The theory of Degeneration in Spain (1886-1920)

Ricardo Campos Marín

Rafael Huertas

pp. 171-187

in: Thomas F. Glick, Miguel A. Puig-Samper, Rosaura Ruiz (eds), The reception of Darwinism in the Iberian world, Berlin, Springer, 2001

Abstract

Only two years before the appearance of On the Origin of Species, the French alienist B. A. Morel unveiled his theory of the degeneration of the human species. He conjoined anthropological and philosophical concepts of Rousseau and Buffon, Prosper Lucas's notion of "dissimilar" heredity, plus some others drawn from Lamarckian evolutionism, and put them all into a theocratic framework that goes all the way back to "original sin" as the prime cause of "la déviation maladive du type normal de l"humanité," that is, the degradation of a perfect primitive being created by God.¹ Years later, in 1895, V. Magnan and P. M. Legrain substantially modified the Morelian concept of degeneration by introducing in their own argument the Darwinian idea of the struggle for life, displacing the mystical-religious concepts present in Morels' work—principally the myth of the "fallen angel"—and producing a theory more in line with the orthodox scientific thinking of the times.² To Magnan and Legrain, the "ideal" and the "perfect" were not absolute concepts, but rather are in constant relation to both earlier and later evolutionary states.

Cited authors

Darwin Charles

Rousseau Jean-Jacques