Were the early nineteenth-century British theories about human biology simply an inevitable

product of the economic, social and political context of that age?

Britain in the first half of the nineteenth-century was a period of almost

unprecedented political and economic upheaval; the arrival of the Industrial Revolution heralded the
rise of a new form of capitalism, leading to the mass migration of the lower classes to the cities, the
growth of large factories and, perhaps most importantly, the emergence of a newly empowered and
enriched middle class. The French Revolution and the ideas which it engendered across the Channel
merely served to highlight this period in British history as one of uncertainty and change. Against this
context the major scientific theories about human biology emerged, including, firstly, the
phrenologists, including most notably men such as George Combe, who stressed that the brain was
the organ of the mind, but also crucially held that this organ could in fact be separated into a large
number of different compartments, each associated with a certain specific role, or human emotion.
Phrenology was a theory which seemed very much a product of its times, with its key tenets centred
around the importance of materialism, stressing the ability of even ordinary, working-class people to
explore and examine the evidence for themselves. This of course was something of a great leveller in
society at the time, and was met with scorn and indignation by the academic and indeed social elite
of contemporary Britain, who strongly resisted this trend towards scientific popularisation and, as
they saw it, amateurism. Darwin’s ideas on evolution and natural selection, developed in the 1830s
but not published for another twenty years, may also be seen as a product of the man’s economic
and political context. Firstly, Darwin came very much from an elite, landowning background. After his
journeys on the Beagle, he was able to live comfortably and independently for the rest of his life, by
investing and improving the land which he had inherited. His context was therefore very much more
a landed rather than the newly industrialised capitalism, and a theory centred on the survival,
maintenance and strengthening of the winners in nature does appear to be an idea well-grounded in
Darwin’s own economic experience. Secondly, Darwin’s political beliefs, a largely typical nineteenth-
century Whig, also seem to have played some role in the formulation of his theories regarding
human evolution and natural selection. Darwin on the whole rejected phrenology, and also rejected
notions prevalent in contemporary European society that the different human races somehow
originated from different species, and that these distinctions would remain forever irreconcilable. For
Darwin, humanity was very much one homogenous species, itself a Whiggish view, and the
differences between races were largely downplayed, with the important consequence that the
institution of slavery began to be seen as unnatural, and unjustifiable.
 British phrenology was centred on the city of Edinburgh in the first few decades of the
nineteenth-century. In Edinburgh perhaps, the old elite of British society, the aristocracy, was even
more prominent than elsewhere in the nation during this age, the effects of the Industrial Revolution
being felt here less strongly, and crucially later, than much of the rest of the United Kingdom, “As it
has no very extensive manufacturers, the city is exempt from those sudden mercantile convulsions
productive of so much misery in many other of the great towns of the kingdom”. 1 Perhaps this meant
that when Edinburgh society did begin to change, that the convulsions were felt all the more
strongly, and the conflict between the established elite, the aristocracy and university professors, and
the new, industrial middle class factory owners and businessmen, was all the more heated. It was
from this middle class that the leaders of the British phrenological movement largely, though not
exclusively, tended to emerge. One contemporary commentator held, “…an avenging spirit is over
us- a Nemesis has shot down upon us. There is war among the castes…” 2 it could be argued that the
rise of phrenology, and the heated intellectual debate between its early protagonists and its critics,
had more to do with a socio-economic class conflict, between “new men” middle class phrenologists
and the established economic, social and academic elite, than a sincerely scientific argument centred
around areas of purely academic disagreement. George Combe himself noted in the 1830s that,
“phrenology advances here rapidly in the humbler grades of the middle rank. The philosophers of the
old school and the religious combine to denounce it in the higher…” 3 It would seem, therefore, that
the intellectual debate which dominated ideas on the human brain in early nineteenth-century
Britain, including debates between convinced advocates of phrenology and their detractors, was a
product of conflicting socio-economic contexts, and that these class divides shaped the distinct
scientific opinions of the individuals involved. Certainly, it can be argued that phrenology was almost
universally resisted by the academic elite at Edinburgh; being largely never taught at the university
during this period, with the consequence that those individuals, like George Combe, who did become
early advocates of phrenology, came from outside the existing academic and social elite. There
seemed very little room for crossover between these two opposing positions; in 1826, not a single
professor at Edinburgh university belonged to the official Phrenological society, though all were
members of the far more aristocratic and respectable Royal Society. 4 Perhaps the opposition to
phrenology in this period, particularly from the aristocracy and landed gentry, was the more
vehement because of the social background of the British phrenologists, and because of the
1
Black’s guide through Edinburgh (7th ed., Edinburgh 1851) 11 – From Steven Shapin, Phrenological Knowledge
and Early Nineteenth-Century Edinburgh, p. 233
2
John Heiton, The castes of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1859), - From Ibid, p. 234
3
Steven Shapin, Phrenological Knowledge and Early Nineteenth-Century Edinburgh, p. 228
4
Ibid, p. 229
statements which phrenology seemed able to make about contemporary society. Phrenology, though
it may seem more the opposite to modern observers, was largely a levelling force in society, holding
that the size of a person’s brain was directly related to their mental capacities. Ergo, neither the
excellent education nor the esteemed generational stock which the Edinburgh elite held could render
them ostensibly superior to an uneducated man of the working classes who simply had a large brain
with well-developed areas relating to intelligence or morality. That is not to say, however, that there
was not a basis for academic disagreement between phrenologists and their opponents as well.
Certainly, political and economic motivations must have been mixed with purely scientific grounds
for disagreement, the phrenological case was always simplistic and overly materialistic, even in the
early nineteenth century, and issues such as the frontal sinuses seemed to discredit phrenology,
preventing it from ever achieving status as a truly legitimate, established school of science. However,
phrenology threatened the traditional elite of the period because it encouraged the opening up of
science to the amateurs; to the lower classes, whether educated or not, who were told by men like
Combe at large, open-air, lectures, to observe the “facts” for themselves. It was this simple
accessibility of phrenology which threatened the entire academic system of Edinburgh and indeed
Britain as a whole, if an illiterate amateur from the lower classes was able to investigate the human
brain to an acceptable standard by himself, then what purpose was there for professional scientific
elites?

Charles Darwin was born into a highly aristocratic family, and, receiving an esteemed
education at Edinburgh and Cambridge, and was, even as a relatively young man, able to live
independently and comfortably, off the profits of his inheritance. Darwin was, therefore, almost
totally removed from the Industrial Revolution and the upheaval it caused, living as he did a very
secluded life in rural Kent, almost the opposite both geographically and socially of the great industrial
towns of the north like Manchester and Leeds. It was to be landed capitalism, not industrial
competition, which was to frame his ideas on evolution, survival of the fittest and the extinction of
those species not strong enough to adapt to their environment. Something of Darwin’s beliefs can be
gained from this extract from a later work, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, “...
We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their
kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior
members of society do not marry so freely as the sound.” 5 It would seem here that Darwin did
indeed make the connection between his theories on the survival of the fittest in the animal kingdom
and the consequences that this would have in contemporary human society. It seems likely also that
Darwin did indeed hold the view that the “strong” elements of society, the aristocracy, the landed
5
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and selection in Relation to Sex, p. 19
elite and so on, deserved their superior status, and that the preservation of that status, even at the
expense of the “weak”, was a positive and necessary aim. Darwin also held that, “… from the war of
nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely,
the production of the higher animals, directly follows...There is grandeur in this view of life.” 6 Notions
of “war” in nature seem to reveal the extent to which Darwin saw parallels between the animal
world and human society, and the description of conflict and death in nature as possessing
“grandeur” seems to suggest that Darwin approved in some way of this brutal competition, perhaps
since he himself was one of the “strong”, a winner in both contemporary human society, based as it
was around landed or industrial capitalism, as well as in nature. Overall, it seems difficult to contend
that landed capitalism provided a solid context for Darwin’s theories on evolution and natural
selection, with its emphasis on competition, on the “grandeur” and “noble” aspects of this conflict,
and with a focus on the survival and strengthening of the winners, in both human society and the
natural world, as the glaring expense of the losers. However, although landed capitalism provides a
framework with which Darwin almost certainly viewed his theories on evolution, that does not
necessarily mean that his theories are therefore somehow insincere, or less valuable. Nor does it
mean that Darwin’s theory of evolution was a natural and inevitable product of his time. Inevitability
seems somehow inaccurate, and seems to do a disservice to a man such as Darwin, whose lifetime of
hard work and theorising cannot be reduced entirely to the unconscious product of his own socio-
economic context.

Parallels can seemingly be traced between Darwin’s political ideas and his theories on human
evolution. Darwin was, at least throughout his adult life, a convinced and fairly typical British Whig.
He was very much a member of the anti-slavery camp, never convinced by phrenology, despite the
fact that he studied in Edinburgh during the very period the city became a hotbed of phrenological
ideas, and always stressed the importance of the shared identity of all the human races, rather than
focusing, as many of his contemporaries did, on racial distinctiveness. In one of his major works,
Darwin wrote, “…There is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of
all nations and races…before we look at them as our fellow-creatures.” 7 Darwin certainly appears to
hold the scientific view that all humans are members of one species, with the differences between
races being relatively minor, whilst also subscribing to the notion of a shared origin for all humanity.
He also argued, “…I was told before leaving England, that after living in slave countries: all my options
would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the Negros

6
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 143
7
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and selection in Relation to Sex, p. 7
character.”8 Overall, therefore, it appears accurate to argue that the ideological and political views of
Darwin, seemed to correspond with and indeed to shape and inform his scientific theories regarding
the universal origin of the humanity, and his academic rejection of the idea of several distinct human
species, “It is impossible to see a negro & not feel kindly toward him.” 9 Surely, Darwin’s Whiggish,
anti-slavery tendencies, focused on the gradual improvement of human society, including the lower
classes, would have been incompatible with a scientific theory regarding the human races as distinct
even to the extent that they represented irreconcilably different species, with some being ostensibly
and inevitable superior to others.

In conclusion, it is difficult to arrive at any concrete statements on whether socio-political

contexts where crucially important in framing scientific theories in Britain in the early nineteenth-
century. What can be said for certain is that economic and social contexts of this unique period in
British history clearly helped men like George Combe come to their phrenological conclusions, or
assisting Darwin in noticing the importance of conflict and competition in nature. Perhaps, it is best
to simply aim towards a synthesis; the scientific theories of this period relied upon their cultural and
economic contexts for their very existence, and yet, they were not merely an inevitable, unconscious
product of their times. That is to say, the individuals themselves, like Darwin, deserve credit for their
intellectual pragmatism, for recognising and noting the potential parallels between civilisation and
the processes of the natural world. Indeed, must an understanding of the importance of economic
and social contexts behind scientific theories necessarily undermine their value, or their sincerity?

8
Charles Darwin to Catherine Darwin (May 22 - July 14 1833) The Correspondence of Charles
Darwin Vol. 1 1821-1836 (1985), pp. 312-313
9
Ibid, p. 313