vi Introduction 



an earlier generation read about Darwin instead of 

 reading him. The process by which in the modern 

 world we undermine error seems to be something 

 like this : A Spencer or a Darwin gives his life to the 

 statement of a certain truth; a fractional part of 

 that truth — distorted — is taken by some chatter- 

 merchant, as the modern journalist has been 

 called, put into a paragraph, or worse still, into a 

 head line, and that for the mass of us is what we 

 know of the life-work in question. Thus for 

 twenty years Darwinism, to the great public, was 

 summed up in the question, "Were men once 

 monkeys?"; and this distortion, this failure to 

 grasp the real meaning of Darwin's message, did 

 not affect only the Philistine and the multitude. 

 The social implications of Darwin's message 

 have been discussed by at least some scientists, 

 by men of learning and cultivation, who, almost 

 certainly — astounding as the assertion may seem 

 — did not trouble to read any one of his books 

 through. The world has fixed upon an interpre- 

 tation of Darwinism in applying it to social 

 phenomena which Darwin feared they would give 

 it, against which he expressly warned them, and 

 concerning which he declared in advance that 

 such an interpretation was not his. His warning 

 does not seem to have had the least effect. Such 

 phrases as "the struggle for existence," "survival 

 of the fittest, " and "the role of conflict and force" 

 have been seized upon by reactionary politicians 

 and sociologists and applied to their own problems 



