Social Metaphors in Evolutionary Biology, 1870–1930: The Wider Dimension of Social Darwinism

Abstract

The popularity of the term “Social Darwinism” highlights the problems lying in wait for anyone wishing to analyze the question of the transfer of metaphors between biology and social theory. Here is a term which, in its original meaning, denotes the application of metaphors that were highly successful in biology to social theory and to social policy. Darwin used the concepts of the “stuggle for existence” and the “survival of the fittest” to revolutionize biology through the introduction of a materialistic theory of evolution. The Social Darwinists then — illegitimately, in the eyes of most users of the term — argued that the same process of struggle and elimination of the unfit should be encouraged in society as a means of guaranteeing progress. But, as both Marx and Engels pointed out at a very early stage in the debate, Darwin’s theory could itself be seen as the projection onto nature of the social values of laissez-faire capitalism. The transfer of metaphors works both ways, and historians of science are still debating the extent of the role played by social metaphors in the construction of evolutionary theory.1 No one, however, doubts that models and metaphors, which have gained the kudos of being labelled “scientific,” have then been employed by social thinkers.