Political Quotes

John Morley: “Speculations in physical science were distorted for alien purposes, and survival of the fittest was taken to give…”

On the record
Speculations in physical science were distorted for alien purposes, and survival of the fittest was taken to give brutality a more decent name.
Said by
John Morley

Editor's note · Context

Morley discusses the misuse of scientific theories to justify social Darwinism and brutality.

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More from John Morley

Yet he had prepared this document for the very purpose of tempting France into a declaration of war.

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It is a case so to speak of “limited liability.” We are bound in honour—you cannot put a legal construction upon it—to see in concert with others that these arrangements are maintained.

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People still believe that Russian diplomats are particularly crafty and clever, full of artifices and stratagems, but that is not the case.

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A rendering less apt for this occasion finds favour with some scholars, that true virtue can never be restored to those who have once fallen away from it.

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