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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Origin of Species, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Natural Selection and the Power of Nature
Reason, Argument, and the Scientific Method
Time and Progress
Collaboration and Science
Summary
Analysis
Charles Darwin was the naturalist on board a ship called the H.M.S. Beagle which traveled to South America before returning home to Britain in 1837. Darwin encountered some unusual creatures in South America, and after considering the subject for a while and writing about it, he finally published a draft of his thoughts in 1859 (as The Origin of Species). Darwin stressed that his work wasn’t finished and that he intended to continue writing, but he had been urged to publish what he currently had by some friends in the scientific community.
Though Darwin mentions his trip on the H.M.S. Beagle only briefly in this section, many historians consider it the turning point in his life when he first began to develop his revolutionary ideas about evolution. Darwin’s claim that The Origin of Species is incomplete is modest. Partly, this is a rhetorical strategy to make his argument more appealing to hesitant readers, but it is also true that Darwin had many more things to say about evolution, and that he greatly expanded on his ideas in the books published after The Origin of Species.
Themes
Literary Devices
Two of Darwin’s most important supporters were Sir Charles Lyell and Dr. Hooker. Darwin wrote that he also received assistance from other naturalists who were too numerous to name.
Like many scientists of his time, Darwin blended personal and professional relationships, and some of his friends and supporters were also people whose work was very influential on his own.
Themes
Darwin laid out how he arrived at the idea that species (of organisms) arise by descending from other species. Domesticated animals provided one way to look at how species modify and adapt over time, so Darwin decided to dedicate part of his book to this issue.
Here, Darwin begins to lay out ideas that he will explore in greater detail in later chapters of the book. Domestic animals are a recurring theme because they provide quantifiable proof about how certain traits can be inherited.
Themes
Darwin also decided to spend part of his book on exploring the ideas of Thomas Malthus. Darwin’s interpretation of Malthus was that all species are in competition to exist, and the specimens with the best chance of surviving are “naturally selected.” For this reason, Darwin devoted a chapter of his book to natural selection, then several following chapters to defending the idea, which he admitted seemed to present difficulties at first.
Thomas Malthus was most famous for his philosophies about the danger of overpopulation. He believed that populations grew faster than food supplies, and at a certain point, this would lead to a catastrophe like war or famine to reduce the population size. Darwin adapted these ideas when working out his own theory of natural selection, particularly the idea that organisms are in competition for limited resources.
Themes
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Darwin wrote that although humans remained ignorant on many scientific matters, including issues related to the origin of species, investigating these issues would be essential for the general welfare in both the present and the future. Despite granting that some problems may remain a mystery for a long time, Darwin asserted that natural selection must be the most important (though not the only) way through which species are modified.
Darwin makes the case for why his theories are important. While he acknowledges the limits of his ideas, as well as the general limits of human knowledge, he nevertheless argues that humanity benefits from better understanding nature. This philosophy is behind much of what Darwin writes in the chapters that follow.
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