Review Of Social Darwinism And English Thought By G. Jones

​250

once attained must be recaptured. The poetic

mind had to return to the world of reality

and repeat the journey again and again;

hence the appropriateness of "precarious en-

chantment."

Though intended as a reinterpretation of

the major characters in The Ordeal of Rich-

ard Feverel, The Adventures of Harry Rich-

mond, Beauchamp's Career, One of Our

Conquerors, and The Amazing Marriage, Sha-

heen's chapters wander afield and, in addi-

tion, are unnecessarily marred by obsessive

quibbling with previous critics, whose words

are paraphrased or quoted out of context and

eccentrically cheapened. The formula is tedi-

ous and disconcertingly roundabout.

When Shaheen concentrates on offering

his own insights, instead of taking issue with

those of his rivals, he can be quite persua-

sive. One of his most penetrating comments

concerns the heroine of The Amazing Mar-

riage, and could be applied to nearly all

Meredith's imaginatively sensitive characters:

"The nature of development in Carinthia's

character demonstrates Meredith's concep-

tion of romance as being a certain level of

consciousness which is associated with inno-

cence. It is one stage of reality where a sim-

ple but disturbed vision is dominant. With

experience comes disillusion, developing a

character's consciousness of reality. Realism

here implies a change of sensibility and a

narrowing of the distance between the reader

and character" (p. 96).

WALTER F. WRIGHT

University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Social Darwinism and English Thought, by

Greta Jones; pp. xiv + 234. Brighton, Sussex:

Harvester Press, 198o, ?22.50; Atlantic

Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press,

$37.50.

WHATEVER IT BECAME, SOCIAL DARWINISM

was initially a British disease. The continen-

tal theorists who coined the term in the

188os saw in Herbert Spencer's Man vs. the

State (1884) the epitome of "le Darwinisme

sociale." As it gained currency, the term was

applied ubiquitously to diverse persuasions

and soon lost its national identity. In his

classic study (1944), Richard Hofstadter

found its fullest expression not in Britain

but the United States. Meanwhile, British

once attained must be recaptured. The poetic

mind had to return to the world of reality

and repeat the journey again and again;

hence the appropriateness of "precarious en-

chantment."

Though intended as a reinterpretation of

the major characters in The Ordeal of Rich-

ard Feverel, The Adventures of Harry Rich-

mond, Beauchamp's Career, One of Our

Conquerors, and The Amazing Marriage, Sha-

heen's chapters wander afield and, in addi-

tion, are unnecessarily marred by obsessive

quibbling with previous critics, whose words

are paraphrased or quoted out of context and

eccentrically cheapened. The formula is tedi-

ous and disconcertingly roundabout.

When Shaheen concentrates on offering

his own insights, instead of taking issue with

those of his rivals, he can be quite persua-

sive. One of his most penetrating comments

concerns the heroine of The Amazing Mar-

riage, and could be applied to nearly all

Meredith's imaginatively sensitive characters:

"The nature of development in Carinthia's

character demonstrates Meredith's concep-

tion of romance as being a certain level of

consciousness which is associated with inno-

cence. It is one stage of reality where a sim-

ple but disturbed vision is dominant. With

experience comes disillusion, developing a

character's consciousness of reality. Realism

here implies a change of sensibility and a

narrowing of the distance between the reader

and character" (p. 96).

WALTER F. WRIGHT

University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Social Darwinism and English Thought, by

Greta Jones; pp. xiv + 234. Brighton, Sussex:

Harvester Press, 198o, ?22.50; Atlantic

Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press,

$37.50.

WHATEVER IT BECAME, SOCIAL DARWINISM

was initially a British disease. The continen-

tal theorists who coined the term in the

188os saw in Herbert Spencer's Man vs. the

State (1884) the epitome of "le Darwinisme

sociale." As it gained currency, the term was

applied ubiquitously to diverse persuasions

and soon lost its national identity. In his

classic study (1944), Richard Hofstadter

found its fullest expression not in Britain

but the United States. Meanwhile, British

historians were curiously quiet. Until a dec-

ade ago only American scholars detected

strains of social Darwinism in late Victorian

thought. In the early 1970s the tide turned,

ironically at a time when the Hofstadter the-

sis was under increasing attack in the United

States. The present study, originally a disser-

tation at the London School of Economics,

completes the trans-Atlantic transfer. A cen-

tury after the phrase was coined, "social Dar-

winism" has come home.

By and large, the work is true to the Hof-

stadter tradition. Although the names are

sometimes new, the taxonomy is a familiar

one: radical individualists (Spencer and a

"plethora" of unnamed defenders of "vulgar

self-interest"); liberals, who stressed moral

and intellectual evolution (Leslie Stephen,

Frederick Clifford, Frederick Pollock); so-

cialists and their "new liberal" adversaries

(J. A. Hobson, L. T. Hobhouse, Graham

Wallas); eugenists and racists. Tracing the

legacy into the moder period, the author

adds to this list such figures as B. K. Malin-

owski, Talcott Parsons, and E. O. Wilson,

despite the fact that the sociobiologists deny

any affinity with nineteenth-century prede-

cessors. Just as Hofstadter in the forties

broadened current usage of social Darwin-

ism, so Jones stretches its meaning even fur-

ther. So also, she applies it exclusively to

ideas and intellectual strategies she disap-

proves.

The protean definition of the term holds

the key to a sometimes puzzling cast of char-

acters. At times the author seems to accept

the conventional view that social Darwinists

were those who appropriated (rightly or

wrongly) specifically Darwinian concepts of

struggle and selection. But at others she

identifies it with all attempts to find a "natu-

ral" underpinning for the social order,

whether in the doctrine of the moral sense,

the organic analogy, or instinct theory. A

social Darwinist is anyone who grounds the

social order in human nature, whether or not

moral and intellectual qualities are included

in this nature. On this criterion, Clifford and

Stephen are social Darwinists for believing

that values and sentiments hold society to-

gether, no less than eugenists who proposed

to replace natural with artificial selection.

The least satisfactory part of this study

lies in the uncritical assumption that collec-

tivists in the 188os battled a majority of

historians were curiously quiet. Until a dec-

ade ago only American scholars detected

strains of social Darwinism in late Victorian

thought. In the early 1970s the tide turned,

ironically at a time when the Hofstadter the-

sis was under increasing attack in the United

States. The present study, originally a disser-

tation at the London School of Economics,

completes the trans-Atlantic transfer. A cen-

tury after the phrase was coined, "social Dar-

winism" has come home.

By and large, the work is true to the Hof-

stadter tradition. Although the names are

sometimes new, the taxonomy is a familiar

one: radical individualists (Spencer and a

"plethora" of unnamed defenders of "vulgar

self-interest"); liberals, who stressed moral

and intellectual evolution (Leslie Stephen,

Frederick Clifford, Frederick Pollock); so-

cialists and their "new liberal" adversaries

(J. A. Hobson, L. T. Hobhouse, Graham

Wallas); eugenists and racists. Tracing the

legacy into the moder period, the author

adds to this list such figures as B. K. Malin-

owski, Talcott Parsons, and E. O. Wilson,

despite the fact that the sociobiologists deny

any affinity with nineteenth-century prede-

cessors. Just as Hofstadter in the forties

broadened current usage of social Darwin-

ism, so Jones stretches its meaning even fur-

ther. So also, she applies it exclusively to

ideas and intellectual strategies she disap-

proves.

The protean definition of the term holds

the key to a sometimes puzzling cast of char-

acters. At times the author seems to accept

the conventional view that social Darwinists

were those who appropriated (rightly or

wrongly) specifically Darwinian concepts of

struggle and selection. But at others she

identifies it with all attempts to find a "natu-

ral" underpinning for the social order,

whether in the doctrine of the moral sense,

the organic analogy, or instinct theory. A

social Darwinist is anyone who grounds the

social order in human nature, whether or not

moral and intellectual qualities are included

in this nature. On this criterion, Clifford and

Stephen are social Darwinists for believing

that values and sentiments hold society to-

gether, no less than eugenists who proposed

to replace natural with artificial selection.

The least satisfactory part of this study

lies in the uncritical assumption that collec-

tivists in the 188os battled a majority of

VICTORIAN STUDIES

"crude" individualists who had already ap-
propriated Darwinism for their purposes.
"Certainly Darwinism was used from the be-
ginning as a defence of laissez faire capital-
ism," Jones writes (p. 35). But the evidence
for this statement, aside from Man vs. the
State, consists entirely of the testimony of
those who opposed an allegedly "brutal" in-
dividualism. Taking Spencer as representa-
tive of this unnamed legion, the book fails
adequately to explore his relation to Darwin-
ism, or its role in his growing isolation within
the liberal mainstream. More importantly, it
ignores the fact that the epithet "social Dar-
winism" was from the start a potent rhetori-
cal weapon in the arsenal of those (whether
new liberals or eugenists) who demanded a
more active, interventionist role for govern-
ment.
More than incidental, this distortion sets
the stage for the argument that the moral
and intellectual evolutionism of Stephen and
Clifford, and the new liberalism that suc-
ceeded it, was "as hierarchial as most ver-
sions of social Darwinism which emphasized
economic competition" (p. 52). Intellectual
"fitness" merely replaced the economic sort,
thus legitimating the role of the intellectual
in politics. This conflation unfortunately ob-
scures the significant impact of Darwinism on
liberals from Stephen to Hobhouse. Although
the author argues that there was "nothing
implicit" in organicism or moral evolution-
ism that led to collectivism, the weight of
the evidence suggests otherwise. Aside from
eugenists (who often spiced their call for
government action with some old-fashioned
individualism), the new liberals and their so-
cialist opponents, not the individualists, were
Darwin's heirs - however debatable their
own rendering of the Origin of Species may
now appear in light of more recent work in
the history and philosophy of science.
Since Jones has little use for the new
liberalism, or the functionalism that devel-
oped from it, these distinctions may appear
as quibbles. "However many variations of so-
cial theory it has produced," she concludes,
"social Darwinism implies that individuals
are allotted social places through their he-
redity or their moral choice" (p. 194). On
this issue there is little to choose among
modem functionalists, Edwardian new lib-
erals, Spencerians, or even earlier "religious
ideologies of social order." Contemporary
"crude" individualists who had already ap-
propriated Darwinism for their purposes.
"Certainly Darwinism was used from the be-
ginning as a defence of laissez faire capital-
ism," Jones writes (p. 35). But the evidence
for this statement, aside from Man vs. the
State, consists entirely of the testimony of
those who opposed an allegedly "brutal" in-
dividualism. Taking Spencer as representa-
tive of this unnamed legion, the book fails
adequately to explore his relation to Darwin-
ism, or its role in his growing isolation within
the liberal mainstream. More importantly, it
ignores the fact that the epithet "social Dar-
winism" was from the start a potent rhetori-
cal weapon in the arsenal of those (whether
new liberals or eugenists) who demanded a
more active, interventionist role for govern-
ment.
More than incidental, this distortion sets
the stage for the argument that the moral
and intellectual evolutionism of Stephen and
Clifford, and the new liberalism that suc-
ceeded it, was "as hierarchial as most ver-
sions of social Darwinism which emphasized
economic competition" (p. 52). Intellectual
"fitness" merely replaced the economic sort,
thus legitimating the role of the intellectual
in politics. This conflation unfortunately ob-
scures the significant impact of Darwinism on
liberals from Stephen to Hobhouse. Although
the author argues that there was "nothing
implicit" in organicism or moral evolution-
ism that led to collectivism, the weight of
the evidence suggests otherwise. Aside from
eugenists (who often spiced their call for
government action with some old-fashioned
individualism), the new liberals and their so-
cialist opponents, not the individualists, were
Darwin's heirs - however debatable their
own rendering of the Origin of Species may
now appear in light of more recent work in
the history and philosophy of science.
Since Jones has little use for the new
liberalism, or the functionalism that devel-
oped from it, these distinctions may appear
as quibbles. "However many variations of so-
cial theory it has produced," she concludes,
"social Darwinism implies that individuals
are allotted social places through their he-
redity or their moral choice" (p. 194). On
this issue there is little to choose among
modem functionalists, Edwardian new lib-
erals, Spencerians, or even earlier "religious
ideologies of social order." Contemporary
sociobiologists "wrongly" distance their posi-
tion from earlier social Darwinism by equat-
ing it exclusively with theories of individual
and race conflict.
Despite an undercurrent of criticism of
corporatist liberalism, and its "conservative,"
hierarchical view of society, Jones offers no
alternative to the hydraheaded social Dar-
winism she describes. Nor will this book, as
provocative as it is, settle debate concerning
the new liberalism that emerged at the turn
of the century. Was it vital, responsive to the
"social" problem, and sensitive in its bal-
ance of individual and community as Michael
Freeden has argued in The New Liberalism
(1978)? Or was it a "conservative" ploy to
legitimate a new intelligentsia and the corpo-
rate state? In this debate the term "social
Darwinism" has had a venerable place. But
after reading this study one wonders whether
either clarity or history is served by continu-
ing the tradition.
ROBERT C. BANNISTER
Swarthmore College
sociobiologists "wrongly" distance their posi-
tion from earlier social Darwinism by equat-
ing it exclusively with theories of individual
and race conflict.
Despite an undercurrent of criticism of
corporatist liberalism, and its "conservative,"
hierarchical view of society, Jones offers no
alternative to the hydraheaded social Dar-
winism she describes. Nor will this book, as
provocative as it is, settle debate concerning
the new liberalism that emerged at the turn
of the century. Was it vital, responsive to the
"social" problem, and sensitive in its bal-
ance of individual and community as Michael
Freeden has argued in The New Liberalism
(1978)? Or was it a "conservative" ploy to
legitimate a new intelligentsia and the corpo-
rate state? In this debate the term "social
Darwinism" has had a venerable place. But
after reading this study one wonders whether
either clarity or history is served by continu-
ing the tradition.
ROBERT C. BANNISTER
Swarthmore College
Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-
Century England, by F. K. Prochaska; pp.
ix + 301. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980,
?515.95; New York: Oxford University Press,
$48.00.
THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK OF ITS KIND.
It is very well-documented with few origi-
nal sources omitted. It is interesting to the
uninitiated, and its thesis is easily under-
stood. Though by no means an original con-
tribution to the study of Victorian philan-
thropy, it fills in a certain number of gaps
and brings to light some of the factors which
lie hidden behind the great outburst of un-
paid social work by women in the nineteenth
century. It is divided into two parts: Part I,
"The Power of the Purse," which is con-
cerned with the raising of money by women
for charity; and Part II, "The Power of the
Cross," which attempts to link Christianity
with the practical development of the work.
Women's monetary contributions are out-
lined in Part I and supported by some com-
prehensive statistical tables which are as
revealing about the particular charities con-
cerned as they are about their cash amounts.
This is valuable, original material, though it
would have been improved if som