Essay - Darwinian Ideas How Much Influence did the Work of Charles...

Darwinian Ideas

How much influence did the work of Charles Darwin have on Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner, and Lester Frank Ward? And who has made the better case in terms of plugg*****g Darwin's evolutionary concepts and theories into late 19th Century American Society? This paper examines the ideas presented by Spencer, *****, and *****, ***** offers ***** opinion that Spencer had the greater influence on the future of American thought and social values. There are many so-called "experts" on cultures ***** religion that invoke the word "evolution" (in putting down evolution as a scientific theory in order to promote ***** "creationist" agenda), it is worthwhile to look to the past for thinkers' views on Darwin and *****.

Meanwhile, the same year that ***** Spencer - a nineteenth century social scientist ***** published his *****-heralded essay on school curriculum ("What Knowledge is of Most Worth"), Charles Darwin published his earth-shaking, scientifically revolutionary t*****le, Origins of ***** Species. And it is clear that "evolutionary thinking was entering into scientific d*****course" (Silberman, 2003), and as a result, the concept of evolution (on m*****ny levels) was "trans*****ming our underst*****ing of man's place in ***** natural order..." Silberman writes in the Journal of Educati*****.

As for Spencer's use of Darw*****ian thought, the social scientist's ***** reflected a "relentless ef*****t to formulate an overarching *****ory of evolution *****d to bring it to bear on all matters human."

Evolution (social and biological *****), in the view of Spencer, "is fundament*****y a process of ********** and differentiation..." Even the gestation of a living creature, ***** believed, "is an evolutionary ***** whereby an initial undifferentiated mass is transformed into a complex organism, each part distinct from, but related to, the other **********," Silverman wrote. Spencer was app*****ntly seen as a genius in terms of underst*****nd*****g - and putting into words and concepts - that just as "***** history provides evidence for the specific laws ***** social evolution and must, in turn, be understood in light of such *****.

William Graham Sumner - ***** w*****, accord*****g to the Journal ***** Libertarian Studies, a "pioneering sociologist" ***** "*****stute his*****rian of the early American republic" ***** critiqued democracy in 20th ***** as "plutocratic, paternalistic, and imperialist" (Trask, 2004). He saw the western nation-states as "too geographically extensive, populous, and diverse" to ever achieve democracy; he saw ***** "great *****" ***** Europeans ***** Americans as "incapable of self-government"; and furt*****r, he believed the "plu*****crats in America" would become imperialistic and "warlike, ***** would gradually extend paternal protections to the masses.

Around the year 1876, Sumner began reading ***** Darwin, Thomas Huxley, and Herbert Spencer, and ***** asserts ***** in particular, *****'s books, Social Statics, First Principles, and Study of Sociology "exerted enormous influence on his thought." It was from this point ***** that Sumner became more and more interested in ***** theory, and in the mid-1890s, began devot*****g "his full attention ***** sociology."

How influenced ***** he by ***** work? Scholars and critics ***** "mistakenly cited Sumner as the leading Social Darwinist