The Origin of Species (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charles Darwin [249]
9 (p. 39) We see the value set on animals even by the barbarians of Tierra del Fuego, by their killing and devouring their old women, in times of dearth, as of less value than their dogs: Darwin was struck during his voyage aboard the Beagle by the condition of the Fuegians: “I could not have believed how wide was the difference, between savage and civilized man. It is greater than between a wild and domesticated animal.” Darwin’s point that the Fuegians ate their old women is almost surely the result of a widespread misunderstanding; the Fuegians were not cannibals.
10 (p. 60) I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man’s power of selection: It was only in the fifth edition that Darwin added here the sentence that included the phrase often attributed to him: “But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.” Natural Selection seems in fact the better phrase, less likely to be misunderstood or simplified.
11 (p. 61) I should premise that I used the term Struggle for Existence in a large and metaphorical sense.... In these several senses, which pass into each other, I use for convenience sake the general term of struggle for existence: This crucial paragraph is often overlooked in the dominant tendency to read Darwin’s theory as though it described a world constantly at war. But in fact, as the renowned Russian anarchist theorist Pyotr Kropotkin argued in his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution ( 1902), Darwin’s theory implies a nature in which every organism is intimately linked both to the environment and to many other organisms. The vision of this paragraph and of the book as a whole is certainly in harmony with the strong ecological vision of contemporary conser vationists.
12 (p. 75) Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection, ... as perhaps we see in the species called polymorphic: At this point, in the third edition, Darwin inserted a passage that attempts to justify the use of the metaphor natural selection: “Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the term Natural Selection. Some have even imagined that natural selection induces variability, whereas it implies only the preservation of such variations as occur and are beneficial in the being under its conditions of life. No one objects to agriculturalists speaking of the potent effects of man’s selection; and in this case the individual differences given by nature, which man for some object selects, must of necessity first occur. Others have objected that the term selection implies conscious choice in the animals which become modified; and it has even been urged that, as plants have no volition, natural selection is not applicable to them! In the literal sense of the word, no doubt, natural selection is a misnomer; but who ever objected to chemists speaking of the elective affinities of the various elements?—and yet an acid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with which it will in preference combine. It has been said that I speak of natural selection as an active power or Deity; but who objects to an author speaking of the attraction of gravity as ruling the movements of the planets? Every one knows what is meant and is implied by such metaphorical expressions; and they are almost necessary for brevity. So again it is difficult to avoid personifying the word Nature; but I mean by Nature, only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us. With a little familiarity such superficial objections will be forgotten.”
13 (p. 76) nature: Darwin’s struggles with the problem of using metaphors to make his case is manifest in the way