Origin of Species

The Origin of Species, published by Charles Darwin in 1859, offered a unique explanation for the creation of species. Creationism, or the belief that God was responsible for the origin of every species, was the dominant theory of origin of species prior to Darwin's publication. Prior to Darwin, Carl Linnaeus has theorized that there were many more species in existence than created by God. The passage under consideration here is from Chapter Four of The Origin of Species, "Natural Selection." Many concepts in Darwin's work, like "survival of the fittest", had been used by others like Herbert Spencer in his writings on evolutionary philosophy. A British naturalist, Darwin's family was wealthy but despite his father's objections Darwin accompanied his botany professor John Stevens Henslow on his surveying expedition to Patagonia, aboard the HMS Beagle. Darwin's theories of evolution were based on the evolutionary science of French philosopher Auguste Comte.

The passage under analysis explains Darwin's theory of natural selection, the believe that the improvement or evolution of each species is a direct result of its organic and inorganic conditions of life. Species experiences advances in organization, based on these conditions. Darwin leads up to his theory of natural selection by discussing observable variations in domesticated plant and animal life. He then launches into a discussion of variation under nature, in which he asserts

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