Clémence Royer

Clémence Royer (21 April 1830 – 6 February 1902) was a self-taught French scholar who lectured and wrote on economics, philosophy, science and feminism. She is best known for her controversial 1862 French translation of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

Clémence Royer

Quotes

• For a long time it was supposed that Semites, Aryans and Mongols may have shared a common birthplace somewhere on top of a mountain, from whence the three races then dispersed and quickly turned their backs on each other, in accordance with the story of the “tri-color” descendants of Noah’s three sons; this is simply the invention of a myth which, unlike its ancient counterparts, does not even have the merit of symbolizing history. It amounts to a retelling and a renewing of the tale of the Earthly Paradise, with less poeticism and even less common sense.
  • Jean-Paul Demoule - The Indo-Europeans_ Archaeology, Language, Race, and the Search for the Origins of the West

About

• This controversial scholar, the first translator of Darwin and by extension the first promoter of “social Darwinism” in France, stated in her preface to the Origine des espèces that the most courageous “races” had overcome the others since “man, having become the stronger, could impose himself on the mate that pleased him most; and hence woman, who had nothing to do but please and submit, became more and more beautiful, in accordance with man’s ideal, man who himself became even stronger, having only to fight, command, and protect.” Thus we see the “reckless and blind” error of Christianity and democracy which scorned natural selection: “while all care, all devotions of love and pity are considered to be owed to the deposed and degenerate representatives of the species, there is nothing to encourage the development of the emerging force or to propagate merit, talent and virtue.”
  • Jean-Paul Demoule - The Indo-Europeans_ Archaeology, Language, Race, and the Search for the Origins of the West

• There is a degree of coherence when, in the context of the Indo-European question, such robust biological racism is associated with a thesis that is both Euro-centrist and migrationist; this is in contrast to Broca’s “entrenched” anti-linguistic autochtonism. In the opinion of Clémence Royer, “a race that is powerful enough to overrun all of Europe and all of western Asia cannot have had its origins in a Pamirian valley; mountain peoples are peoples who have retreated and defend themselves; they are never conquering peoples.” Yet “the blond European race, as a whole, appears to have always been a race of travelers, a race that is essentially war-like and conquering.” “In the end, these high plateaus of Asia can be discounted; once we wanted to believe that these plateaus were the birthplace of everything but all they have ever given rise to are avalanches.”
  • Jean-Paul Demoule - The Indo-Europeans_ Archaeology, Language, Race, and the Search for the Origins of the West