In the 1850s, agnostic English philosopher Herbert Spencer published Social Statics, asserting that man and society, in truth, followed the laws of cold science, not the will of a caring, almighty God. Spence popularized a powerful new term: 'survival of the fittest.'
page 12
In 1859, some years after Spencer began to use the term 'survival of the fittest,' the naturalist Charles Darwin summed up years of observation in a lengthy abstract entitled The Origin of Species. Darwin espoused 'natural selection' as the survival process governing most living things in a world of limited resources and changing environments. He confirmed that his theory 'is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms ...
pages 12-13
[Margaret Sanger] became an outspoken social Darwinist, even looking beyond the ideas of Spencer. In her 1922 book, Pivot of Civilization, Sanger thoroughly condemned charitable action. .. Chapter 5, 'The Cruelty of Charity,' was prefaced by an epigraph from Spencer himself: 'Fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty. It is a deliberate storing up of miseries for future generations. There is no great curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing population of imbeciles.
... 'Organized charity itself,' she wrote, 'is the symptom of a malignant social disease.
... She condemned philanthropists and repeatedly referred to those needing help as little more than 'human waste.'
page 129
The above is excerpted from The Journal April 2008, (published monthly) by Summit Ministries. http://www.summit.org/
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