Exceprt: DARWIN’S SACRED CAUSE: HOW A HATRED OF SLAVERY SHAPED DARWIN’S VIEWS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION by Adrian Desmond and James Moore. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009 In this controversial reinterpretation of Charles Darwin’s life and work, the authors of a highly regarded 1991 biography argue that the driving force behind Darwin’s theory of evolution was his fierce abolitionism, which had deep family roots and was reinforced by his voyage on the Beagle and by events in America:
“… the barbarity of slavery brought his barely visible abolitionism into sudden sharp relief. It demanded a new commitment, the sort he had been unable to give till now.
“His encounters with Fuegians in cravats, and ‘Hottentots’ in white gloves, had proved human cultural adaptability as no anti-slavery tract could. Nothing could have better pointed up the pliancy of race. It justified the abolitionist faith in blacks being able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. The impeccably mannered ‘Hottentot’ was living proof of the evil of considering ‘wild’ humans grovelling beasts. These racial encounters sharpened Darwin’s sense of injustice—the tortured slaves, genocide of the Pampas Indians, the dragnet round-ups of the Tasmanians, the stuffing of ‘Hottentot’ skins. The result was an astonishing outpouring early in his notebooks which reveals the anguish behind his evolutionary venture.”
Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, “Reviews”.
