Social Darwinism

“Heaven helps those who help themselves” is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.

No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.

From Self-Help, by Samuel Smiles

1. What does the first line mean?

2. What is the problem with getting help from others?

   According to Samuel Smiles, should you give a man a fish, or teach him to fish?

3. What would Samuel Smiles think of social welfare and government help?

4. Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wanted to give Self-Help as a gift to every schoolchild in Britain. She said: “Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.” What does this quotation mean?

These ideas of individual responsibility were adopted by supporters of laissez-faire in the 19^th century

Richard Cobden – advocated an improvement in the conditions of the working classes but that it should come about through their own efforts and self-reliance rather than from the law.

5. According to Herbert Spencer, what different kinds of people were there?

6. What does the ‘survival of the fittest’ mean?

7. What are the implications for society?