The Evolution of British Eugenic Thought Through Novels and Literature

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History has always had a fascinating relationship with fictional literature. They often

work symbiotically, with literature affecting historical change, history being reflected through

literary change, or both at once. The eugenics movement in Britain is no exception to this

connection. Literature has shown to reflect the evolving nature of the ideology behind eugenics,

from some of its earliest inceptions in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s to the post-World War II

era. This evolution will be examined over the course of this essay, with a particular focus on

H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and Huxley’s Brave New

World Revisited, as well as the historical context in Britain when each work was published.

19th Century Eugenics and The Time Machine

One of the predominant early figures of British eugenic thought was Sir Francis Galton.

Galton, in fact, coined the term eugenics, defining it as “the science of improving inherited stock,

not only by judicious matings, but by all the influences which give more suitable strains a better

chance.” (qtd. in Galton, 1998: 99). His 1869 book Hereditary Genius outlined his thoughts on

the differences between races, ways to measure intelligence, and, perhaps most importantly,

Galton’s belief in artificial selection. Building off of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural

selection, Galton’s artificial selection stated that, since traits such as intelligence were hereditary,

one could selectively breed for these traits; therefore, encouraging (or forcing) the best and

brightest humans to reproduce with others showcasing excellent traits would allow for said traits

to become more prevalent, making humans “more fit” overall (Galton, 1998: 99). These ideas

were considered noble and novel at the time and within a few decades would branch out and

evolve.

One such branching out would happen in 1895, when author Herbert George (H.G.)

Wells published The Time Machine, one of his most famous and well-regarded works. In the

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novel, a character known only as the Time Traveller builds a time machine and travels hundreds

of thousands of years into the future. In this distant future, he finds that humanity has evolved

into two distinct species: the Eloi, who are peaceful and most closely resemble humans, and the

Morlocks, who are ape-like and live underground. Throughout the course of The Time Machine,

the Time Traveller interacts with both species, musing about how human evolution branched off

to create the Eloi and Morlocks. Eventually, he returns to Britain in the late 1800’s to recount his

story (Wells, 1895).

The Time Traveler is often cited as one of the most influential works of science fiction,

and rightfully so. However, it is also an important piece of literature with regards to the history

of eugenics and human evolution. To Wells, the presence of the Eloi and Morlocks as separate

species highlighted his greatest fears about the evolution of man. As Piers Hale said, regarding

the evolutional split in The Time Machine, “More positively, however, the possibility of such

dramatic change suggested that humanity might lose its individualistic and competitive

characteristics and evolve into a socialistic species.” (Hale, 2003: 264). Wells was frightened by

the prospect that humans could evolve to be stripped of, in his view, their humanity, which led

him to support and propose eugenic policies (Hale, 2003: 264).

Wells was a strong proponent of eugenics—in particular, he supported negative eugenic

policies, which ran contrary to Galton’s proposed positive eugenics. According to positive

eugenics, the people with the most desirable inheritable traits would reproduce in order to spread

those traits in the general human genetic pool. Wells’ negative eugenics, then, would be the

opposite, wherein people with undesirable traits would be encouraged or forced to refrain from

breeding, lest their traits corrupt future generations (Levy, 2002). Wells didn’t simply prefer

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negative eugenics to positive eugenics, but rather stressed that the latter could not work. Nine

years after writing The Time Machine, he said the following regarding artificial selection:

“I believe that now and always the conscious selection of the best for reproduction will

be impossible; that to propose it is to display a fundamental misunderstanding of what

individuality implies. The way of nature has always been to slay the hindmost, and there

is still no other way, unless we can prevent those who would become the hindmost being

born. It is in the sterilization of failure, and not in the selection of successes for breeding,

that the possibility of an improvement of the human stock lies.” (Wells, 1904).

It can be inferred, therefore, that that Morlocks in The Time Machine represent what Wells

believes would have happened to a human race that did not artificially select against undesirable,

brutish traits.

The ideas and concerns proposed by Wells and Galton were not anomalous to their time;

rather, these thoughts were widely held by many British people in the Victorian era. Like Wells,

the Victorian population was scared of the concept of “race degradation” and was eager to

combat it in any way possible, making the tenants of eugenics very appealing. Throughout the

late 1800’s, these ideas became more prominent in public discourse, and similar themes began to

appear in the fictional literature of the era—some of which even predated the prominence of Sir

Francis Galton. As David Levy said, “These concerns are in fact a notable and recurring aspect

of Victorian literature. Charles Kingsley's 1862-63 children's novel, The Water-Babies, for

example, features a race that is free to "DoAsYouLike"; it devolves into apes. Kingsley's tale

merges Thomas Carlyle's Gospel of Obedience with a version of evolutionary biology of the

day.” (Levy, 2002).

The eugenics movement began to become more influential in the late 1900’s with the

formation of the Eugenics Education Society in 1907. This society had several hundred members

across Britain and Ireland and published a journal called The Eugenics Review. By 1912, the

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society had grown to international acclaim, hosting the First International Congress on Eugenics.

With more and more conferences and societies being created relating to genetics, it was clear that

the movement was gaining public support (Field, 1911: 39-41). The concerns and fears of

citizens and scientists alike regarding eugenics would continue to manifest themselves in British

thought, evolving eventually into policies, laws, and even backlash.

Eugenics Before World War II and Brave New World

Although interest and fascination with eugenic policies in Britain started in the late

1800’s, it wasn’t until the early- to mid-1900’s that they fully took form as a social movement.

After the aforementioned Eugenics Education Society and other similar groups formed, people

from all across the ideological spectrum began clamoring for official state-run policies regarding

eugenics. Some of these activists were very much in Wells’ school of thought regarding negative

eugenics. They called for compulsory sterilization laws to ensure that feeble minded people not

be allowed to reproduce and corrupt the gene pool, and they feared the dangers of evolution

more than they saw the potential benefits. Other prominent figures, mostly on the left end of the

political spectrum, affirmed their beliefs in positive eugenics and demanded policies based on

selective breeding of intelligent specimens.

One of these prominent positive eugenicists was author Aldous Huxley. Huxley is

perhaps best known for his dystopian novel Brave New World, which was published in 1932. In

his novel, Huxley reports his predictions of the future and fears for society. Joanne Woiak does

an excellent job explaining Brave New World’s central premise:

“Brave New World is remarkable for its accurate predictions about science and

technology, economics and politics, and arts and leisure. It extrapolates future

applications of genetics (IVF and cloning via Bokanovsky’s Process), endocrinology

(Malthusian belts), behaviorism (hypnopaedia), and pharmacology (soma). It depicts a

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World State in the year A.F. 632 (After Ford) where there is absolute social stability (and

creative stagnation) made possible by government-controlled research in biology and

psychology. Mass-produced bottle-babies are “predestined” to their future jobs using

eugenic selection, cloning, and conditioning; after “decanting” from artificial wombs they

are subjected to a lifetime of brainwashing techniques designed by ‘Emotional

Engineers.’ Society is strictly divided into five castes ranging from the Alpha Double

Plus ruling and managerial elite to the laboring Epsilon Minus semi-morons. The extreme

scenario depicted in the book—featuring totalitarianism, suppression of emotions,

ignorance and apathy, rampant consumerism, and vacuous entertainments such as

promiscuous sex and the ‘feelies’— has most commonly been read as a cautionary tale

about the dehumanizing effects of technology and the growing influence of cultural

trends that Huxley abhorred.” (Woiak, 2007: 107-108).

Although they had differing ideas and theories, Huxley’s and Wells’ Brave New World and The

Time Machine (respectively) had at least one thing in common: both were commonly read as

works of science fiction, yet both offer critiques and thoughts about eugenics below the surface.

In Huxley’s Brave New World, the explicit division of the different classes can be seen as

a parallel to early 20th century British eugenic thought. Many eugenicists of this time believed

that the lower, middle, and upper classes were divided not only by socioeconomic means but by

mental capacity and ability as well. Huxley takes this belief one step further by envisioning a

future world where people are born into these specific classes and genetically engineered to fit

certain traits, ensuring no social mobility. Thus, it was important to Huxley that his audience be

able to understand the role of science, technology, and eugenics in the advancement and

evolution of the human race (Woiak, 2007: 108-109).

Huxley was a clear proponent of positive or “reform” eugenics in both Brave New World

and his nonfiction writings that came out around the same time. Shortly after the novel’s

publication, Huxley wrote the following quote: “About 99.5% of the entire population of the

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planet are as stupid and philistine…as the great masses of the English. The important thing, it

seems to me, is not to attack the 99.5%...but to try to see that the 0.5% survives, keeps its quality

up to the highest possible level, and, if possible, dominates the rest. The imbecility of the 99.5%

is appalling—but after all, what else can you expect?” (qtd. In Woiak, 2007: 105). This positive

eugenic belief serves in stark contrast to the earlier negative eugenic thought that propagated the

works of Wells and the Victorian era in Britain. It is quite important, therefore, to distinguish the

differences between Wells’ and Huxley’s intents of writing their respective works: if Wells set

out to warn his audience about the dangers of an unchecked “inferior” race, then Huxley sought

to highlight the potential of improvement by technological means.

Many reading of Brave New World see its envisioned future as a dystopic nightmare, but,

if analyzed as a eugenic text, it can be seen as a semi-viable alternative to unfettered “natural”

evolution. As argued by Woiak,

“Given the context in which it was composed, Huxley’s story can be read as resolving

these issues in a relatively optimistic way. Oppressive methods—such as compulsory

genetic manipulation—had been necessary and tolerable in order to achieve the desired

goal of social and economic stability. Rule by meritocracy—the enlightened World

Controllers of A.F. 632—was the best alternative after democracy had failed.

And a stratified and soulless society was a less horrifying scenario than a country

exclusively composed of low-functioning Epsilons.” (Woiak, 2007: 111).

The key difference separating The Time Machine and Victorian Britain’s fears of the underclass

from Brave New World and pre-war Britain’s visions of the future was indeed the role that the

underclass would play in society. While Wells and his followers hoped that the underclass would

simply be eliminated and feared their potential damage were this not to happen, Huxley’s school

of thought deemed that inferior classes were a necessary part of society. Huxley expounded upon

those thoughts five years before the publication of Brave New World:

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“But if, as would be the case in a perfectly eugenized state, every individual is capable of

playing the superior part, who will consent or be content to do the dirty work and obey?

The inhabitants of one of Mr. Wells’s numerous Utopias solve the problem by ruling and

being ruled, doing high-brow and low-brow work, in turns. While Jones plays the piano,

Smith spreads the manure…An admirable state of affairs if it could be arranged… States

function as smoothly as they do because the greater part of the population is not very

intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do…

A state with a population consisting of nothing but these superior people could not hope

to last a year. The best is ever the enemy of the good. If the eugenists are in too much of

an enthusiastic hurry to improve the race, they will only succeed in destroying it.”

(Huxley, 1927: 329-330).

By directly repudiating Wells’ arguments and proposed solutions, Huxley highlighted the stark

differences between early and pre-war British eugenic thought.

Although Huxley was a clear proponent of positive eugenics, he did not necessarily shy

away from negative eugenic thought. In fact, he criticized many of his colleagues and the British

government for not being aggressive enough with regards to sterilization policies. In the early

1900’s, countries such as the United States and Germany began to introduce sterilization laws

into their societies. The British, however, were apprehensive about enacting such laws, and after

the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 passed, allowing state supervision of many underclass

individuals, it was determined that segregation was the most humane way of dealing with the

deficiency problem (Woiak, 2007: 120).

The reform eugenic beliefs propagated by Huxley and his supporters, most notably J.B.S.

Haldane, had a healthy mix of negative eugenics, positive eugenics, and leftist ideology. As

explained by Woiak,

“While still advocating “rational policies for the guidance of reproduction” in order to

cleanse the gene pool…They downplayed negative eugenics and most opposed

sterilization because it was too likely to be misapplied to the poor and powerless

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members of society. The group favored leftist politics, even Marxism. Eugenic

improvement could only occur, they maintained, in a socialist society with no economic

barriers so that the genetic cream could rise to the top. They still assumed that

intelligence was mostly an inherited trait and that only high-IQ people would have social

success. Finally, they sharply criticized assumptions about biological differences between

racial groups, and at least claimed to reject the idea of innate class differences as well.”

(Woiak, 2007: 121).

At the time, these ideas were relatively radical, particularly the aspects related to leftist politics.

The British government, however, never did enact sterilization laws like their neighbors in

Germany or allies in the United States, and positive eugenic thought became more prominent

following the “compassionate” class segregation of the aforementioned Mental Deficiencies Act.

Slightly more than a decade after the publication of Brave New World, though, the public

perception of anything to do with eugenics would change dramatically.

Post-World War II Eugenics and Brave New World Revisited

To say that World War II changed the way the international community viewed eugenics

would be a massive understatement. The Nazi regime in Germany had used eugenic policies and

philosophies to commit acts of genocide against twelve million innocent people, including, but

not limited to, Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, Poles, and the mentally and physically disabled. In

the months and years following the end of World War II, the world gained more insights into the

atrocities committed by the Nazis during the war period. As these facts came to light, eugenics

became a pariah in the scientific community as well as the public discourse. One could not even

mention the word without accusations of fascism, totalitarianism, and genocidal delusions.

Suffice it to say, official eugenic policies in Britain and the rest of the world were dead.

The fact that the post-war period allowed for such a cataclysmic shift in the zeitgeist of

the world threatened to make previous scholarship on eugenics obsolete. In order to further the

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dialog started earlier in Brave New World, Huxley released a nonfiction companion piece to the

novel in 1958 entitled Brave New World Revisited. In writing the book, Huxley pondered

whether his vision of the future was coming to fruition and what that means for humanity,

eventually declaring that his prediction was coming true at a rapid pace. He especially warned of

the dangers of overpopulation, reliance on drugs and distractions, and scientific dictatorships

(Huxley, 1958). These warnings all seem to apply to eugenics in some form, even if they are not

explicitly stated.

Overpopulation was seen as a growing problem (as well as a problem about growth) to

Huxley. Rudolf Schmerl explains Huxley’s view of the overpopulation problem:

“Overpopulation is not merely an additional complicating factor in the world’s problems;

on the contrary, it is the chief problem of them all. Huxley uses one striking comparison

after another to illustrate how pressingly full of people our world has become—and how

much fuller it will soon be. ‘At the rate of increase prevailing between the birth of Christ

and the death of Queen Elizabeth I,” he writes, “it took sixteen centuries for the

population of the earth to double. At the present rate it will double in less than half a

century.’ The immediate question, of course, is food; but even assuming that means will

be found to feed the new billions who will make their appearance before the end of this

century, their mere presence will constitute a danger to freedom. For overpopulation

entails more responsibility for the government, and over-organization, characterized by

hierarchical which concentrate power at the top, is a result of this increased

responsibility. What this means to the individual is that current pressures to make him

conform will soon develop into pressures to make him uniform; the more uniform the

individual members of society, the more easily governed the society.” (Schmerl, 1959:

40).

This idea of overpopulation is the one most explicitly linked to eugenics in Brave New World

Revisited; in fact, it is the only time the term “eugenics” is mentioned in the entire essay. Said

Huxley, “In the Brave New World of my fantasy eugenics and dysgenics were practiced

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systematically…  In this second half of the twentieth century we do nothing systematic about our

breeding; but in our random and unregulated way we are not only over-populating our planet, we

are also, it would seem, making sure that these greater numbers shall be of biologically poorer

quality.” (Huxley, 1958: Section II). Huxley feared that this kind of unfettered growth (and

unfettered propagation of deficient genes thanks to advances in technology) could make society

unsustainable. In a post-Hitler world, however, it was nigh impossible to suggest any form of

population control as a solution, which is potentially why Huxley decided to highlight the

problems of overpopulation in Brave New World Revisited rather than propose solutions.

Another problem of society that Huxley identified in Brave New World Revisited was the

problem of over-organization, defined by Schmerl as “The molding of the population into an

easily manipulated mass.” (Schmerl, 1959: 40). Schmerl goes on to elaborate about Huxley’s

concerns:

“It is not just a matter of propaganda, blatant and insidious, although there is more than

enough of both; the passion of our people for entertainment, or, as Huxley calls it, ‘non-

stop distraction,’ lends itself to the enemies of freedom. ‘A society, most of whose

members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in the

calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap

opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the

encroachments of those who would manipulate and control it’…Hitler proved the

correctness of his low opinion of the masses through the efficacy of his propaganda;

today television as well as the radio, movies, and the press are at the disposal of the

dictators and mind-controllers, and collectiveness through technology is becoming

increasingly feasible.” (Schmerl, 1959: 40-41).

The eugenic connection to this idea of over-organization quickly becomes clear once Huxley’s

positive eugenic views are taken into account—Huxley was concerned that the homogenization

of the British population was making it easy for despotic leaders to use technology and

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distractions to effectively control the British people. In effect, Huxley believed that positive

eugenics in the past three decades had failed, that there was now a lack of both desirable traits

and exceptional humans who could rise above the masses and resist such temptations and

controls.

Huxley’s concerns were not limited exclusively to the general populace, however. He

also expressed anxieties about the future of the ruling class, or what he called the “scientific

dictatorship”. This fear is extrapolated on in Brave New World Revisited: “The future dictator’s

subjects will be painlessly regimented by a corps of highly trained social engineers…The

challenge of social engineering in our time is like the challenge of technical engineering fifty

years ago. If the first half of the twentieth century was the era of technical engineers, the second

half may well be the era of social engineers…The twenty-first century, I suppose, will be the era

of World Controllers, the scientific caste system and Brave New World.” (qtd. in Marshall,

2010). In this sense, Huxley observed the shifting paradigm of British eugenic thought and

theory. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the rise of scientists who wanted to better the

human race by eliminating undesirable biological traits and promoting exceptional ones, but the

atrocities committed during World War II highlighted the problems with technical eugenics. The

late 20th and early 21st centuries, Huxley predicted, would therefore feature a eugenic dialog

based more on social and cultural control. Thus the eugenic thought of Britain evolved again,

leaving behind antiquated ideas of compulsory sterilization in favor of social engineering.

Conclusion: Is British Eugenics Dead?

The public discourse about eugenics both in Britain and globally has certainly decreased

in the post-war era. But have the Holocaust and similar atrocities silenced eugenics forever? It

seems unlikely that a democratic society such as Britain will be adamant about enacting

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sterilization policies any time in the near future. It seems equally unlikely, however, that eugenic

thought has been erased from the population. The prospect of being able to control what was

once thought of to be uncontrollable (genetics, innate abilities, the overall fitness of the human

race) is quite an attractive concept, one that is unlikely to die due to past failures in execution, no

matter how heinous. The concept will assuredly come into the forefront of discussion in Britain

again, be it in five years or fifty years. When it does, it would be wise to expect its progress to be

reflected in fictional literature.

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