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Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution

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The thoughts and thought processes of Charles Darwin can only be appreciated and evaluated within the social and intellectual context of his own era. That at least is the starting premise of "Darwin's Sacred Cause" by Adrian Desmond and James Moore. This stimulating study is not a biography of Darwin per se; the authors have already published one, titled simply "Darwin." Instead, this is a detailed investigation of the ideas and opinions concerning the origins of humanity that were current in Darwin's lifetime and the decades previous, and the implications of those ideas for the formulation and publication of Darwin's hypotheses about what we now call `evolution.'

The `Sacred Cause' to which Darwin was dedicated was the abolition of slavery. Desmond and Moore assert that Darwin was born into a family and milieu passionately committed to abolition, originally on the profoundly religious grounds of the unity of all humankind as descendents of Adam and Eve. The great abolitionist families of 18th and 19th Century England are worth reading about in their own right -- Josiah Wedgwood and his descendents, the Wilberforces, the Clarksons, Harriet Martineau, etc. They are insightfully treated in the fine study "Bury the Chains" by Adam Hochschild. Darwin's allegiance to this humanitarian cause was unshakable and surely lent emotional urgency to his efforts to `prove' that all human were of the same species and the same descent, and therefore entitled to equal human rights.

For the enlightenment of any flat-earthers and creationists who might stumble over this book in the darkness of their caves, let me explain that "evolution" was not an idea first expounded by Charles Darwin. Usually called "transmutation" in the 18th and early 19th Centuries, evolution was well established as a notion before Charles Darwin was born. It was observable, undeniable, barnyard knowledge available to all breeders of animals and plants. Polite society held that the definition of a "species" could be built on the question of interbreeding; hybrids of two species - obviously something that did occur - would be sterile, and thus if two breeds of cattle or two races of humans could produce fertile offspring, then they must be of a single species. Darwin's hypothesis was that transmutation could occur, over long times and in specific circumstances, by the accumulation of small variations until the descendents of a single original species could no longer interbreed. His language for this was "descent with modification." The daring corollary of this hypothesis was that all living organisms must have descended, over vast periods of geological time, from a single original life form. For this to have occurred, Darwin theorized two agents of change: 1. the Malthusian pressure of "survival of the fittest", and 2. sexual selection. Darwin of course knew nothing about genetics, about random genetic drift or mutation, etc. Nobody did, back then.

The hot button issue in the 1840s and 1850s wasn't `evolution', however. It was the theological/political/economic issue of the equality of races, aka "what to do with those pesky dark-skinned savages". Three choices? Exterminate them; enslave them; treat them as brothers. The constituencies for the first two choices far outnumbered the third. Political and social rivalries between England and America were also significant in the debate, since England had committed itself to abolition while the USA, however divided against itself, sustained and defended the peculiar instution of slavery.

The `educated' scientific community of Darwin's lifetime was aligned in two camps on the issue of human origins: the monogenecists and the polygenecists, the former maintaining the `conservative' Biblically-sanctioned idea of a single origin for all humans, and the latter amassing volumes of scholarly `evidence' that the human races were distinct species with distinct origins in different regions of the planet. The majority opinion was that species were immutable, that each geographic region of the planet was a `homeland' for a whole suite of species, including species of humans. Such ideas were most authoritatively expressed by Louis Agassiz, the `super star' of American science. Of course, Darwin was the staunchest of monogenecists, even after he had shed all his religious convictions. And of course, the concomitants of polygenecism were mightily appealing to slave owners, to the Lords of the Loom in New England as much as to the Lords of the Lash in Dixie, to the aristocracies of birth and money everywhere, to all who felt comfortable with their own racial superiority in a hierarchy established by nature itself. The core of Desmond and Moore's research in this book is the careful re-examination of the debate between these two camps.

Polygenicism, by the way, is not totally laid to rest even today. There are archaelogists and anthropologists of repute in China who aspire to show that modern humanity did NOT emerge from Africa, but rather that `races' of H. erectus evolved concurrently in several regions, one being Asia, into races of H. sapiens, which then perhaps overlapped and interbred. There are also `wishful thinkers' who jealously guard the notion that H. neanderthalis (highly regarded now that its beetle-browed stupidity has been displaced by the measurements of its larger cranium than ours) must have contributed some gentic uniqueness to European stock. And you might try reading the reviews of the infamous "The Bell Curve" here on ammy, to ascertain that nostalgia for a hierarchy of racial superiorities isn't extinct.

Perhaps I've already used too many words to summarize the matter of this hugely meaningful social history. "Darwin's Sacred Cause" is the most thought-provoking book of social history I've read in recent years. It's a book I wish I'd written myself, or even had the scholarly tools to write. Though the cause was (and is) sacred, Desmond and Moore do NOT make a saint of Charles Darwin. They depict his hesitations, his dependencies on the esteem of his peers, his clinging to respectability and allegiance to his own social class, his compromises, his limits. The Darwin they depict is a man who had to earn his own greatness by hard work and painful decisions, a Darwin less to worship and more to admire.

I'm surprised to find so few reviews of this enormously important book here on the product page. The two negative reviews, in fact, make significant points, though I think they miss the central point. Desmond and Moore do take an irritating tone of over-certainty at times, especially in their introduction. They do not, however, ignore Darwin's grudging acknowledgement that his Malthusian survival theory might be a two-edged sword, that it might justify the hateful "social Darwinism" of the succeeding decades. The drama of this detailed, conscientiously academic study is to be found in the way Darwin persisted and demolished, yes, demolished, the basis for racism forevermore.

A very worthwhile read in my opinion. The amount of material the authors have included make some of the chapters exceptionally slow and plodding, especially the early ones, but once that groundwork is accomplished, the later chapters soar. Valid criticisms have been posted of the wordiness involved, but I doubt anyone else could have done it better than these proven masters of Darwiniana, and the payoff is well worth the effort. Imagine a new Darwin book where we don't have to slog through another rendition of the death of daughter Annie, or of Spa regimens, etc, but instead are introduced so fully into the milieu of a world where slavery is the gut-wrenching topic of the day and science is the field upon which opponents fight to either justify or abolish that practice. This is the world view the authors have recreated in this book. They very effectively show how fundamentally that world view effected Darwin, and why so much of what he was grudgingly forced into producing was directly related to contradicting the arguments of his pro-slavery scientific opponents. Who knew that over such a topic he became quite angry at not just Wallace, but Lyell and Hooker and his own son William Erasmus, or that even he and Asa Gray almost had a falling out over Civil War strategy? Or that Harriet Martineau, who always previously came across as just some ugly, cigar smoking socialist who hung out with brother Erasmus, was such a valid anti-slavery champion who's ideas, promulgated through the Darwin ladies, had to have spurred on Charles in his pursuits? I certainly did not, so as a Darwin freak I thank the authors for revealing that piece of the pie.

Not an easy read by any means, nor for the first timer looking for an introductory book on Darwin. I give it a 4 rating, not because I think the authors could have done much better, but simply because I would not like potential readers to believe that this difficult read flows anywhere near as easily as the authors previous wonderful Darwin biography.

Desmond and Moore have written an encompassing work which is all the more important as people discuss Darwin's legacy around his anniversary. Being an avid admirer of Darwin this book had many interesting stories and ideas in it that I had never come across before. I had not realized before how important the political climate of the day, the research on human races going on in the United States or the debate over slavery had been to shaping what Darwin chose as his topics of research. Rather than being the dispassionate investigator I thought he was, Darwin actually had ideas he sought to prove and more importantly consequences for abolition that he wanted derived from his research. But, at the same time the mundane experiments (e.g. plants soaked in saltwater) Darwin used to refute certain aspects of the foundation of pluralism (the idea that races are separate species with separate origins) show how humble Darwin really was.
I agree with some of the other reviewers that Desmond and Moore can be a bit florid and give many unnecessary details but I found this to make the book all the more interesting. I found myself pleasantly surprised by their small tangents. I also agree that perhaps they pushed the idea of Darwin being a proponent of abolition a bit harder than the evidence warrants. Darwin was not actively involved in abolitionism but only inspired to support science that rejected slavery.
The most important thing about this book however is that Darwin saw humanity as united by a common origin and disagreed with the subjugation of any group of people. Eugenics and Social Darwinism cannot be derived from the evolution by natural selection because Darwin's theory does not make any claims about how society should be organized but just how nature works. Darwin was careful not to commit the naturalistic fallacy, the idea that what is natural is also good; he never claimed that society should be founded on the principles of nature or that humans should be artificially selected. For those who have attempted to refute evolution by natural selection because of eugenics and social Darwinism, Desmond and Moore show that this is not in the spirit of Darwin's own ideals. They aptly argue that Darwin spoke through scientific observation and discovery for greater equality.

First, let me say that Desmond and Moore are excellent scholars, and I would rate their biography, Darwin: the Life of a Tormented Evolutionist, as a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand what Darwin, the man, was really like. I would say the same for their Darwin's Sacred Cause except that they over-ice the cake in trying emphasize Darwin's personal hatred of slavery. His personal abolitionist side, a product of his family's liberal Whig heritage, was very real and very admirable. But anyone who has read his Descent of Man, knows that Darwin's theory entailed the struggle and extermination of races. Desmond and Moore mention this almost as an aside, blaming it on Darwin's caving to ideas of the "times." That is dishonest.

Furthermore, Desmond and Moore's main case for Darwin's moral rectitude is that he asserted common descent as an intellectual end around those who argued that God had created the different races separately (and unequally). Common descent allowed a kind of brotherhood of man, and so undermined racism. (They fail to emphasize how his evolutionary account of the races fueled racism during the remainder of the 19th century and early 20th.)

Again, Desmond and Moore's point is misleading and finally inaccurate. Whatever Darwin intended with asserting common descent, it doesn't make slavery unnatural according to Darwin's theory. "Natural" means according to the principle of natural selection. There are, as Darwin was surprised to discover, slave-making ants and non slave-making ants. There is no doubt that all ants, slaving and non-slaving, have a common ancestor, and that natural selection produced both variant species--not by taking a wrong turn and a right turn, but simply by branching off. According to Darwin's theory, there is no doubt that all men in all human societies, slaving and non-slaving, have a common ancestor. Natural selection has produced these social variants, not by taking a wrong turn and a right turn, but simply by branching off. There is no wrong or right turn. Whatever contributes to a society's self-preservation is affirmed by natural selection. That is the core argument of Darwin's Descent of Man whether we like it or not.

Desmond and Moore's earlier biography, "Darwin: Life of a Tormented Evolutionist", is one of my favourite books, so I was really looking forward to reading "Darwin's Sacred Cause". But I have to say that I am not convinced by the central thrust of this book.

Charles Darwin was very strongly opposed to slavery, and he argued, quite rightly, that all human beings are of one species with a common ancestry. He was very critical of the mistaken theory that the different "races" of humans came into existence separately as separate species.

What Desmond and Moore claim is that Darwin's theory of common HUMAN origins inspired the development of his view that ALL LIFE is related by common descent through evolution. The "sacred cause" of opposition to slavery inspired Darwin's science.

But in his autobiography, which was initially written for private, family consumption, Darwin nowhere says anything about his anti-slavery views influencing his evolutionary theories. In fact Darwin explicity says that it was the distribution of fossil and living species which he encountered on the Beagle voyage that first got him seriously thinking about evolution. (Though I suppose that Desmond and Moore would say there was an underlying, unstated influence.)

There is also the fact that even if Darwin's anti-slavery views influenced his theory of the common origins of all life, it certainly was not a factor in inspiring him to come up with his theory of natural selection as the mechanism for evolution. It was natural selection that was Darwin's most important idea, and both he and, later, Wallace were inspired to come up with the theory by reading Malthus on population. (It is ironic that Malthus could be so reactionary and wrong about human population and society, and yet inspire a correct theory of natural selection.)

I find it quite plausible that Darwin's anti-slavery views were ONE influence on his evolutionary theory of life's common ancestry. But Desmond and Moore are overstating their case when they argue that it was THE influence on his theory.

In their earlier biography Desmond and Moore did a wonderful job of putting Darwin in the context of Victorian society. In this book they have homed in on one aspect of Darwin's social and political world, made a lens out of it, and then looked at everything through that lens, thus giving a distorted picture of a more complex reality.

This book is certainly worth reading - but with a critical eye. And for an alternative view of how Darwin's ideas developed, I recommend Niles Eldredge's book, "Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life".

Phil Webster.
(England)

We are given a tale of conflicting trends: the development of `scientific' racism, and on the other hand the anti-slavery movement in England; this serves as foreground for Darwin's intellectual growth.

Darwin was a solid Whig, he abhorred racism. This book is less a Darwin bio than a compendium of the race related `scientific' debates and fights of the 19th century.
The irony of the plot is that Darwin, starting out from a biblical hypothesis about Adam and Eve and their offspring (ab uno sanguine), arrived at the rather more shocking theory of common descent, of not just all men, but of all life.

Core thesis: Darwin began his intellectual journey from a standpoint of strongly felt abolitionism. His anti-slavery attitude made him resist any theory that would grade different races of homo sapiens as if they were different species. He did not arrive at this conclusion at the end of his life, though he published the Descent of Man late, rather he started from there before he even left England for his formative Beagle trip.

Darwin was blessed with 2 prominent and dominant grandfathers, Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood. He had the good fortune to grow up with 2 large and civilized upper class families, which provided him with a solid foundation of political attitudes and material wealth.
We follow Darwin as a young student in Edinburgh and Cambridge, where he was not yet recognized as a rising star of science. He did not develop sufficient interest in medical studies, so he flopped out of that into a potential church career, which he then also avoided. What saved him was the pleasure trip on the Beagle, which took him into the real world for several years and made him what he would become: a pioneer.

The book is written in a sometimes less than compelling language. It wakes up on the Beagle, when narrative lines become simpler and the supporting material, mainly the journal, stronger.
After return to life on land, we watch CD start a family and become a recluse while working away at his life's work, his experiments and his books. He is a man of means and shuts out society as much as he can.
(As an example of the disturbing world we get Thomas Carlyle, obnoxious noisy Scotsman of profoundly chauvinist inclination, whose racism and anti-scientism CD came to hate; Carlyle was removed from the social circle).

CD's personal progress is described in parallel and in interaction with the trends and discussions of the time. A major influence on his thinking was Malthus with his thoughts on the struggle for survival. This would become a part of Darwinism and would inevitably link him to what was later called social Darwinism, a `school of thought' that he rejected, though he can be shown `biologizing colonial eradication'.
The great nemesis was Agassiz, the Swiss exile turned big man in American science, strongly aligned with the slave holders and their preferences in ethnology. The term `polygenists' was coined for those who thought that blacks and whites were different species.
Darwin focused on his experimental work in order to destroy some of the premises of the polygenists. Surprisingly, nobody else seems to have thought of testing the assumption that sea water would kill seeds (which had been the main argument against plant dispersal hypotheses). Or nobody else seems to have thought of demonstrating how a multiplicity of physical appearances in pigeons can be bred from one species.

Darwin was not very lucky in his social affiliations as far as winning brothers in arms was concerned. Greatest disappointment was Lyell, who fell far short of hopes in terms of support to evolution theory and anti-racism. Another disappointment was Wallace, who was just too different in social terms to be on the same wave length for long. Closest companions were American botanist Asa Gray (the relationship was made difficult by the Civil War and the possibility of an English entry on the side of the Confederacy) and then English biologist T.Huxley (who disappointed with his lack of enthusiasm for abolition).
What a pity that Darwin did not meet Gregor Mendel! That could have helped to some major scientific shortcuts (though politically nothing could have been gained by it).

Finally, Darwin has been put into the context of his time, one surrounded by the most significant issue of his day, and perhaps still of our day--race. This book is simply a brilliant piece of scholarship, uncovering and exploring in depth what no one else has over many decades and innumerable other books about Darwin. Finally, during the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, we come to know the "why" and not just the "how" of his theory of evolution.

The authors are driven by the question "What drove Darwin to deny the cherished tenets of his privileged Christian society?" They propose that Darwin's discovery of evolution was driven by his deep humanity and hatred of slavery.
I believe the book makes a very strong case for proposing that Darwin's ontological stance was of an Idealist rather than an Internal Realist as I had previously assumed. He was a great observer but what he observed was tainted by his idealism. Although he inherited his Whig ideas, liberalism and anti-slavery from his two grandfathers (Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgewood - the founder of the china company) and his extended family it actually became stronger after or during his Beagle expedition. When he set off he was conscious but rather detached from the British anti-slavery cause compared to several members of his family; it was his contact with slavery in America (particularly Brazil) that made this sentiment erupt. And rather than throwing himself into the rallies of the Anti-slavery "movement" as most of his relatives, he subverted it silently through his science.
The book also makes the point that the magma of evolution erupted through the Darwin crater; humanity was ready to move from the Creationist to the evolutionary view of the origin of species, and Darwin offered the volcano shaft of least resistance. Had Darwin not come forward with his theory, others such as Charles Lyell or Alfred Russell Wallace would have. Is that not the great difference between art and science, and the reason why artists become eternal with their creations but scientists are ephemeral?
One may or may not agree with the authors' theories, but the book is deeply researched and magnificently well written, and recommended reading for anybody interested in the evolution of thought and knowledge.

For years one of the great hammers anti-evolutionists have used is smearing the name of Charles Darwin as a bigoted, racist scoundrel whose life is as morally bankrupt as his theory. Now all that foolishness is put to rest. Desmond and Moore's 'Darwin's Sacred Cause' is a painfully well researched and engagingly written account of how Darwin's abolitionism and horror at racial inequality helped drive his ideas on evolution in general and human evolution in particular. While Darwin never was an actively engaged abolitionist, he was deeply influenced by the swarm on anti-slavery activists he lived with and amongst and whose reasoning he worked into his theory. The writing is lucid, erudite and compelling. The role of race in Darwin's thinking is an important issue, but one which is usually dealt with by anti-evolutionists and religious fundamentalists whose sophomoric moralizing, poor writing skills and simple lack of historical and scientific knowledge produces works of no merit--see the recent edition of the 'Origin of Species' put out by Australian pseudo theologian Ray Comfort for an example. It is such a pleasure to read a work of deep historical analysis written by a pair of world class scholars, intimately familiar with the voluminous Darwin papers, at the top of their game. Highly recommended!

Charles Darwin is among the most notorious scientists of the last 3 centuries. He has been revered by many and reviled by others, but not much is really known about who he really was before and while he was pondering the idea of "Natural Selection". This book is a fascinating retelling of the epic of Charles Darwin's life, how his theories were literally carved by the ideals of his era. It is a psychological biography written with even the most minute details available, the likes of which this reviewer has never read before. If you wish to not only know about Darwin, but also attempt to understand how his entire cosmovision came to be, then this is the book for you!