NOTES AND DOCUMENTS: A Recently Discovered Darwin Letter on Social Darwinism

摘要

SINCE CHARLES DARWIN'S VIEWS on social and economic issues have been an issue of debate among those writing on social Darwinism for the past two decades, the recent discovery of a letter from Darwin to Heinrich Fick that addresses this issue will surely be of interest. As most Darwin scholars are aware, Darwin rarely discussed socio-economic matters in his correspondence. In an 1873 letter thanking Karl Marx for a copy of Das Kapital, he admitted his ignorance of economics. In 1869, after a German econo-mist, Hugo Thiel, sent him an article on economic applications of Darwinism, Darwin wrote: "You will readily believe how much interested I am in observing that you apply to moral and social questions analogous views to those which I have used in regard to the modification of species. It did not occur to me formerly that my views could be extended to such widely different, and most important subjects."1 However, in 1993 I turned up a letter in which Darwin candidly discussed some of his economic views and how his theory relates to economics. It is the strongest piece of evidence of which I am aware that Darwin himself believed that his biological theory lent support to individualist economic compe-tition and laissez-faire economics.