Western History 171: How did the German Enlightenment differ from the French Enlightenment?

 The French Enlightenment spread throughout the continent in the 18th century and were popularized by the writings of Voltaire (1694–1778), Montesquieu, Quesnay, D’ Alembert and Diderot

It made the case that man was not inherently depraved. It stressed the importance of the current life over the after-life and took a dim view of superstition, state power arguing for a more inter-connected world bereft of dogma. It was extremely critical of existing French institutions.

Voltaire Picture source: Biography.com

The German Enlightenment had its champions in Christian Wolff (1659-1754) and Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781). The former was the heir to the great philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. He sought to bring together rationalism and naturalism but took a hard line versus English Empiricism.

Lessing was very concerned with the art of feeling, criticized the work of John Locke and laid the foundation for Georg Hegel’s later work on the philosophy of religion.

German Enlightenment thinking was very much influenced by the Romantic Movement and is suffused with the notions of both a cultural and a spiritual awakening that carries with it nationalistic overtones. At the same time it is driven by an analytical approach and has more of an abstract element to it than that of the French version.

This was seen in the writings of both Herder (1774-1803) and J. W. Goethe (1749-1832). It was Goethe, the author of the masterpiece, Faust, who was taken by the romanticism of the Sturm and Drang (Storm and Stress) movement that looked at the cost to one’s soul of the modernization drive of the early Industrial Revolution.

However the greatest of all German 18th century Enlightenment philosophers was Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant popularized a type of systematic rationalism that drew heavily from Wolff and Leibniz however he was not as critical of the empiricism of the English as was Wolff. He wrote considerably but his three great works were the Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgement.

Immanuel Kant Picture source: Biography.com

Kant sought to discover the limits of thought. He was also concerned about divide between metaphysics and science. Kant valued reason but believed that it had its limits, that centered on the domain of the practical sphere

In his view actions performed for self interest were immoral and he in turn advanced a law of rational morality. He expressed his view with this statement - “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”.

Kant wrote extensively in other fields as well. He impacted the philosophical branch of aesthetics. While he saw art as not intrinsically objective he argued that we should act as it if were. This allows for the formalization of better judgement. Art in Kant’s view should have a Purposiveness to it. His work influenced Friederich von Schiller (1759-1805) and the belief that art was central to both private and public life.

It was from Kant’s work that we see the German Idealism of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814). Fichte worked with Kant’s ding-an-sich (the thing in itself) to argue for example that to have character and to be German were largely the same thing. This was of course pretty convenient for all of German nationalism

Western History 170: How did the British presence in India evolve over the 19th century?

The British presence in India dates back to the year 1600 and the formation of the East India Company (EIC).  In 1615 the company took control of its first Indian territory in Bombay. The resources of the company spread as it consolidated its influence in the lucrative spice trade. 

Map of the Global Spice Trade c. 1700 source 17QQ.com

The company was somewhat of a monopoly in its early years In India but in the 18^th century it started to face more competition.  Its trade power was challenged by the Dutch and the Portuguese but by the 18^th century the latter in particular was waning.

In 1748 English and French interests clashed in India as a part of the broader War of the Austrian Succession. Nine years late Sir Robert Clive’s British and East India forces defeated  the Nawab of Bengal  (a French ally) at the Battle of Plassey thereby securing control of all of Bengal for the East India Company. Future success followed for the EIC with a further victory over the Marathas in 1792. This extended the company’s influence to Mysore

Picture of Warren Hastings - Controversial British Governor in India during the 1780s. He had a genuine affection for the country but fell out with rival British authorities who accused him of mismanagement and corruption. His trial that followed was the longest in British political history to date resulting in his acquittal. Picture Source: Open Magazine

However  the Company's rule was brutal and  often ran afoul of cultural and ethnic sensitivities.  There was also a tendency to completely  disregard of traditional Caste concerns.  A mutiny by Indian troops serving under company authority broke at Vellore in 1806. 

Vellore Mutiny source: India Today

The Vellore rebellion was put down but fighting continued on other fronts with Britain supporting the Company waging war troops in Maratha to safeguard the Northern boundary of their domain.

Scene from the Siege of Delhi during the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857. Source: History Net

High land taxes, ongoing corruption that favoured the elites, and the introduction of unpopular British social practices worsened the impasse between the local population and the company. The British were over reliant on Sepoys  (Indian troops fighting on behalf of the British) to fight their battles and police the vast territory. The  rifts that had manifested themselves at Vellore had not been resolved.

Scene from Sepoy Mutiny. There is some debate about the name of the mutiny – many in India see it as the First war of Independence.  source: Webcourses@UCF

All of this reached a head with the introduction of the 1853 Enfield Rifle, that fired Minni balls, but made use of pre-greased paper cartridges. To load the rifle the Sepoys had to bite the cartridge to release the powder. A rumour broke out that the grease was made of beef and pork product. The former was offensive to Hindu troops  the latter to the Muslims. The authorities tried to address the issue but concerns persisted. Anger mounted and on May 10^th 1857 emotions spilled over with rebellion breaking out against the company's authority. This was the beginning of the bloody Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.

Brutality was endemic on both sides with fighting lasting for over two yea before it was finally put down by British troops. While there were six thousand British casualties it is believed that the Indian death toll that was augmented by both famine and disease may have reached a number as high as 800,000. 

The British Raj in 1860 Source: Inquiries Journal

From an administration perspective the rebellion brought to an end Company rule in India. Power was transferred to the Crown via the Government of India Act of 1858  with British hard line reprisals ending resistance and bringing an an end the declining Mughal  Empire. Well over a century of Company misrule was replaced by the British Raj.

In 1877 Queen Victoria was declared Empress of India with the Raj over time emerging as the center piece of a growing Empire - the so-called Crown Jewel. The Indian Civil Service (ICS) was established in 1858 to administer the territory. It employed many Indians in various functionary niches but all high positions until as late as 1930 was the preserve of the British. Naturally this fostered resentment even as parts of the sub-continent enjoyed an upswing in economic fortunes.

The Indian Congress Party was formed in 1885 to agitate for Independent Indian nationhood. Their strength would grow with the final aim of statehood  being realized in the next century.

.

The Madness that is the Media

The mainstream media in the contemporary isn’t leftist in the old sense of the word however it does have a distinct bias in favour of international globalism.  This of course reflects the will of the power elites that control the papers. Differences of opinion exist but these are carefully controlled to ensure managed dissent between ever shrinking boundaries.

Noam Chomsky regularly misses the mark on political specifics elsewhere but he is correct about two important aspects – the insanity of post-modernism and the way the media ‘manufactures consent’. The former is a topic for another answer the latter is pertinent to this query.

Distilled to its essence the corporate media’s principal function is to reinforce a narrative. Education is a mere after thought.  Through repetition the media entities inundates the milieu with a message that reinforces a broader consensus that aligns with the vision of its ownership.  The cultivation of an echo chamber is its raison d‘etre and in this regard it is unapologetic.

If internationalism,  and by extension interventionism, is the critical focal point then one can be sure that the necessary drums touting such action will be heralded .

Positions to the contrary will be marginalized. Today these same drums reverberate to the tune of policies that seek looser border restrictions, the off shoring of wealth and a Post-Westphalian order that does away with the pesky stumbling block of the nation state. The new citizen must be global and by necessity eschew all nationalism.

A radical transformation of the ethos and value system of the culture sits front and center. It is of prime importance. Media outlets advance the methodology by highlighting identity politics, outrage culture and various hysteria/crises that together take aim at the institutions of the country and its foundational bedrock. Nothing happens without purpose.

In doing so it seeks to change the perception of the voting population thereby sweeping clean a pathway for  the emerging  paradigm. Ideas deemed to be of worth are selected, stressed and reinforced while others are tossed aside or damned. Within time the views of the Übermensch will be parroted by those that are too punch-drunk to think otherwise. The role of the media is to make sure that this happens sooner than later.

What is considered to be the beginning of space science?

(My answer on Quora)

Space science is an amalgamation of scientific ideas and concepts that emerge from physics, chemistry and mathematics. Our initial understanding of planetary motion relies heavily on the work of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Lagrange, Laplace and Euler. Such thinking has its origin in the Renaissance but extends into the Age of Reason and the Scientific Enlightenment (essentially the period that spans the 15th to the 18th centuries).

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) source: New World Encyclopedia

Rocket Science (yes it is a real subject) though as a discipline in and of itself owes much to the pioneering work of Russian thinker Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in the late 19th and early 20th century. Tsiolkovsky wrote the foundational texts on Rocket propulsion and space flight. He was a visionary who even spoke about the notion of space stations, air locks and future colonization efforts. He formulated the famous Tsiolkovsky Equation associated with Rocket propulsion that is shown below.

source: Relativity and science calculator

Tsiolkovsky was without doubt the Father of Modern Space Science and deserves a tremendous amount of credit for his foresight. He understood the significance of multi-stage rockets and the importance of fuels such as liquid oxygen and hydrogen. His work influenced later designers that included Robert Esnault-Pelterie , Robert Goddard and Hermann Oberth.

Is Conservatism the most successful ideology?

 (My answer on Quora).

Conservatism isn’t an ideology with strict doctrinal beliefs. It is a way of thinking that values prudence and pragmatism over a short-sighted yearning for the untested. What is considered conservative in one society is not necessarily the same in another. Even within a single national structure different types of conservatives exist that emphasize distinct aspects of the economic and cultural landscape. Fiscal Conservatives for example stress the former while social conservatives the latter. Fusionists incorporate both.

American conservatives differ from their continental counterparts in how they value the notion of Liberty. Historical context matters as it always does. However conservatives of all stripes do share a commonality that is grounded in empiricism and a reverence for their respective traditions.

Conservatives are not essentially opposed to change but they are suspicious of radical ideas that all too often have a history of being destructive. Its greatest strength is that it deflects to stability and in doing so provides a bulwark to mitigate against the all too often tendency of the nation’s institutions, to dive head first off the cliff of rationality.

It succeeds when it prevents such a debacle from happening. This hasn’t always been the case.

Western History 169: What were the important developments that occurred in 19th century Chemistry?

As discussed in an earlier answer 18^th century Chemistry could call on such notable figures as Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Henry Cavendish, Antoine Lavoisier, Robert Boyle, Jacques Charles, Joseph Proust  and Alessandro Volta. They set  a high standard for Chemistry as a science. Lavoisier himself is often regarded as the father of Modern Chemistry.

The 19^th century would be even more of a productive period. Englishman John Dalton (1808) , an earlier developer of a periodic table of elements, formulated his law of partial pressures to describe the relationship between components in a gas mixture. He also advanced the notion of multiple proportions.

John Dalton source: Leonardo Newtonic

Swede Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1808) started popularizing the modern use of symbols and notation that we use  today.

Frenchman Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1805) showed that water is composed of two parts hydrogen  to one part oxygen and added to the Gas law work carried out by Charles and Boyle in the previous century.

Italian Amedeo Avogadro (1811) proposed the Law that now bears his name in 1811, which states that equal volumes of gas under the same temperature and pressure contain the same number of particles.  The Chemistry concept of the mole (the curse of every high school student), used to define the amount of a substance, follows from his work and was developed later by Johann Lofschmidt (1865).

Amedeo Avogadro with his famous constant (the number of items in a mole of a substance) source: chemistrygod.com

Advances in Organic Chemistry were highlighted by Frederick Wohler’s synthesis of urea  in 1825 (the birth of Organic Chemistry), and his additional endeavours together with Justus von Liebig on Isomers. Both chemists would stress the importance of functional groups in Organic Chemistry as well as the notion of chemical radicals (1832).

Germain Hess in 1840 provided an early version of the concept of Conservation of Energy and this was followed by other advances in physical chemistry around Absolute Zero (Lord Kelvin - 1848), Mass action (Cato Maximilian Goldberg and Peter Wage - 1864), Entropy (Ludwig  Boltzmann - 1877), Chemical Equilibrium shifts (Henri Le Chatelier - 1884), Free Energy (Josiah Gibbs - 1876) and Kinetics (Jacobus van't Hoff- 1884 ).

Hess's Law (named after German Hess - useful in determining energy associated with chemical reactions) source: Socratic

Earlier developments in light spectrometry set in motion the development of analytical chemistry and owe a debt of gratitude to August Beer (1852), Pierre Bouger and Johann  Lambert. Gustav Kirchoff and Robert Bunsen used this technique to discover the elements caesium and rubidium (1859-1860). Similar discoveries from light spectrometery allowed for the identification of iridium, thalium and helium soon afterwards.

Beer's Law (Named after August Beer - shows how the concentration of a solution is related to its light absorbance factor) source: Thoughtco.com

Models highlighting the nature of chemical bonding became more sophisticated in the 19th century. Friedrich August Kekulé (1857) showed how carbon has a tetravalent nature. Soon afterwards Alexandre-Émile Béguyer de Chancourtois (1862), John Newlands (1864) and Julius Lothar Meyer provided earlier versions of the Periodic table (1864). The German Meyer is particularly well known for his organization of the elements around valencies (bonding capacities).

In 1869 Russian Dmitri Mendeleev would publish the First modern Periodic Table containing within it gaps of elements that were awaiting discovery. Much of his efforts were aided by the earlier work of Stanislao Cannizzaro and his organization of the elements by atomic weight in 1860.

Dmitri Mendeleev source: New Scientist

Between 1894-98 Mendeleev’s missing element hypothesis was given credence by William Ramsay’s  discovery of the Noble gases.

Kekulé (1865) also showed how it was possible that Benzene has a six ring carbon structure, ensuring its stability as the base molecular for the Aromatic hydrocarbons. There was a more sophisticated understanding of chemical reactions overall thanks to Alfred Werner’s  work on chemical coordination (1893). Svante Arrhenius ion theory (1883) also helped explain conductivity in electrolytes. 

An early version of the Periodic Table source: Chemistry libre texts

Chemical advances were often driven by the practical needs associated with the industrial revolution. Alexander Parkes' (1862) development of the one of the earliest polymers falls into this category as were the use of dyes (such as indigo) that formed the basis of the work of Adolf von Baeyer (1865) and  William Perkin (mauve - 1856). Benjamin Stillman Jr. was a trendsetter for his ingenuity with respect to petroleum cracking (1855).

William Perkin source: sciencehistory.org

However it is important to note that many chemical breakthroughs were driven by advances in Physics. JJ Thomson’s discovery of the electron in 1897 was one such event and this was followed by Ernest Rutherford and Pierre and Marie Curie’s work on radioactivity. The development of devices such as the Mass Spectrometer by Wilhelm Wien (1898) helped Chemists immensely.

What was the significance of the Battle of Tours?

 (My answer on Quora)

Tours or Poitiers was the critical battle that turned back the Muslim Umayyad invasion of Gaul (France) in 732. It was a pivotal event in the Arab Invasion Wars that had dominated the Middle East, the Maghreb and now parts of Western Europe since the time of Muhammad.

Battle of Tours: source: Britannica.com

However it wasn’t the first time that Gaul had been attacked by Arab forces. Troops loyal to the Muslim Umayyad dynastry had already crossed into French territory in 719. Their advances followed from the continuation of their campaigns in Hispania (711–718). The Umayyad’s had already succeed in destroying the Visigoth kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula and were eager to extend their gains North of the Pyrenees.

Western Europe around the time of the Battle of Tours source: Flashpoint History

An earlier invasion was stopped in Toulouse in 721 by the Aquitaine king Odo the Great. However Ummayad led raids would persist for the next decade in and around Avignon, Lyon and Autun.

In 730 a large Ummayad invasion force was assembled under Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah al-Ghafiqi, a veteran of the 721 defeat. The intention was to bring the land of the Franks under Ummayad domination once and for all. His forces attacked with more venom than did the previous attempt and they were rewarded for their effort with a victory at the Battle of the River Garonne (also known as the Battle of Bordeaux). Full of triumph they headed north as Frankish Christendom rallied to oppose him.

Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah al-Ghafiq: Source Alchettron

Panic did set in but it was soon allayed by the formation of an alliance between the Duke and Prince of the Franks Charles Martel (Founder of the Carlonigian dynasty) and Odo. Their forces were comprised of Frankish and Vascones tribesmen. Estimates differ as to the size of the defending force but it is fair to say that it was roughly 15,000–20,000 strong.

Charles Martel - The Hammer - Grandfather of Charlemagne - Saviour of Christendom in Western Europe source: thefamouspeople

The Umayyad invaders had somewhere between 20,000–25,000 soldiers. The battle raged on October 10th, 732 at Tours. Fighting was fierce but the Frankish alliance would emerge victorious. Charles had made effective use of his cavalry, the phalanx support and early intelligence reports. Weather conditions played to his favour as well (apparently the Arabs were under dressed for the cold)

At the final count the defenders lost about a thousand men with the Umayyad’s suffering casualties that were likely twelve times as much.

The defeat though was a crushing blow to Muslim designs on France ending any future thoughts of an Arab invasion of Gaul.

Historically though it has even greater significance. For many it represented the watershed event that saved Europe from incorporation into an expanding Islamic civilization. The successful Arab invasion wars that had been ongoing since the 7th century had been halted on the western front.

Some have suggested that the significance may be exaggerated and that the Tour’s importance has been embellished by legend. Perhaps so.

Historian Victor Davis Hanson sums it up well here providing necessary perspective.

Recent scholars have suggested Poitiers, so poorly recorded in contemporary sources, was a mere raid and thus a construct of western mythmaking or that a Muslim victory might have been preferable to continue Frankish dominance. What is clear is that Poitiers marked a general continuance of the successful defense of Europe, (from the Muslims). Flush from the victory at Tours, Charles Martel went on to clear southern France from Islamic attackers for decades, unify the warring kingdoms into the foundations of the Carolingian Empire, and ensure ready and reliable troops from local estates.

Source: Carnage and Culture, Viictor Davis Hanson. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Dec. 18, 2007 (pg 201).

Fouracre, Paul (2000). The Age of Charles Martel. Harlow, England: Longman.

Western History 168: What important breakthroughs impacted the Life Sciences during the 19th century?

The biological sciences made great strides in the 19^th century  with the term itself being coined by Karl Friedrich Budach in 1800. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck  (1809) proposed a theory of evolution that posited the importance of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. However his work here was superseded by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace’s Theory of ‘descent through modification’ (1858).

Although Darwin did not use the word evolution in his earlier work the notion of natural selection as a key driver for evolutionary change fundamentally changed the nature of how we understand the life sciences. It provided the overriding platform on which our understanding of both biology rests.

Charles Darwin source: biography.com

Like Copernicus's earlier Heliocentric model of the universe Darwin's work challenged the privilege notion of humanity in the universe. The ladder of life was not crowned by our species.

Austrian monk Gregor Mendel (1865) would add to Darwin’s work by elucidating and describing  the rules that seem to underpin genetic inheritance.The Principle of Segregation states that there are two genes per trait and that these segregate when an animal makes an egg or a sperm. The Law of Independent Assortment argues that genes in a pair are distributed independently. Much of Mendel's work on pea plants was 'lost' but it was re-discovered years later (by Hugo De Vries in 1900) and now plays an important role modern science of genetics.

Gregor Mendel - Schematic showing how genes combine during Fertilization source: biomedcentral.com

In terms of cell biology Theodor Schwann and Matthias Schleiden (1839) made the case that all living organisms are made up of cells (Cell Theory). Rudolf Virchow (1858) advanced this idea further by showing that all cells come from pre-existing cell. This built further on the discovery of the mammalian egg by Karl von Baer (1826) and Martin Barry's (1843) revelation that showed how egg and sperm fuse in the case of rabbit egg fertilization.

Organic Chemistry and with it biochemistry came of age in the 19^th century with Friedrich Woehler’s synthesis of urea (1828) The enzyme pepsin, that acts to facilitate protein digestion was identified by Schwann in 1836. Before that chlorophyll, which plays a vital role in Photosynthesis, was identified in 1817 with Friedrich Miescher (1869) and Emil Fischer (1884) adding to our knowledge of nucleic acids and sugars by their respective biochemical discoveries .

Adding to this work was the tremendous accomplishments of the Frenchman Louis Pasteur, the Father of Immunology, who showed how microorganisms are responsible for Fermentation (Pasteur's name is associated with the high temperature process used to kill bacteria in milk). Pasteur also produced the first vaccine for rabies and in 1864 dealt the final blow to the age old theory of Spontaneous Generation.

Pasteur's Test of Spontaneous Generation source: AmoebaMike

Ignác Semmelweis and Joseph Lister would make use of Pasteur's Germ Theory in their development of antiseptics thereby revolutionizing our understanding of disease management and pathology.

Lord Joseph Lister source: rcseng.ac.uk

While Antiseptics stands as the one arm of modern medicine the other is anaesthetics that was given a vital lift by Scotsman James Simpson (1847) and his pioneering work with chloroform. This would open the door for pain reduced surgeries.

As mentioned the Chemistry and Biology into the fledgling Biochemistry was an emerging reality of the 19^th century and breakthroughs were all the more common as scientists learnt more about the action of germs in causing disease. Martinus Beijernick for one identified a new pathogen that caused the Tobacco Mosaic plant disease. It was much smaller than a  bacterium and he named it the virus.

Was Charles Darwin the most influential thinker of the Scientific Revolution?

 (My Answer on Quora)

Charles Darwin’s contribution to the Life Sciences probably stands front-and-center in that particular area of Natural Philosophy but is he the greatest contributor in the long history of the Scientific Revolution ? I am not convinced.

Darwin articulated the importance of natural selection as a key driver for evolution which has obvious explanatory benefits in both zoology and biology as well as human medicine (think antibiotic resistance).

However there are other figures whose contribution in the biological sciences should not be forgotten and deserve a mention even within Darwin’s heightened context - Pasteur, Mendel (although his results were later re-discovered), Harvey, Vesalius, Cajal, Virchow, van Leeuwenhoek, and Hooke come to mind.

I would also give a nod to his contemporary Alfred Russel Wallace. Having said that Darwin probably shades it over the pack here as Natural Selection has such overarching reach in the Life Sciences and the Englishman - who was well connected through familial ties - got to the end post first.

Darwin like most mortals stood on the broad shoulders of others before him - Malthus, Hutton, Linneaus - to peer further into the scientific horizon (a sentiment articulated much earlier by Sir Issac Newton). One should not forget that as we rush forward with hagiographic intent.

Had the big man himself not existed I suspect his ideas would still have seen the light of day with the often downplayed and under appreciated Wallace perhaps earning more credit than he is traditionally afforded.

The scientific revolution was well under way before Darwin was born. Long before in fact with tremendous contributions already having been made by Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno, Kepler, Newton, Huygens, Laplace etc.

Darwin furthered its progress in the biological ream but much of the key breakthroughs in terms of methodology, rational thought, necessary skepticism and empirical verification preceded him.

It was Galileo for one who vaulted Experimentation to the front and center of the Sciences (he is my personal choice for Greatest contributor) while Copernicus (before him) overthrew the primacy of the human dominated Earth as the focus of the Universe.

Newton’s genius in synthesizing the physics of the celestial and the terrestrial are immeasurable and his contribution to optics, calculus cannot be understated. Our understanding of classical mechanics, a discipline that impacts every facet of our lives whether we know it or not, is well described by his Laws of Motion.

To this I would add the work of Faraday and Maxwell that saw the practical and theoretical synthesis of Electricity and Magnetism. This a pivotal to the ongoing scientific revolution that places a high premium on elucidating unity between phenomena and birthed the very powerful notion of the Field.

The same can be said with the development of chemistry through Dalton, Priestley, Lavoisier, Berzelius and Mendeleev. In terms of overarching structures the Periodic Table is as critical to our understanding of elemental structure and reactions as natural selection is to biology.

One could argue as well that Einstein and his work in shattering key paradigms of space, time, simultaneity and gravity are even greater contributions, not to mention the many pioneers who blazed the trail in Quantum Mechanics - an area of science that is often touted as the greatest accomplishment in all of Intellectual History. Max Planck as the discipline's forefather stands aloft here as does Ludwig Boltzmann, the originator of Statistical Mechanics.

The Modern age of Telecommunications and Information technology with all its benefits arise from the insights we have gained in understanding the counter intuitive nuances of this discipline.

Yes one ought to value Darwin for his scientific thinking but in the rarefied competition of who is the greatest I would argue that there are strong examples elsewhere.

What was the purpose of the Atlantic Charter?

 (My answer in Quora)

The Atlantic Charter was a broad Anglo-American vision of how the goals of each of these two great democracies should align in a post WWII world. The statement was issued on the 14th of August 1941 following a meeting in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland between the British PM Winston Churchill and American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Source: The Article

Roughly speaking it cemented the notion that the UK and the US would not seek territorial gains from the war, championed the rights of self-determination for all people, made a commitment to reduce trade barriers, emphasized economic co-operation to advance social welfare concerns and pledged to make significant inroads with respect to disarmament. It also stressed the great freedoms ie. freedom of want from fear and the freedom of the seas.

However the Charter’s most critical item in terms of the war effort context was the pledge by both leaders (Point 6) to eradicate Nazism. It is believed that this point alone made Hitler more desperate (or indeed determined) to ensure victory against the Soviet Union. It was this desperation that would compound present and future errors by the Nazi dictator.

Source: History.com