Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882. On the origin of species; Evolution (Biology)
Let the reader ponder over these last remarks and he will see that the
principal varieties and sub-varieties of the human race are not now to be
looked for among the negroes, the Circassians, the Malays, or the
American aborigines, but among the rich and the poor. The difference in
physical organisation between these two species of man is far greater
than that between the so-called types of humanity. The rich man can go
from here to England whenever he feels inclined, the legs of the other
are by an invisible fatality prevented from carrying him beyond certain
narrow limits. Neither rich nor poor as yet see the philosophy of the
thing, or admit that he who can tack a portion of one of the P. and O.
boats on to his identity is a much more highly organised being than one
who cannot. Yet the fact is patent enough, if we once think it over,
from the mere consideration of the respect with which we so often treat
those who are richer than ourselves. We observe men for the most part
(admitting, however, some few abnormal exceptions) to be deeply impressed
by the superior organisation of those who have money. It is wrong to
attribute this respect to any unworthy motive, for the feeling is
strictly legitimate and springs from some of the very highest impulses of
our nature. It is the same sort of affectionate reverence which a dog
feels for man, and is not infrequently manifested in a similar manner.
We admit that these last sentences are open to question, and we should
hardly like to commit ourselves irrecoverably to the sentiments they
express; but we will say this much for certain, namely, that the rich man
is the true hundred-handed Gyges of the poets. He alone possesses the
full complement of limbs who stands at the summit of opulence, and we may
assert with strictly scientific accuracy that the Rothschilds are the
most astonishing organisms that the world has ever yet seen. For to the
nerves or tissues, or whatever it be that answers to the helm of a rich
man’s desires, there is a whole army of limbs seen and unseen attachable;
he may be reckoned by his horse-power, by the number of foot-pounds which
he has money enough to set in motion. Who, then, will deny that a man
whose will represents the motive power of a thousand horses is a being
very different from the one who is equivalent but to the power of a
single one?
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