Social Darwinism

Malthus’s theory that unchecked population growth would outstrip food supply directly influenced Charles Darwin in developing the concept of natural selection. His ideas contributed to the Victorian belief that poverty was caused by excessive procreation of the lower classes and were used to justify the poor laws - helping the poor would only increase their numbers. Then, following the publication of 'The Origin of Species', Social Darwinism seemed to explain the emergence of fabulously wealthy elites and the masses of poor in teeming city slums. If idleness, criminality, sexual misbehavior and alcoholism were passed along from generation to generation, like hair and eye color, a permanent criminal underclass might emerge. Charity only attracted impostors and vagrants to the cities and poor relief destroyed the work ethic that motivated the poor to work. 

Social Darwinism, the theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals, was being defined by scholars in the 1870s. The 'survival of the fittest' idea led its advocates to believe that the strong should see their wealth and power increase at the expense of the weak. It was used to justify political conservatism, imperialism and racism. It was also used to discourage intervention and reform.

Herbert Spencer introduced the phrase "survival of the fittest" in his book 'Principles of Biology' (1864). He wrote that society would naturally sort itself out, the more "fit" individuals rising to positions of higher prominence and the less "fit" succumbing to poverty and disease. Both government-run social programmes and charity hindered this "natural" stratification of the populace. He believed that the struggle for survival spurred self-improvement which could be inherited.

Meanwhile, Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, coined the phrase "nature versus nurture" and proposed the need for eugenics to save society from "inferior" minds. He argued in 1865 and 1869 that heredity should be a conscious decision, to avoid over-breeding by "less fit" members of society and the under-breeding of the "more fit" ones. Institutions such as welfare and insane asylums allowed "inferior" humans to survive and reproduce faster than "superior" humans in respectable society. However 'the weak could find a welcome and a refuge in celibate monasteries or sisterhoods'. Darwin read his cousin's work with interest, and devoted sections of Descent of Man (1871) to discussion of Galton's theories.