ABSTRACT
A careful reading of the theories of William Graham Sumner and Herbert Spencer exonerates them from the century-old charge of social Darwinism in the strict sense of the term. The charge of social Darwinism was instead a means for reformers to discredit their political opponents and to claim Darwin for themselves. Spencer attempted to deny this possibility by asserting that reforms in advance of character were doomed to failure, because the effectiveness of human institutions depended ultimately on the natures of the individuals comprising them. Despite its enormous impact, manifold uses, and potential implications, the Darwinian Revolution in religion, philosophy, and social theory has been, until recently, a limited one because it has left human psyches and societies virtually untouched. Darwin's theory of organic evolution was able to evoke a broad intellectual debate because the imprint of extrabiological ideas on the Origin of Species and Descent of Man made these works recognizable to all the subdisciplines of natural theology.
