Darwin, A Good Man

Many fundamentalists depict Darwin as some kind of monster. But, as explained by French scientist Pierre Jouventin (in his book The Hidden Face of Darwin), this cannot be true, because Darwin was a good man. First I give the quote in French, then a partial translation.

“...loin de conseiller l’abandon ou l’élimination des plus faibles, il allait jusqu’à encenser une civilisation où l’on protège “les idiots, les estropiés et les malades”! Darwin ne se contentait pas de l’écrire, il pratiquait quotidiennement la charité chrétienne sans pour cela croire au paradis comme son épouse. Les témoignages et les biographes concordent pour reconnaître que c’était un homme de bien, bon fils, bon époux, bon père de famille, ami fidèle et tolérant (comme l’il a montré avec Wallace et Fitzroy pourtant opposés à ses idées sur l’évolution de l’homme), préférant ses enfants et ses recherches aux honneurs et à l’argent, aimant passionément la nature, les plantes et les animaux, un être extrémement sensible qui a abandonné ses études de médecine pour ne pas voir couler de sang, assister aux dissections et entendre crier les patients, ému par les misères et les souffrances du monde humain aussi bien qu’animal.”

“Far from counseling the abandonment or elimination of the weakest, he went as far as praising a civilization in which one protects “idiots, cripples, and sick people”! Darwin did not content himself with writing; he practiced daily the Christian charity without believing in paradise as did his wife. Researchers and biographers agree in discovering that he was a man of good, good son, good husband, good father of the family, faithful friend and tolerant (as he showed with Wallace and Fitzroy even while they opposed his ideas about human evolution), preferring his children and his research above honors and money, loving passionately nature, plants and animals, a being extremely sensitive who abandoned his studies of medicine so that he would not have to see blood flowing, or assist at dissections, or hear the cries of patients, touched by the misery and suffering of the human as of the animal world.”