Spencer, Herbert
ハーバード・スペンサー
Spencer, Herbert 1852 "The Development Hypothesies" <429>
――――― 1854 Social Statics <429>
――――― 1857 "Progress : Its Law and Cause", Westminster Review, April 1857→1963 in Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects, Everyman's Library, J.M.Dent, London (1st ed., 1911)＝1980 tr. by Shimizu, Reiko (清水 禮子), Shimizu ed. [1980:397-442] <429>
――――― 1862 First Principles <429>
――――― 1864-67 Principles of Biology, 2 vols <429>
Stanworth, Michelle ed. 1987 Reproductive Technologies : Gender, Motherhood and Medicine, Polity Press, 234p. <168>
At roughly the same time or slightly later, surveys that measured the characteristics and abilities of individuals and investigations of family lineage began to be carried out, and claims began to be made that these characteristics were innately determined◆19. With claims referring to ability and differences in ability came assertions of this innateness and attempts to explain these differences in terms of heredity. Examples of this kind of approach include those referred to as "social evolutionism," "social Darwinism," "eugenics,> and, in Germany, "racial hygiene." Thinkers like Harberd Spencer(1820-1903) took Darwin's theory of evolution and attempted to apply it to the human world, making a series of claims that came to be called "social Darwinism." Social Darwinism and Spencer's theory of social evolution received support in America and elsewhere beginning in the latter half of the 19th century◆20. The term "eugenics" was coined by Darwin's nephew Francis Galton in 1883, and became a very influential intellectual and socio-political movement in various countries, particularly at the beginning of the 20th century◆21. By the end of the 19th century the idea of "racial hygiene" had also begun to take shape in Germany◆22.
chap.6 note 20
"Spencer's idea of social evolution was presented in the essay "The Development Hypothesis" and the word "evolution" appears in this text. This term was also used several times in "Progress: Its Law and Cause" (Spencer [1857]). This concept was brought further to the fore in Spencer [1854] [1862] [1864-67] and in Spencer [1864-67] the phrase "survival of the fittest" was also employed. All of these books were released before "On the Origin of Species," and a discussion of evolution was included in the final editions published in 1872 (Yasugi [1984:106ff]). Spencer was heavily influenced by Lamarck and his ideas of the heredity of acquired traits (see Bowler [1984]) and saw natural selection as a process of secondary importance. A connection has been pointed out between this view and an optimistic conception of evolution (see Suzuki [1991a:112-113]). 168,755 copies of Spencer's books were sold in America from the 1860s to December 1903 (Sakakihara [1969:175]). For a very well known work on social darwinism in America and elsewhere see Hofstadter [1944,1955]. On the I.Q. debate in America (discussed in Chapter 7 Note 4), see Kamin [1974]. On this conflict and the "social biology debate" (discussed in Chapter 7 Note 1), see Gould [1981]. See also Nishikawa [1968] and Tomiyama [1992]. Regarding Spencer, see also Atoji [1957a]. This doctrine - like public education - was employed in a variety of different ways, and for a text that examines this point see Clark [1984].
Social Darwinism has been described as "the application of Darwin's theory of evolution and ideas of 'competition for survival' and 'survival of the fittest' to the explanation of social phenomenon" (Unoura [1991:122]). Regarding the connection between social Darwinism and social evolution, Yonemoto states that "in fact, looking only at historical sources, there is no difference between them" (Yonemoto [1981b:260] [1989a:48]). In a subsequent work Yonemoto refers to a Japanese translation of "Social Darwinism in American Thought" (Hofstadter [1944,1955=1973] in which the Japanese phrase "shakai shinkashisou" or "social evolutionary thought" is used in translating the title, and adds "the use of the term 'social evolution' to describe the movement in Britain and America in contrast to the term 'social Darwinism' used to describe German thought does a good job of expressing the central characteristics of these two forms of Darwinism, apart from the fact that the former was not directly related to Hitler. The phrase 'social evolution' implies an optimistic view in which humanity and human society evolve and progress like living creatures. The strength of this view in the Anglo-American world is striking, particularly in the United States where Spencer's influence was most pronounced. The phrase 'social Darwinism,' on the other hand, is surrounded by an atmosphere of cruelty and cold-bloodedness. It calls to mind the weeding out of the less fit rather than the survival of the fittest and conjures premonitions of regression and destruction rather than progress and development. And this sort of discourse in Germany has indeed been intense." (Yonemoto [1989a:50-51]; very similar statements are made in Yonemoto [1981b:260]). Regarding the connection between social darwinism/evolution and eugenics discussed later, Yonemoto states that Eugenics is a representative example of social Darwinism (Yonemoto [1989a:46])."