Why Progress Was Feared

In this lecture, Ken Gemes examines the rise of degeneration theory, a scientific framework that repackaged ancient fears about human evil into the language of biology and heredity. Beginning with Pinel's founding of modern psychiatry and Morel's influential theory of degeneration, Gemes shows how thinkers like Carl Vogt used craniology to construct racial and gender hierarchies, claiming scientific proof for the inferiority of women and non-European peoples. The lecture explores Darwin's Descent of Man and the anxious question it raised: if evolution has no guaranteed direction, could civilization itself breed weakness and reversion to primitive states? Gemes traces how this fear fed directly into Galton's eugenics movement, American immigration restrictions, and works like The Passing of the Great Race, endorsed by figures as prominent as Theodore Roosevelt. While carefully distinguishing Darwin's own more optimistic and compassionate views from the degenerationists who claimed his legacy, Gemes sets the stage for the next lecture on Lombroso and Nordau.