Jefferson Darwin and Locke Linked
To understand the present, we must first understand our history, through this same process we can come to understand Thomas Jefferson in contrast. Jefferson was responsible for laying the foundation for much of what we now know to be America, from the formation of the Constitution to his role in the formation of modern government. It is Jefferson's foundation among great minds of their time, just as influential in their own rights, Charles Darwin and John Locke from which the understanding of this contrast stems. What is perhaps more striking and significant is not the influence these men had on Jefferson, but his expansion and possibly misinterpretation of their ideas. Jefferson connection to Locke take on new meaning when one interprets where he differed from Locke, just as Jefferson expansion of Darwin's ideas can be further explained by what he may have misinterpreted. Charles Darwin was in essence a forerunner, however unsuspecting, for the ideas of Jefferson and others whose interpretations of Darwin's work became their justification for scientific racism. Charles Darwin renowned for his progress in what we now know to be evolution; published his ideas in The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Prese
rvation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Existences. Darwin himself may not have identified races with inferiority and superiority; in fact Darwin had serious hindrances in applying the idea of natural selection to the human race at all. The correlation between his ideas and the formation of "scientific racism" was not an intentional one. Darwin spoke of biology, in a time when it was still being termed natural history, that relevance is essential to understanding why misinterpretation was so easy. If Darwin was writing a theory which shook much of what was known by this time in the scientific realm in a field that was ! sy through his racial pessimism, drew a distinction from the class -oriented society of England, the very society of which Locke based his precepts upon. Jefferson looked towards their current society, one in which estates were not handed down to the oldest son, where land did not define wealth, for it was the most prevalent resource, seemingly there for the taking. The pursuit of happiness, therefore, was not narrowly defined by the word "property". Liberty meant these people were citizens and their right to property was extended to the idea that they had a right to have enough to make a life. Property was no longer limited in class distinction based on wealth, but a person's ambition and action. It is this very distinction that drives Locke and Jefferson to such sharp contrast on their ideology of the purpose of government. Jefferson held a racial pessimism, which he erroneously justified in science,
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Approximate Word count = 1041
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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