Ernst Haeckel, Nikolai Miklucho-Maclay and the racial controversy over the Papuans

Georgy S Levit,Uwe Hossfeld

doi:10.1186/s12983-020-00358-w

Abstract

BackgroundThe “German Darwin” Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a key figure during the first “Darwinian revolution“, a time when the foundations of the modern evolutionary theory were laid. It was Haeckel, who crucially contributed to the visualization of the Darwinian theory by designing “genealogical-trees” illustrating the evolution of various species, including humans. Although the idea of explaining human evolution by natural selection belongs to Darwin, Haeckel was the first who attempted to create a new exact anthropology based on the Darwinian method.DiscussionTrying to immediately reconstruct human evolution proceeding from the description of modern populations led Haeckel to the views which, from the contemporary perspective, are definitely racist. Haeckel created racial anthropology intending to prove human origins from a lower organism, but without the intention of establishing a discriminatory racial praxis. Although hierarchical in its outcome, the Haeckelian method did not presuppose the necessity of a racial hierarchy of currently living humans. It is crucial to grasp in what sense Haeckel’s theoretical explorations in human evolution were racist, and in what sense they were not. Our argument flows as follows. One of Haeckel’s pupils was the Russian ethnographer, anthropologist and zoologist Nikolai Nikolajewitsch Miklucho-Maclay (1846–1888). Maclay and Haeckel worked closely together for several years; they traveled jointly and Maclay had enough time to learn the major methodological principles of Haeckel’s research. Yet in contrast to Haeckel, Maclay is regarded as one of the first scientific anti-racists, who came to anti-racist views using empirical field studies in Papua-New Guinea.ConclusionsWe claim that while conducting these studies Maclay applied scientific principles to a significant extent acquired from Haeckel. The paper contributes to the view that Haeckel’s theoretical racism did not follow the Darwinian method he used.

Highlights

The “German Darwin” Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a key figure during the first “Darwinian revolution“, a time when the foundations of the modern evolutionary theory were laid
Petersburg, and published in the same year, he explicitly spoke against the prejudices of the infamous French theorist of racial inequality Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816– 1882) and against his claim “L’homme est l’animal méchant par excellence” (Man is the wicked animal par excellence) [10, 45]. That when he began understanding the language of the Papuans and their relationships, he was surprised by their “gentleman-like” attitudes, democratic social structure and friendly family relations [45]
In accordance with the concept of natural selection and social Darwinian conceptual constructions, the Papuans were for Haeckel doomed to die out, being replaced by more progressive human races such as the Mediterranean

Summary

Discussion

We outline Haeckel’s theory of human species and specify the place of the Papuans in it. In a small book published shortly before his death Ewigkeit: Weltkriegsgedanken über Leben und Tod, Religion und Entwicklungslehre (1915) [Eternity: World War Time Thoughts about Life and Death, Religion and Evolutionary Theory] written at the beginning of the First World War, Haeckel in a polemic style repeated his thesis that “black-brown” Australians and Papuans represent lower human races [niedere Menschenrassen] [17] He stated again, as in the first edition of the Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte in 1868, that the difference between “highly developed European nations and the lowest savages” is more significant than that between “the savages” and anthropoid apes. During his 1876–77 expedition to the Maclay-Coast (the North-east coast of Papua New Guinea) he conducted head-measurements on 148 living individuals of both sexes and described 23 Papuans crania [42] He always emphasized that physical anthropology (the race anthropology) would remain merely an “unedifying doctrine” [unerquickliches Studium] without detailed field studies and profound anatomical investigations “on the section table” [42]. Maclay’s “tribes” and “races” differentiate under external influences but this does not make them “higher” or “lower” on the evolutionary tree, as in Haeckel’s case

Conclusions

Background

Competing interests No