“The Physical, Intellectual and Moral Degeneration of the Human Race” by B. A. Morel and “The Flowers of Evil” by C. Baudelaire appeared in 1857. They were published in an era that proclaimed progress and Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, but at the same time presented a pessimistic vision of human evolution. Morel's work first introduced the concept of physical "degeneration" into French medical science; Baudelaire's poems turned out to be harbingers of decadence in European literature. In retrospect, we can state that the coincidence in the dates of appearance of these two texts indicates the emergence of a new cultural discourse in the second half of the 19th century. Revealing the underside of progress, it developed under the sign of the convergence of the theory of degeneration with the practice of decadence in art.