Ronald Campbell Macfie was a Scottish medical doctor, poet and science writer specialising in eugenics and evolution.[1]

Biography

He was a Scottish physician and writer. He had qualified in medicine in Aberdeen in 1897 and specialised in the treatment of tuberculosis.[2]

He was also a Liberal Member of British Parliament mentioned in The Bookman Treasury of Living Poets (4th edition 1931) as a contributor to such works as Fairy Tales for Old and Young (1909), and The Golden Treasury of Scottish Poetry (1940). Among his works are "Man’s Record in the Rocks" (My Magazine, May 1921) The Art of Keeping Well Cassell & Co. 1918/The Vegetarian Society and Evolutionary Consequences of War (cited below).

Campbell Macfie suggested that that male war deaths (during World War I) would create a surplus of fertile women, thus reducing the overall birthrate whilst the surviving men would select partners from a wide range of 'surplus' females according to eugenically (sexually) attractive characteristics. He averred that:[3]

"Nature has wisely arranged that men should be attracted (to women) by characteristics that imply a superior capacity for motherhood... (thus)...every war will do something to set up evolutionary tendencies opposite to its own, brutal, truculent, anti-social spirit"

Evolution

Macfie was a critic of Darwinism and developed his own non-Darwinian evolution theory which was a form of neovitalism. He believed that chance played no role in evolution and that evolution was directed; he discussed these views in his book Heredity, Evolution, and Vitalism (1912).[4] Macfie was also a panpsychist as he believed mind was to be found in all matter.[5] MacFie had dedicated one of his books and a poem to the naturalist J. Arthur Thomson in honor of his efforts to promote a neovitalist biology.[6]

Books published

  • Air and Health (1909)
  • Science, Matter, and Immortality (1909)
  • The Titanic: (an Ode of Immortality)' (1912)
  • Heredity, Evolution, and Vitalism (1912)
  • The Romance of the Human Body (1919)
  • Sunshine and Health (1927)
  • The Faiths and Heresies of a Poet and Scientist (1932)
  • The Theology of Evolution (1933)

Poems by this Poet

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In Memory of Major William La Touche Congreve, V. C. 19 May 2014
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In the Beginning Was the Word 29 November 2013
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In the White City of Thy Soul 29 November 2013
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In the White Future 19 May 2014
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Inspiration 5 September 2014
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Intaglios 5 September 2014
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Is There No Hostel by the Way of Life? 29 November 2013
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Kisses 29 November 2013
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Labour anthem 29 November 2013
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Lady Moonlight 17 May 2014
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Volsebnik's picture

The creator of some very strange thories, he was a panpsyhist, believed that mind can be found in all matter, promotor of neovalist biology, also had a theory about war, he suggested that deaths of the men died in ww I, would create a surplus of fertile women.

Mediocre poet, all his poems are more or less based on neovalist theory, which I found laughable...

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