Struggle for existence

From the 17th century onwards the concept was associated with a population exceeding resources, an issue shown starkly in Thomas Robert Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population which drew on Benjamin Franklin's Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc.. Charles Darwin used the phrase "struggle for existence" in a broader sense, and chose the term as the title to the third chapter of On the Origin of Species published in 1859.

Using Malthus's idea of the struggle for existence, Darwin was able to develop his view of adaptation, which was highly influential in the formulation of the theory of natural selection.

[6] He wrote Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution partially as a response to Huxley's essay "The Struggle for Existence".

"[9] From translations, the 9th century Arabic scholar Al-Jahiz apparently listed ways in which animals "can not exist without food, neither can the hunting animal escape being hunted in his turn", similarly "God has disposed some human beings as a cause of life for others, and likewise, he has disposed the latter as a cause of the death of the former.

[12] Matthew Hale in The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature (1677) described the struggles of hunter and prey animals.

Similarly, "if we were to hatch every egg produced by hens for a space of 30 years, there would be a sufficient number of fowls to cover the whole surface of the earth."

[14] Amidst debates on fears of British depopulation, Benjamin Franklin collected statistics of the American colonies which he published in his Poor Richard Improved of 1750 with the question of "how long will it be, before by an Increase of 64 per Annum, 34,000 people will double themselves?"

He concluded: "People increase faster by Generation in these Colonies, where all can have full Employ, and there is Room and Business for Millions yet unborn.

His paper was widely circulated, and had considerable influence: Malthus cited the period as "a rate in which all concurring testimonies agree.

"[15] Franklin's view was optimistic: There is, in short, no bound to the prolific nature of plants or animals, but what is made by their crowding and interfering with each other's means of subsistence.

Carl Linnaeus saw an overall benign balance, but also showed calculations of the Earth quickly filling with one species if it reproduced unchecked,[17] and referred to "bellum omnium perpetuum in omnes, et horrenda laniena" (a perpetual war of all against all, and horrible massacre).

In 1775 Kant visualised inner and outer struggle as the impetus for man passing from a rude state of nature to a citizen, Herder in 1784 saw a personified Nature promoting huge numbers of organisms competing for resources so that "the whole creation is at war", crowding "her creatures one upon another" to "produce the greatest number and variety of living beings in the least space, so that one crushes another, and an equilibrium of powers can alone bring peace to the creation."

"[19] Erasmus Darwin in his Temple of Nature (published 1803) returned to Linnaean imagery, "From Hunger's arms the shafts of Death are hurl'd; And one great Slaughter‐house the warring world!

[17] For example, in 1790 Jeremy Bentham proposed reformed elections as "a contest for distinction, not a struggle for existence",[21] and in 1795 The Monthly Review used it to describe trees when discussing Thomas Cooper's Some Information Respecting America.

[23] Benjamin Disraeli included the phrase "a density of population implies a severe struggle for existence" in his novel Sybil (1845), which was about the plight of the working class in Britain.

His friend Charles Lyell quoted this passage in the second volume of Principles of Geology:[28] "All the plants of a given country," says Decandolle in his usual spirited style, "are at war one with another.

The first which establish themselves by chance in a particular spot, tend, by the mere occupancy of space, to exclude other species—the greater choke the smaller, the longest livers replace those which last for a shorter period, the more prolific gradually make themselves masters of the ground, which species multiplying more slowly would otherwise fill.

[30] If we consider the vegetable kingdom generally, it must be recollected, that even of the seeds which are well ripened, the greater part are either eaten by insects, birds, and other animals, or decay for want of room and opportunity to germinate.

Unhealthy plants are the first which are cut off by causes prejudicial to the species, being usually stifled by more vigorous individuals of their own kind.

In the universal struggle for existence, the right of the strongest eventually prevails; and the strength and durability of a race depends mainly on its prolificness, in which hybrids are acknowledged to be deficient.Charles Darwin initially shared the belief that nature was perfect and harmonious:[2] after graduating as a student at the University of Cambridge in 1831, he was convinced by William Paley's Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity which saw adaptation as purposeful design and presented population pressure optimistically; "it is a happy world after all".

When the second volume of Lyell's Principles of Geology was delivered to the Beagle that November, Darwin accepted its argument that the "struggle for existence" disproved transmutation of species.

Population is increase at geometrical ratio in far shorter time than 25 years — yet until the one sentence of Malthus no one clearly perceived the great check amongst men[35]That sentence is on page 6 of the first volume of Malthus' Essay, 6th edition: "It may safely be pronounced, therefore, that the population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio.

[41] In his "Abstract" of his book, quickly written and published as On the Origin of Species in 1859, Darwin made his third chapter "Struggle for Existence" .

After "a few preliminary remarks" relating it to natural selection, and acknowledgement that the "elder De Candolle and Lyell have largely and philosophically shown that all organic beings are exposed to severe competition",[42] he wrote that: A struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high rate at which all organic beings tend to increase [so that] on the principle of geometrical increase, its numbers would quickly become so inordinately great that no country could support the product.

Huxley, commonly known as Darwin's Bulldog, clearly explains the struggle for existence in terms of natural selection.

[45] Additionally, Wallace claimed that it was the collection of chapters 3–12 of the first volume of An Essay on the Principle of Population that helped him develop his theory.

[3] "In these chapters are comprised very detailed accounts from all available sources of the various causes which keep down the population of savage and barbarous nations.

[45] Wallace saw in Malthus's writing how there are different ways in which a population can be kept in check: "From "the law of multiplication in geometrical progression" (the fact that all species have the power to increase their number up to as much as a thousandfold per year) and "the law of limited population" (the fact that the number of living individuals of each species typically remains almost stationary), one deduces that there is a struggle for existence.

[48] Kropotkin believed that Wallace and Darwin saw the struggle for existence because of their coastal location and overpopulated areas of study.

"[55] Today, the struggle for existence is a widely accepted idea that helps to explain and justify the theory of natural selection.