The American Crisis: Origins-
The Failure of Modern Science and Our Historical Dilemma
Miscellaneous Notes and Summary
Journal Entry #30

In the spirit of the classical Greek mathematician Archimedes, Western thought by the nineteenth century possessed the fulcrum and lever long enough to move the earth, to say nothing of the entire universe. Such leverage was found in the worldview known as naturalism, the belief that all objects and phenomena- including the human mind- are products of natural processes and can therefore be studied and explained by the methods used in the natural sciences.

Naturalism as a method is perfectly reflected in Charles Darwin’s theory of development. If a plant or animal can be understood as the product of a natural process of “descent with modification through variation and natural selection”, why would an alternate supernatural explanation be necessary- or wanted? As the influence of his 1859 Origin of Species expanded throughout Western Civilization, the obvious challenge it posed to the static creation account of biblical Genesis became irresistible.

Additionally, the ascendancy of Darwin’s work coincided with the emergence of another European movement which accompanied nationalism and imperialism: the notion of racialism. This was the theory of the inherent inferiority or superiority of one race in comparison to another and predates Darwin’s Origin of Species, as evidenced in the 1853 publication Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races written by Joseph Arthur- Comte de Gobineau.

Though not intended to support racialism, Darwin’s theory of biological development nevertheless provided both impetus and a quasi-scientific respectability to such ideas. Klaus Fischer notes in his Nazi Germany; A New History, that racialism shifted in emphasis in the nineteenth century “from a personal or even a social bias to an all-embracing ideology claiming to possess a master key to world history.”

“Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century was dominated intellectually by Darwinian biology, public discussion was intensely preoccupied with such magical phrases as natural selection, heredity, struggle for existence, and the survival of the fittest. A veritable flood of printed material was devoted to racial stocks, racial behavior, and racial breeding, creating the impression that racial issues could be reduced to the level of scientific animal husbandry…large numbers of racial taxonomies were invented.”

“Sir Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, was in the vanguard of such sociobiological speculation. He was convinced that heredity rather than environment molded individual characteristics, and he called for a concerted national effort to regulate heredity”, becoming- according to James Burke, in The Day the Universe Changed- a conspicuous advocate of British and American eugenics movements in the 1860’s. From racialism, Darwinian theory was enlisted in support of a general ideology of race, which perceived the biological necessity of maintaining racial purity.

Mr. Burke further relates that on the European continent, the German doctor and scholar Ernst Haeckel saw in the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species a means of uniting Hegel’s idealism (objective or absolute idealism shares with other forms of idealism the common ground that “the external world” is somehow created by the mind) with the German movement Romanticism. The latter sought to reunite man and nature- a connection thought to be subverted by rationalism and industrialism. (The nineteenth century German composer Richard Wagner's music was characteristic of the Romantic movement).

Haeckel went on to articulate the philosophical view of Monism, as distinguished from Dualism, the former regarding man and animals as naturally inseparable. To the Monist, man was not a special creation and possessed no soul, merely a higher degree of natural development. “Darwin had shown that human society and biological nature were one. Human society must therefore be ruled by the same laws of competition, conflict and aggression. Nations must fight to survive as organisms did, or perish.”

It was thought Haeckel’s interpretation of Darwin’s theory was considered crucial to the intellectual joining of racism, imperialism, romanticism and anti-Semitism. In 1906 Ernst Haeckel founded the Monist League in Jena, with the Nobel prize-winning chemist William Ostwald appointed president of the league in 1911. The league went on to inspire the Volkist movement which advocated “blood and purity” of the German race over the surrounding peoples. It was believed that racial purity was a natural means of ensuring the greatness of the German nation.

James Burke’s study also recognizes the racial anthropologist Otto Ammon, who proposed that the “laws of nature were the laws of society…Darwin must become the new religion of Germany…the racial struggle is necessary for mankind.” In 1904 the eugenics journal Archiv was founded, which at once advocated the formation of a national board to determine the racial purity of prospective parents, and promoted various suggestions for elite breeding communities.

The dark days immediately following World War I saw the formation of a German youth movement- a precursor to the Hitler Youth Movement- named after an obscure Aryan deity Artamarzen. Amongst the charter members of which were Heinrich Himmler and Rudolf Hess; their basic vision, observed James Burke, was the elevation of the interests of the State over the individual. The “German nation would become a biological elite. Struggle would be its prime reason for existence. Underpinned by Darwin’s theory of evolution, Nazism was born.”

As with much of Western Europe in the nineteenth century, Germany began to experience the considerable force of rapid industrialization that attended the era of growing nationalism and imperialism. Even as native populations were exploited in Europe’s imperial possessions overseas, so also in Europe’s heavy industrial centers workers were similarly exploited, being subjected to appalling work conditions, long hours and meager pay. It was in this age of the “dark satanic mills” that Karl Marx assessed the future of capitalism in light of his view of history as an ongoing struggle among social classes over wages and profits.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) the German political economist and organizer of the working class, wrote Das Kapital in 1867 in which he provides socialism with a philosophic foundation in Hegel’s dialectic method (thesis vs. antithesis = synthesis), combined with- among other elements- natural selection’s “survival of the fittest” principle of Darwin’s evolutionary theory. James Burke notes in his Day the Universe Changed, that it was said that upon reading Darwin, Marx wrote to his intellectual collaborator Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) that “Origin of Species is the natural history foundation for our views.”

What has been said here in this brief survey of Darwinism should not be construed as an indictment on those who subscribe to evolutionary models of biological causation: belief in evolution does not automatically make one a believer in Nazism or Communism. Darwinian evolutionary theory is not a sufficient condition for Nazism, but it nevertheless is a necessary condition.

To be familiar with necessary and sufficient conditions is to understand a basic principle of the cause and effect universe in which we live. In his Introduction to Logic, Professor Irving Copi discusses Causal Connections in light of that “fundamental axiom”, which states that “in the study of nature…events do not just happen, but occur only under certain conditions.” This axiom applies not only to geophysical events such as volcanoes, glaciers, plate tectonics, hurricanes, etc., but to man-made phenomena as well; in this case, totalitarian societies.

Of critical importance when studying any causal connection is the distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions, as these invariably coincide to promote an event, effect or result. “A necessary condition for the occurrence of a specified event is a circumstance in whose absence the event cannot occur…A sufficient condition for the occurrence of an event is a circumstance in whose presence the event must occur.” Professor Copi uses the example of fire to illustrate the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. As we know, fire is produced when oxygen, a flammable material and ignition come together.

“For example, the presence of oxygen is a necessary condition for combustion to occur: if combustion occurs, then oxygen must have been present, for in the absence of oxygen there can be no combustion…The presence of oxygen is not a sufficient condition for combustion because oxygen can be present without combustion occurring.” Given the presence of the necessary conditions of oxygen and a flammable material however, ignition becomes the sufficient condition for combustion because with the introduction of ignition a fire must inevitably result. (Italics are mine)

Fortified as we are then, with the knowledge that Darwinian evolutionary theory is a necessary condition- an indispensable condition- for the establishment of Nazism, but not a sufficient condition- a circumstance the presence of which Nazism must occur- then what is the sufficient condition for the establishment of totalitarianism? The answer to this question requires a look at the heart of the scientific enterprise itself: the scientific method…

Montag