Changes

==Darwinism==

==Darwinism==

Holmes' [[atheism]] and [[Darwinism]] led him to deny [[Christian]] values such as respect for [http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html human life]. “I see no reason for attributing to man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or a grain of sand,” he wrote.<ref>Holmes to Frederick Pollock, August 30, 1929, in Richard A. Posner, ed., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=HamEkfqdMcEC The Essential Holmes: Selections from the Letters, Speeches, Judicial Opinions, and Other Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.]'' (University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 108</ref> The “sacredness of human life,” according to Holmes, “is purely a municipal ideal of no validity outside the jurisdiction.”<ref>Jesse H. Choper, ed., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=yviGAAAAIAAJ The Supreme Court and Its Justices]'' (American Bar Association, 1987) ISBN 0897072901, p. 232</ref> “All 'isms seem to me silly,” he wrote socialist<ref>Gary Dean Best, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=YDusnza0zTcC Harold Laski and American Liberalism]'' (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2005) ISBN 076580266X, p. 5</ref> Harold Laski, “but this hyperaethereal respect for human life seems perhaps the silliest of all.”<ref>Holmes to Laski, April 13, 1929, reprinted in Mark De Wolfe Howe, ed., ''[http://ia331339.us.archive.org/1/items/holmeslaskilette017767mbp/holmeslaskilette017767mbp.pdf Holmes-Laski Letters: The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Harold J. Laski, 1916-1935]'', Volume 2 (Harvard University Press, 1953), p. 1146 (PDF p. 346)</ref> He asked another correspondent, “Doesn't this squashy sentimentality... about human life make you puke?”<ref>Sheldon M. Novick, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=JhPYAAAAMAAJ Honorable Justice: The Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes]'' (Dell Publishing, 1990) ISBN 0440503256, p. 469</ref> His opinion of his fellow man was not charitable. “I loathe the thick-fingered clowns we call the people,” he wrote, calling them “vulgar, selfish, and base.”<ref>Mark De Wolfe Howe, ed. ''[http://ia331333.us.archive.org/3/items/touchedwithfirec012619mbp/touchedwithfirec012619mbp.pdf Touched with Fire: Civil War Letters and Diary of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1861-1864]'' (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1947), p. 71 (PDF p. 93)</ref>

Holmes' [[atheism]] and [[Darwinism]] led him to deny [[Christian]] values such as respect for [http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html human life]. “I see no reason for attributing to man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or a grain of sand,” he wrote.<ref>Holmes to Frederick Pollock, August 30, 1929, in Richard A. Posner, ed., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=HamEkfqdMcEC The Essential Holmes: Selections from the Letters, Speeches, Judicial Opinions, and Other Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.]'' (University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 108</ref> The “sacredness of human life,” according to Holmes, “is purely a municipal ideal of no validity outside the jurisdiction.”<ref>Jesse H. Choper, ed., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=yviGAAAAIAAJ The Supreme Court and Its Justices]'' (American Bar Association, 1987) ISBN 0897072901, p. 232</ref> “All 'isms seem to me silly,” he wrote Laski, “but this hyperaethereal respect for human life seems perhaps the silliest of all.”<ref>Holmes to Laski, April 13, 1929, reprinted in Mark De Wolfe Howe, ed., ''[http://ia331339.us.archive.org/1/items/holmeslaskilette017767mbp/holmeslaskilette017767mbp.pdf Holmes-Laski Letters: The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Harold J. Laski, 1916-1935]'', Volume 2 (Harvard University Press, 1953), p. 1146 (PDF p. 346)</ref> He asked another correspondent, “Doesn't this squashy sentimentality... about human life make you puke?”<ref>Sheldon M. Novick, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=JhPYAAAAMAAJ Honorable Justice: The Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes]'' (Dell Publishing, 1990) ISBN 0440503256, p. 469</ref> His opinion of his fellow man was not charitable. “I loathe the thick-fingered clowns we call the people,” he wrote, calling them “vulgar, selfish, and base.”<ref>Mark De Wolfe Howe, ed. ''[http://ia331333.us.archive.org/3/items/touchedwithfirec012619mbp/touchedwithfirec012619mbp.pdf Touched with Fire: Civil War Letters and Diary of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1861-1864]'' (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1947), p. 71 (PDF p. 93)</ref>

==Social Darwinism and Eugenics==

==Social Darwinism and Eugenics==