Darwin & “Realpolitik”

The following is from Sir Fred Hoyle's, The Intelligent Universe: A New View of Creation and Evolution (published by Michael Joseph, London, 1983) :

“The protective instinct in man took a long step backwards from 1860 onwards. Whether Darwinism, with its philosophy that opportunism is all, was the cause of the Realpolitik that overwhelmed the world from 1860 onwards, or whether it was Realpolitik that spawned Darwinism, is hard to say, for the two went hand-in-hand, leading with mounting inevitability to two World Wars in the present century, and to a situation which today looks increasingly like a one-way journey towards self-destruction for the whole species.”

And (once more) Churchill on Realpolitik, (again) from A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Vol. 4, “The Great Democracies”; (Cassel & Company Ltd, 1958, 1974); “Book Twelve; Chapter Fifteen – The Rise of Germany” :

“Realpolitik meant that standards of morality in international affairs could be ignored whenever material advantage might be gained.”