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| Charles Darwin |
Consider the following paragraph by Darwin in The descent of man (chapter 5):
With savages, the weak in body or
mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous
state of health. We
civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of
elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we
institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the
life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that
vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would
formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised
societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of
domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of
man.
It seems incredible that, after a lifetime
devoted almost exclusively to meditate on his theory of evolution, Darwin made
the mistake of applying it wrongly to humans, as is clearly demonstrated in the
paragraph I have just quoted.
