Charles Darwin and John Locke on Slavery

When the analysis of slavery by Charles Darwin and John Locke are brought forth, both share a common stance excluding one solitary indisposition. For John Locke’s view, though similar in nature, portrays from a hypocritical perspective. Although both exemplify their views on equality, Charles Darwin observes slaveries position in nature, while John Locke observes its position as a mean of punishment.

Charles Darwin is a devout abolitionist, such views may have portrayed his writings of evolution. For his beliefs revolve around universal common decent, his theory that all races and species derived from a similar ancestor. A theory that developed during his study of Galapagos Finches, where he found that the beaks of thirteen different Finches, though closely related, are suited solely to the food in such species environment: an adaption of natural selection. Although, Darwin’s observation of Galapagos Finches impacted his opposition on slavery, it had no comparison to the Beagle Voyage. For when he set sail off the coast of Brazil he illustrated his sorrow writing, “I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance” (Darwin 496). This is not a dispute that the scientific observation in which Charles Darwin examined in the Galapagos Islands does not affect his views in on slavery, but that his personal views may have p...

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... history shall be discouraged. Often forcing him to not categorize species into higher and lower forms of life, but seeing people as equal common ancestors.

After considering both oppositions on slavery, it is with ease to state that the ideals of Charles Darwin demonstrate the true rights of the people, with his simple view that all people were created equally. Thus illustrating that the views of John Locke are hypocritical in nature, for he believes in equality, but only when it is involved directly with the punishment of an individual.

Works Cited

Darwin, Charles, and David Quammen. On the Origin of Species. New York: Sterling, 2008. 349. Print.

Darwin, Charles. The Voyage of the Beagle. New York: Harper, 1959. 496. Print.

Locke, John. Two Treaties of Government. New York: Legal Classics Library, 1994. 15+. Print.