Foster Chamberlin Humanities 102 April 10, 2019 The Theory of Evolution “Struggle for Existence” from Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species Foster Chamberlin Humanities 102 April 10, 2019

Class Outline The Origins of the Theory Darwin’s Argument The Reception of the Theory Social Darwinism Conclusion: Darwin and the Humanities

Ancient and Early Modern Ideas The idea of evolution The idea of a fixed world (Plato, Aristotle, Christianity) Copernicus decentering Earth Galileo and knowledge through observation

Geological Evolution James Hutton (1726-1797)

Evolution through Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829)

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and the Voyage of the Beagle (1831-1836)

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type” (1858)

How Darwin Makes His Argument

Chapter I- Variation under Domestication

Chapter 2- Variation under Nature “It has been seen in the last chapter that amongst organic beings in a state of nature there is some individual variability; indeed I am not aware that this has ever been disputed.” (60)

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)

Chapter 3- The Struggle of Existence “It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms” (63) “There is no exception to the rule that every organic being naturally increases at so high a rate, that if not destroyed, the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair. Even slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty-five years, and at this rate, in a few thousand years, there would literally not be standing room for his progeny.” (64) “Every single organic being around us... lives by a struggle at some period of its life... heavy destruction inevitably falls either on the young or old” (66) “Battle within battle must ever be recurring with varying success; and yet in the long-run the forces are so nicely balanced, that the face of nature remains uniform for long periods of time, though assuredly the merest trifle would often give the victory to one organic being over another.” (73)

Chapter 4- Natural Selection “Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. The offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of surviving, for, of the many individuals of any species which are periodically born, but a small number can survive. 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.” (61)

Chapter 4- Natural Selection Putting together the premises Individuals vary The struggle for existence Breeds change through artificial selection Nature does the same thing as humans, the fittest survive The Descent of Man (1871) Reception of the Theory Chapter 4- Natural Selection

Darwin’s “Tree of Life” Diagram

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) The Father of Genetics

DNA Replication

Social Darwinism Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

Eugenics Francis Galton (1822-1911)

Social Darwinism & Eugenics Darwin and Social Darwinism “Scientific” racism Sterilization programs Aktion T4 From Darwin to Hitler?

Darwin and the Humanities Man and the universe Temporality Struggle Man vs. nature Destruction and creation The individual The social Positivism Progress Relativism Aesthetics “When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.” (79)

Darwin and the Humanities “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” (490)