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Yoga, Eugenics, and Spiritual Darwinism in the Early Twentieth Century

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Put briefly: perhaps the entire evolution of the spirit is a question of the body; it is the history of the development of a higher body that emerges into our sensibility. The organic is rising to yet higher levels. Our lust for knowledge of nature is a means through which the body desires to perfect itself. Or rather: hundreds of thousands of experiments are made to change the nourishment, the mode of living and of dwelling in the body; consciousness and evaluations in the body, all kinds of pleasure and displeasure, are signs of these changes and experiments. In the long run, it is not a question of man at all: he is to be overcome (Nietzsche 1967: 358).

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Singleton, M. Yoga, Eugenics, and Spiritual Darwinism in the Early Twentieth Century. Hindu Studies 11, 125–146 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-007-9043-7

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