In 859, Charles Darwins The Origin of Species was published and in the 870s, it began to have an impact on society. Darwins theory of evolution began to influence the opinion of others in the United States where the nature of evolution sought that there will be a sort of inevitable progress that would be controlled by natural selection. Natural selection is the process whereby organisms are adapted to any environment they are in as well as to survive and produce more offspring. This seemed eminently reasonable to most Americans, for it fitted well with their own experiences. Henry O. Havemeyer stated that You cannot wet-nurse people from the time they are born until the time they die. They have to wade and get stuck, and that is the way men are educated. William Graham Sumner, a Yale professor taught his undergrads with the survival of the fittest analogy. Professor, one of Sumners students asked him, dont you believe in any government aid to industries? Sumner said No! Its root, hog, or die. His student followed up with another question, Suppose some professor of political science came along and took your job away from you. Wouldnt you be sore? Sumner responded with Any other professor is welcome to try, If he gets my job, it is my fault. My business is to teach the subject so well that no one can take the job away from me. Sumners argument of the survival of the fittest analogy started to become known as social Darwinism. If you were the fittest, you will always survive if they are allowed to their capacities to their potential without any limitations. Except, Americans despise govern
ments that had too much power and controlled a strict regulation of the economy, but the Americans didnt mean that they opposed every government activity regarding economics. Banking laws, tariffs, internal-improvement legislation, and the granting of public land to railroads are only the most obvious of the economic regulations enforced in the nineteenth century by both the federal government and the states. Americans didnt see any difference between government activities of this type and the free enterprise philosophy, the purpose of these laws were to release energy and as an effect, increase the area of freedom that someone could operate at. Tariffs raised the interest in the industry and as a result, created new jobs, railroad grants began opening up for new and different regions for development, and more. Industries were huge and financial organizations were growing as well as the complexity relations regarding economics in which scared people, but also made them greedy for more goods and services society was turning out to be some sort of greed.
Regarding philosophy, Darwinism wasnt so dramatic, but it ended up being more significant. William James was educated in London, Paris, Bonn, and Geneva, He was also at Harvard where he studied painting, participated in a zoological expedition to South America, graduated with a medical degree, and eventually became a professor at Harvard at the end, he was successful of comparative anatomy, psychology, and philosophy. His Principles of Psychology which was published in 890 said that it established discipline as one of the modern sciences.