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In the name of science: the conceptual and ideological background of Charles Richet’s eugenics

2018; Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Casa de Oswaldo Cruz; Volume: 25; Issue: suppl 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1590/s0104-59702018000300008

1678-4758

Antonello La Vergata,

Medical History and Research

Abstract The French physiologist and Nobel Prize winner Charles Richet was the author of an impressive quantity of writings, including novels and poetry. He was an out-and-out eugenicist, convinced that “intentional, conscious, scientific, and methodical” selection could achieve “any result, provided we have enough patience.” He believed that the quantitative and qualitative growth of the population was of vital importance for France. In La sélection humaine (1919) and other writings, he dreamt of conscious selection to create “intellectual élites.” This process would be crowned by the production of a “higher human nature, a real surhumanité.” A staunch believer in the inheritance of acquired characteristics, Richet combined Darwinism and Lamarckism.