Bradlaugh and Anthropology
03/18/2009 14:46
I’m thinking about a story that includes CB and some of the scientists of his day. Darwin is the obvious one who comes to mind, but I’m actually more interested in the people around Darwin (both before and after), who either elaborated ideas similar to Darwin’s, or alternatives.
Victorian Sensation needs another, closer look (as does the Vestiges). And there are some interesting leads in a series of lectures on Anthropology given by CB in 1881 at the Hall of Science. These are interesting for several reasons. First, they show CB in the role of scientific lecturer. Significant, because he isn’t just debating churchmen or attacking the Bible (this is the picture his rivals wanted to paint of him; and even the sympathetic reader might fall into this belief, given the huge volume of writing and speaking CB did on anti-religious topics).
The lectures show CB disseminating the latest ideas of British and French scientists to the general public. The Hall of Science attracted crowds of working people, so the nature of these talks is altogether different from lectures by the scientists themselves to academic audiences. As a result, it’s interesting to look at the type of information that was making its way into the general public’s understanding of contemporary science (both from the pulpit of the Hall of Science, and in the form of 2-penny reprints of CB’s talks).
CB begins the first of his three talks with a quote from Huxley’s Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature: “The question of questions for mankind—the problem which underlies all others and is more deeply interesting than any other—is the ascertainment of the place man occupies in nature and of his relation to the universe of things.” Thomas H. Huxley had himself been lecturing to working men at Jermyn Street since 1855. The lines CB quotes are the beginning of Huxley’s section “On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals,” which he had given as a series of lectures at Jermyn Street in 1860. Huxley wrote to his friend Dyster, “I am sick of the dilettante middle-class, and mean to try what I can do with these hard-headed fellows who live among facts.”
CB goes on to quote Dr. Paul Broca, Dr. James Hunt, and W.H. Fowler on the scope of anthropology. The science seems to have contained an element of archaeology and physiology, as well as an unfortunate focus on race based on contemporary ideas from craniology and language theory. He cites as his main sources Dr. Paul Topinard’s text, Huxley’s book, Geiger’s “History of the Development of the Human Race,” and Letourneau’s Biology.
CB is clearly interested in establishing in his listeners’ minds that the anthropological point of view is at odds with Christianity. Discussing the controversy over single or multiple origins, he notes that “polygenists” like Louis Agassiz, Gliddon and Nott, “having in view the very few thousand years then claimed by the Churches for man’s existence on earth, contended that the ordinarily accepted time was insufficient for the development of known diversities of type…But two features have now to be considered which were then excluded: one, the admittedly huge period of time man has inhabited the earth; the other, the light resulting from the untiring labors of Darwin in the path opened out by Lamarck and somewhat hesitatingly trodden by Wallace.”
In addition to being the field that “more than any other science finds itself in conflict with religious and political institutions,” anthropology in CB’s mind is the best place to look for moral answers. “To know what man should do,” he says, “it is first necessary to know what man is, and what it is he can do.” This is a key to CB’s interest in lecturing to his working-class audiences on the subject. The other key is anthropology’s potential as a source of insight for the biological improvement of humanity. He quotes Topinard saying “it is undeniable that man by a certain method of high breeding and well-managed crossing is capable of being changed in successive generations in his physical as well as in his moral character. According to the modes adopted he will go on either degenerating or improving.” While these words in Topinard’s “Introduction” form the closing point in an argument regarding the utility of anthropology, CB would have seen their congruence with his belief in individual self-determination. Perfectibility in CB’s mind was all about individuals making the right choices. As such, it was quite distinct from the top-down, large-group focus a eugenicist might use to interpret Topinard’s words. Biological improvement and moral choice was also a refutation of the type of historical inevitability proposed by Marx and his followers. And it was a positive application of the principles that led CB to support population control doctrines. Anthropology provided a way out of both the accusation that “atheism is only a rejection,” and the claim that Neo-Malthusian ideas were “against life.”
Victorian Sensation needs another, closer look (as does the Vestiges). And there are some interesting leads in a series of lectures on Anthropology given by CB in 1881 at the Hall of Science. These are interesting for several reasons. First, they show CB in the role of scientific lecturer. Significant, because he isn’t just debating churchmen or attacking the Bible (this is the picture his rivals wanted to paint of him; and even the sympathetic reader might fall into this belief, given the huge volume of writing and speaking CB did on anti-religious topics).
The lectures show CB disseminating the latest ideas of British and French scientists to the general public. The Hall of Science attracted crowds of working people, so the nature of these talks is altogether different from lectures by the scientists themselves to academic audiences. As a result, it’s interesting to look at the type of information that was making its way into the general public’s understanding of contemporary science (both from the pulpit of the Hall of Science, and in the form of 2-penny reprints of CB’s talks).
CB begins the first of his three talks with a quote from Huxley’s Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature: “The question of questions for mankind—the problem which underlies all others and is more deeply interesting than any other—is the ascertainment of the place man occupies in nature and of his relation to the universe of things.” Thomas H. Huxley had himself been lecturing to working men at Jermyn Street since 1855. The lines CB quotes are the beginning of Huxley’s section “On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals,” which he had given as a series of lectures at Jermyn Street in 1860. Huxley wrote to his friend Dyster, “I am sick of the dilettante middle-class, and mean to try what I can do with these hard-headed fellows who live among facts.”
CB goes on to quote Dr. Paul Broca, Dr. James Hunt, and W.H. Fowler on the scope of anthropology. The science seems to have contained an element of archaeology and physiology, as well as an unfortunate focus on race based on contemporary ideas from craniology and language theory. He cites as his main sources Dr. Paul Topinard’s text, Huxley’s book, Geiger’s “History of the Development of the Human Race,” and Letourneau’s Biology.
CB is clearly interested in establishing in his listeners’ minds that the anthropological point of view is at odds with Christianity. Discussing the controversy over single or multiple origins, he notes that “polygenists” like Louis Agassiz, Gliddon and Nott, “having in view the very few thousand years then claimed by the Churches for man’s existence on earth, contended that the ordinarily accepted time was insufficient for the development of known diversities of type…But two features have now to be considered which were then excluded: one, the admittedly huge period of time man has inhabited the earth; the other, the light resulting from the untiring labors of Darwin in the path opened out by Lamarck and somewhat hesitatingly trodden by Wallace.”
In addition to being the field that “more than any other science finds itself in conflict with religious and political institutions,” anthropology in CB’s mind is the best place to look for moral answers. “To know what man should do,” he says, “it is first necessary to know what man is, and what it is he can do.” This is a key to CB’s interest in lecturing to his working-class audiences on the subject. The other key is anthropology’s potential as a source of insight for the biological improvement of humanity. He quotes Topinard saying “it is undeniable that man by a certain method of high breeding and well-managed crossing is capable of being changed in successive generations in his physical as well as in his moral character. According to the modes adopted he will go on either degenerating or improving.” While these words in Topinard’s “Introduction” form the closing point in an argument regarding the utility of anthropology, CB would have seen their congruence with his belief in individual self-determination. Perfectibility in CB’s mind was all about individuals making the right choices. As such, it was quite distinct from the top-down, large-group focus a eugenicist might use to interpret Topinard’s words. Biological improvement and moral choice was also a refutation of the type of historical inevitability proposed by Marx and his followers. And it was a positive application of the principles that led CB to support population control doctrines. Anthropology provided a way out of both the accusation that “atheism is only a rejection,” and the claim that Neo-Malthusian ideas were “against life.”
