The importance of the upright posture, despite the fact that the idea was introduced by Darwin himself, was not at first regarded as very significant. It was not until Eugene Dubois discovered ‘Java man’, Pithecanthropus (now Homo) erectus, in 1891–1892, that the theory came into its own (and confirmed the importance of the Neanderthal finds: see Chapter 1). The Pithecanthropus remains included a femur constructed in such a way as to suggest bipedalism, together with a piece of skull of a size that indicated a brain capacity between that of apes and humans. Even so, the importance of man’s upright posture was not fully accepted until the 1930s.95
The legacy of Darwinism is complex. ‘The advent of evolutionism is seen by some as a watershed separating modern culture from the traditional roots of Western thought.’96 There is no question but that its timing, quite apart from its intellectual substance, played a major role in the secularisation of European thought, considered in Chapter 35.97 Darwinism forced people to a new view of history, that it occurred by accident, and that there was no goal, no ultimate end-point. As well as killing the need for God, it transformed the idea of wisdom, as some definite attainable state, however far off. This undermined traditional views in all sorts of ways and transformed the possibilities for the future. To mention just two, it was Darwinism’s model of societal change that led Marx to his view of the inevitability of revolution, and it was Darwin’s biology that led Freud to conceive the ‘pre-human’ nature of subconscious mental activity. As we shall see in a later chapter, Darwin’s concept of what comprises ‘fitness’, in an evolutionary context, has been much misunderstood, and gave rise, consciously or unconsciously, to many social arrangements that were unjust and cruel. But since the rediscovery of the gene, in 1900, and the flowering of the technology based on it, Darwinism has triumphed. Except for one or two embarrassing ‘creationist’ enclaves in certain rural areas of the United States, the deep antiquity of the earth, and of mankind, is now firmly established.
32
New Ideas About Human Order: the Origins of Social Science and Statistics
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was born in Saintes in the west of France on 28 May 1738, the ninth of twelve children. By a curious irony his birth was premature, precipitated by his mother’s chance witnessing of a distressing public execution. Perhaps because of this, as Joseph-Ignace grew up, he was always aware that in France, as elsewhere, execution techniques varied widely according to the social standing of the condemned criminal. In general, members of the aristocracy suffered a quick death, while for those lower down the scale it was often protracted and agonising. In France in the eighteenth century there were more than one hundred offences that carried the death penalty, the most grotesque of which was reserved for François Damiens (1714–1757), the unfortunate who attacked Louis XV with a penknife and succeeded in scratching the royal arm. Damiens’ flesh was torn from his breast, arms and thighs with red-hot pincers, his right hand – which had held the penknife – was burned in sulphur, molten lead and boiling oil were poured on the exposed flesh where the skin had been torn away and then his body was quartered by four horses pulling in four directions. The executioner showed his sympathy for his victim by loosening the sinews of the man’s joints with a sharp knife so that he could be more easily torn apart.
By the time of the revolution, Joseph-Ignace was a substantial figure, a distinguished doctor, a professor of anatomy and Doctor-Governor of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Paris. He became a representative in the National Assembly. He was also a pacifist and, motivated by humanitarian concerns, in December 1789 he introduced into the Assembly six propositions aimed at creating a new and more humane penal code, one which treated all men the same and did not distinguish, in the penalties imposed, between different ranks. The second article of this new code recommended that capital punishment should henceforth consist of decapitation by means of a new and simple mechanism. The Assembly spent time examining Dr Guillotin’s recommendations, before adopting them, and during the debates a journalist asked – sarcastically and rhetorically, for the new mechanism had not yet been designed, let alone built – ‘Should this device bear the name of Guillotin or Mirabeau?’
Guillotin did not either design or build the instrument that did, indeed, come to bear his name. The designer was another doctor, Antoine Louis (at one stage the plan was to call the new device a ‘Louisette’), while the man who actually constructed the execution machine was a Monsieur Guedon or Guidon, the carpenter who normally provided the state with scaffolds. The new contraption was tested on 17 April 1792 (using straw, sheep and several corpses). When a corpse with a particularly thick neck was not decapitated after three attempts, Dr Louis raised the height of the drop and changed the shape of the blade from a convex curve to a straight blade angled at 45°. A banquet was held to celebrate ‘Dr Guillotin’s daughter’, with toasts to a ‘most distinguished project for equality’.
The guillotine was first used ‘in anger’, so to speak, a week later, on 25 April 1792, when the thief and assassin Jacques Nicholas Pelletier met his end.1 Thousands flocked to see the new instrument but many were disappointed – the execution was over so quickly.
Neither Dr Guillotin or Dr Louis could have foreseen how often their new, improved instrument was to be used in the years ahead, or at how efficiently it struck at all ranks equally. The French Revolution of 1789 is remembered first and foremost for what Hegel called its ‘shrieking aftermath’, five years of bloody terror, lynchings and massacres, and for years of tumultuous political upheaval, culminating eventually in the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte and unleashing twenty years of war. The roll call of people sent to the guillotine, often for the flimsiest of reasons, still has the power to shock: Antoine Lavoisier, the chemist, because he was a former tax-gatherer; André Chénier, the poet, because of an editorial someone didn’t like; Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, denounced by Robespierre; Robespierre himself, along with 2,500 others. Robespierre’s loyal follower Philippe Le Blas blew his brains out but even so was taken to the Place de la Révolution (now the Place de la Concorde) and beheaded all the same. People spoke of ‘guillotinemania’ and of ‘the red mass’ being celebrated by ‘worshippers of the scaffold’.2
How many lessons may be learned from this mayhem? The historian Jacques Barzun argues that many of the ‘revolutionaries’ who wanted the monarchy, nobility and clergy brought to heel, under the banner of ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’, were ordinary but articulate people – lawyers, artisans, local officials or landowners – who for the most part lacked political and administrative experience. Such individuals, even though many were educated, could behave as a mob at times, and this helps to account for the vicious switchback of fortunes that the aftermath became. Abroad, in Britain especially, the French Revolution was regarded with horror.3
But its legacy was much more complex – and in a score of ways more positive – than that. One indication of the seriousness with which many regarded those events may be had from the statistic that Rousseau’s Social Contract (see here) was reprinted on average every four months in the decade that followed 1789.4 And a whole system of reforms was introduced, some of which didn’t last, but many of which did. The universities and grandes écoles were reshaped, reducing the powers of the church, the royal library was reorganised as the Bibliothèque Nationale, and the Conservatoire established, where musicians could be trained at public expense.