Chapter Variation and Struggle of The Origin of Species - Study Guide by Charles Darwin

Many perceived a brutality in the world painted by Darwin, a nature 'red in tooth and claw', but Darwin himself often seems at pains in Origin to soften the picture: "I should premise that I use the term Struggle for Existence in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny." Darwin was not merely being sentimental, he had seized upon the crucial truth that natural selection works by differential rates of reproduction - it is no good surviving unless you can produce offspring, and importantly fertile and healthy offspring. A good indicator of success would in fact be not number of children but number of grandchildren. Darwin also understood the "mutual relations of all organic beings" - a web of life not merely a vast angry amphitheatre of competition. But perhaps there remains a hint of sentimentality, or perhaps concern that readers would feel alarmed by the rigours of nature. Concluding the chapter on the Struggle for Existence, Darwin writes "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.