of the board of education and the board of control, 1929. Cf. C. P. Blacker, Voluntary sterilization, reprinted from the Eugenics Review (London, 1962), p. 12; Jones, Mental health and social policy, pp. 80–7.

98 For a full list of members see Blacker, ibid. p. 11. They included Carr-Saunders, Fisher, Hubback and Huxley.

99 See Eugenics Society pamphlet, Committee for legalising eugenic sterilization (London, 1930)Google Scholar; Hansard, 5th ser., CCLV, 1249–58 (21 July 1931); Hansard 5th ser., cxci, 849–56 (9 Feb. 1926).

100 ‘Sterilisation of defectives’, New Statesman and Nation, 25 July 1931. Hogben's wife, Enid Charles, the author of the above-mentioned The menace of under-population (previously entitled The twilight of parenthood) though herself an anti-eugenist, also admitted that the encouragement or discouragement of individual stocks who are valuable or retrograde was an essential feature of any project of planned ecology (p. 127).

101 Report of the departmental committee on sterilisation, 1934, Cmd. 4485. For details see Jones, Mental health and social policy, pp. 87–90, and Blacker, Voluntary sterilization, pp. 15–16. Two of its members were R. A. Fisher and the conservative eugenist A. F. Tredgold; Hansard, 5th ser., CCLXXXVI, 1179–86 (28 Feb. 1934); ccxci, 1824–8 (3 July 1934); ‘The sterilisation report’, Manchester Guardian, 19 Jan. 1934; ‘The unfit’ News Chronicle, 19 Jan 1934.

102 Eugenics Review, xxv (1933), 76–7Google Scholar, though immediate exception was taken to the anti-Jewish intention of the Nazi eugenists.

103 Blacker, C. P., ‘Eugenics in Germany’, Eugenics Review, XXV (1933), 158–9Google Scholar. See also Blacker, Eugenics in retrospect and prospect, pp. 9–12, and Eugenics: Galton and after, pp. 138–46, and the socialist H. Brewer on the importance of voluntary as against compulsory sterilization (Eugenics Review, xxvi (1934), 85Google Scholar – letter to the editor).

104 Pearson, K., The moral basis of socialism(London, 1887), 21Google Scholar; cf. Kidd, B., The science of power (London, 1918), 80–2Google Scholar.

105 Pearson, K., The chances of death and other studies in evolution, 1 (London, 1897), 246, 250CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The scope and importance to the state of the science of national eugenics (London, 1907), pp. 25, 41Google Scholar; The groundwork of eugenics (London, 1909), p. 21Google Scholar.

106 Ellis, The task of social hygiene, p. 402.

107 Brewer, H., Eugenics and politics (London, n.d. [1940]), 7, 12Google Scholar; Haldane, J. B. S., Heredity and politics (London, 1938), 123–4Google Scholar.

108 Huxley, ‘Eugenics and society’, pp. 29–30.

109 Brewer, Eugenics and politics, p. 16.

110 Huxley, ‘Eugenics and society’, p. 28. See also Pigou, A. C., ‘Galtonlecture’, Eugenics Review, xv (1923), 306Google Scholar.

111 Chesterton, G. K., Eugenics and other evils (London, 1922), 7, 146, 165Google Scholar; Crackan-thorpe, ‘Eugenics as a social force’, p. 971; Freeman, R. Austin, ‘The sub-man’, Eugenics Review, xv (1923), 383Google Scholar.

112 Paul, Socialism and eugenics, pp. 11, 13, 15, 17.

113 Brewer, Eugenics and politics, p. 10.

114 Herbert, ‘Eugenics and socialism’, p. 116.

115 Inge, W. R., ‘Eugenics’, Edinburgh Review, CCXXXVI (1922), 47Google Scholar.

116 Keynes, J. M., quoted in Eugenics Review, XXXVIII (1946–1947), 68Google Scholar.

117 Samuel, H., Belief and action (London, 1937), 149–50Google Scholar.

118 Titmuss, R. M., Poverty and population (London, 1938), 44–6Google Scholar; ‘The social environment and eugenics’, Eugenics Review, XXXVI (1944), 56–7Google Scholar.

119 Wallas, G., The great society (London, 1914), 59Google Scholar; Dickinson, G. Lowes, Justice and liberty (London, 1908), 39, 46, 137Google Scholar.