In Europe, and especially in the tumultuous nation of France, the church faced fierce attacks from the governments of the nations. In France, this was more apparent than anywhere else. When the new government of Robespierre and the council of public safety came to power, they put vast restrictions on the power held by the Roman Catholic Church in France. To begin with, the government took church owned lands to pay off large amounts of debt that existed prior to the revolution. This was not an overly popular decision with the church. To further control the church, the National Assembly issued the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. This document placed the church below the state in the overall hierarchy of power. To put the loyalties of the divided clergy to the test, the ìClerical Oath of Loyaltyî was issued. This required the clergy to be completely subordinate to the secular world rather than to the Pope. The Clergy were ìto be faithful to the nation, to the law, and to the King, and to maintain with all their power the Constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by the King . . .î¹ If the clergy were to break this oath, they would be dealt with in the strictest of ways. ì . . . [T]hey shall be declared to have forfeited the rights of active citizenship and to be ineligible for any public office.î² If these same clergymen were found to be saboteurs of the state, they would be ìpunished according to the rigors of the law.î³

    This situation was not any better after the Reign of Terror than it was during it. Although Napoleon was not as radical as the revolution was, he still felt the need to subordinate the church to the state. He declared Catholicism the prevalent religion in France, and he authorized its free, public practice. The ìImperial Catechism,î of April 1806, offered reasoning for the church to be under the control of the state. This also spelled out the duties of the believers toward the government and in specific toward Napoleon, the emperor. They were subject to these duties because ìGod, who has created empires and distributes them according to His will, has, by loading our emperor with gifts both in peace and in war, established him as our sovereign and made him the agent of His power and His image on earth.î⁴ Throughout the next few decades, the church's influence on the population lessened due to the increase in state funded schools. The church was no longer able to reach the youth of a nation through the schoolroom. As the cities grew at astronomical rates, the growth of urban churches and parishes did not. This left a void. There were just not enough churches to go around, and people began to lose sight of religion. This secularization was most counterproductive for the church.

    During the nineteenth century, an ideological shift took place. The individual was now seen as the basis of society. No longer was one's station in life totally dependent on bloodlines. Liberalism embraced this newfound appreciation for the individual, and it was the driving political force. But as the century was coming to its end, liberalism had to adapt to stay alive. It had to change the way it thought and operated to keep in step with the growing influence of a man named Darwin, and his theories.

    Charles Darwin was a naturalist from Britain. He spent the great portion of his life studying the fauna that surrounded him. He traveled to the edges of the earth to learn more about life. It was on the Galapagos Islands that he made the discoveries that lead him to his theory of natural selection, which states that only the strong survive in the struggle for life and reproduction. Spencer took Darwin's ideas and said that the principle of survival of the fittest also applies to man and his institution, which are governments and societies. This sense of having to subdue the weak so their traits are not passed on gave governments a justification for colonization and invasion of surrounding countries that they viewed as weak. Social Darwinism lead many nations on a path of imperialism, which guided what that nation did for the last quarter of the century. That is not to say that there was no colonialism before Darwin, but after Darwin and Spencer, nations felt justified in engaging in policies of extensive colonization and expansionism. When speaking of the Egyptians, Chamberlain stated, ìThey are not able-they cannot be able- to stand alone; and they do not wish to stand-alone.î⁵ He saw England as a superior nation to Egypt. He felt it was the duty of England to take over for this weaker nation, which could not handle its own problems. Charles Morris said that it was unhealthy for a nation to stay put. He stated that the state would stagnate, and ì[i]ts final result is a dead pause in mental advancement. Variety of influences and conditions alone can yield a healthy and vigorous growth of thought.î⁶ Without an expansionist outlook, the state would remain where it was, and this immobility of intellectual advancement would lead to the weakening of the state as a whole. Once weakened, the state would be a prime candidate to be taken over by a stronger, more intellectually advanced state.

    Another advancement made in the intellect of the nineteenth century dealt with capitalism. In its early years, industrialization and capitalism brought with them horrible living and working conditions. Child labor had  killed 118 chilren eighteen and under, and it harmed countless others.⁷ ìLittle girls are employed in bellows-blowing (very hard work for children) for fourteen hours a day standing on platforms to enable them to reach the handle of the bellows.î⁸ Many began to see that capitalism was inherently evil, and that all of the atrocities would end if another economic system were to be implemented. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels devised a new economic system called socialism. They saw the history in a grim light. ìThe history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, in a word oppressor and oppressed, . . .î⁹ The new bourgeoisie was taking advantage of the new industrial working class. They knew that this was the problem with capitalism and it was in the middle of the nineteenth century. ìIn proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working-class, developed, a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who work only so long as their labor increases capital.î¹⁰ Marx and Engels thought that the capitalist was alienating and exploiting the working by taking away the pleasure that the worker should have naturally derived from working hard to create the product. They also thought it was wrong for the bourgeoisie to make a large profit off of goods that were given value due to the work that the laborer had put into them. This knowledge that they had of what they saw as the fatal flaw in capitalism drove them to write the ìCommunist Manifesto,î which outlined their new economic system, which was commonly referred to as socialism. Marx and Engelsí ideas set the groundwork for the Communist Revolution in Russia during the early years of the next century.

    An offshoot of Marxian socialism was Utopian socialism, which worked more within the frames set up by classical capitalism. Robert Owen, the main driving force behind this concept, said that ìit will be for the immediate and future interest of every one to lend his most active assistance gradually to reform society . . . Any sudden and coercive attempt which may be made to remove even misery from men will prove injurious rather than beneficial.î¹¹ He sought to create a factory system that did more than just produce a good. He wanted for people to be employed in a safe healthy environment where their children could go to school instead of a coal mine. He wanted his factories to be a model for a more perfect society, which lacked the evils of the present one and exemplified all that was good in humanity. This system worked on a small scale in the highly industrial city of Manchester, England, but he was not as successful in the United States.
 A final example of the application of reason to society was nationalism. In the mid-nineteenth century, there were two extreme examples of a nation of people wanting to form a state in an attempt to make their lives better. Major uprisings occurred in Italy and Germany. Mazzini in Italy, and others throughout the European continent, saw nations as a God given institution. Other nations had imposed their rule over the Italians, thus breaking up the God given order of the world. ìThese governments did not, and do not, recognize any country save their own families or dynasty, the egotism of caste.î¹² He knew that the nation was put onto Earth in an attempt better humanity as a whole. ìThis means [the nation] was provided for you by God when he gave you a country . . . and he divided Humanity into distinct groups or nuclei upon the face of the Earth . . .î¹³ Mazzini and other nationalists knew it was futile for the individual to attempt the changing of society. He wanted to change the face of his nation by uniting his people into a powerful group of Italians that would work together to bring Italy back to a portion of the glory it knew as the Roman Empire. ìThe watch word of the faith of the future is Association, and fraternal cooperation of all toward a common aim.î¹⁴ Only the effort of the masses to change the state of Italy would benefit them. ì The edifice you which all of you should unite to raise would be far superior to the humble hut each one of you might build alone . . .î¹⁵ These feelings were  the same throughout Europe, and new nation states began to emerge.

    With faith put highly onto the back burner of society, people began to break out of the molds created by the eighteenth century society. Nations and their citizens strove to use their reason the best that they could. They began by creating states that were compromised primarily of one nation of people. They also attempted to improve the existing institutions in society and creating new and better ones. Capitalism was attacked, and its weaknesses were the aim. Marx and others wanted to institute a new economic system to ease the pain associated with capitalism. Along with that noble virtue, nations also strove to bring their new found enlightenment to the backwards countries of the world, in an effort to make the world as a whole, not just their particular nation, a better place for all people to live. Through Social Darwinism, Marxism, and Utopian Socialism, individuals tried to make their world a more civilized and hospitable one.

The image is courtesy of  Modern European History Advanced Placement Web Page.
 
 

1).  The Marxism Home Page This page, created by Rick Kuhn, a senior lecturer at the Australian National University, gives you a deeper look into Marxian ideals and thought. This page has an index which will let you explore the full text of the Communist Manifesto, delve into Marxian politics, and do much more.

2).  Haaken Sorenson's Marx Page Created by Haaken Sorenson, an administrator at S.P.U., he has done research into Marx and his beliefs. This page contains a biography of Marx and his picture. Also found here are writings done by Marx and Engels. There is also a complete background index for Marx. This page is helpful in understanding where Marx came from, and exactly what he was trying to say.

3).  Utopian Socialism Lecture Page  This is an online set of lectures from Steven Kreis Ph.D., who taught in the history department at Florida Atlantic University. This page deals with utopian and Charles Fourier in specific. Using links on this page, you are able to access the rest of his lectures notes on various subjects in Western Civilization. If you scroll to the bottom of the page and click on page two, you will see the second part of the lecture which deals with Owen and Saint-Simon. This page will allow you to understand where Owen stood in terms of socialism.

4).  Text of Darwin's Major Works. This page, made by the organization Knowledge Matters Ltd., contains the full text of three of Darwin's major works on evolution. This page can be used to access Origin of Species, Descent of Man, and Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle. The reading of parts of these texts will give you a better understanding of what Darwin meant by natural selection, survival of the fittest, and descent with modification.

5).  MEHAP Online Page This page was created by the Modern European History Advanced Placement association. This page will give background into the nationalism and unification of Italy. This page also discusses the unification of Germany, which I did not have space to deal with in my paper. This link will enhance your knowledge of nationalism, and you will better appreciate the discussion on nationalism in my web text.
 
 

Wilson, Edward O. On Human Nature. Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1978.
    Although this book was written in the seventies, it provides yet another look into the impact of Social Darwinism on our lives. This is the third book in a trilogy dealing with social biology. The discussion focuses on the impacts of Darwinism on development to sex to altruism. Wilson attempts to show how deep social biology penetrates into human behavior. This gives you another source which will better your understanding of Social Darwinism.