The concept of a struggle for existence goes back to antiquity:
Heraclitus of Ephesus wrote of struggle being the father of everything, and
Aristotle in his
History of Animals observed that "There is enmity between such animals as dwell in the same localities or subsist on the same food. If the means of subsistence run short, creatures of like kind will fight together." 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." In his
Leviathan of 1651,
Thomas Hobbes described vividly an unbridled human struggle over resources, a "war of every man against every man" if unrestrained by state power. This was the doctrine of
bellum omnium contra omnes.
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. Anticipating Malthus, he proposed that a wise Providence made periodic Reductions in excessive numbers of animals, as with human population "to keep it within such bounds as may keep it from surcharging the World" so that "by these Prunings there may be a consistency in the Numbers of Mankind, with an eternal succession of individuals." The Reductions experienced by humanity were "1. Plagues and Epidemical Diseases: 2. Famines: 3. Wars and Internecions: 4. Floods and Inundations: 5: Conflagrations."
Buffon and Franklin, population growth Population increase causing the struggle for existence was given numerical expression by
Buffon in 1751. He calculated that an
elm seed would produce a tree which, after 10 years, produced 1,000 seeds. If each were sown, the whole globe would be converted into trees in 150 years. 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." Taking the example of herrings, if "prodigious numbers of them were not destroyed" each year they would soon cover the surface of the sea, but they would then be destroyed by "contagion and famine", so it was necessary and right that animals preyed on each other. 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. For in old settled Countries, as England for instance, as soon as the Number of People is as great as can be supported by all the
Tillage, Manufactures, Trade and Offices of the Country, the Over-plus must quit the Country, or they will perish by Poverty, Diseases, and want of Necessaries. Marriage too, is discouraged, many declining it, till they can see how they shall be able to maintain a Family." In 1751, Franklin wrote his
Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc. proposing a 25-year doubling period in the colonies, an
exponential growth in population. Over the following century, this forecast was remarkably accurate. His paper was widely circulated, and had considerable influence: Malthus cited the period as "a rate in which all concurring testimonies agree." Franklin's view was optimistic: Those migrating to America would "have their places at home soon supplied" and "increase so largely here" that there was no need for other immigrants. and referred to "bellum omnium perpetuum in omnes, et horrenda laniena" (a perpetual war of all against all, and horrible massacre). In 1773
James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, noted that "the most fruitful country can be overstocked with any animal and particularly with man", and "when men were so multiplied that the natural fruits of the earth could not maintain them", they could emigrate, prey on other animals or each other, or preferably "associate and provide in common what singly they could not procure." 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." For
William Smellie in 1790 a profusion of animal life improved "in proportion to the number of enemies they have to attack or evade", and by making animals feed upon each other, the system of animation and of happiness is extended to the greatest possible degree. In this view, Nature, instead of being cruel and oppressive, is highly generous and beneficent."
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!".
Origins of the term The term
struggle for existence was already in use by this time. and in 1795
The Monthly Review used it to describe trees when discussing
Thomas Cooper's
Some Information Respecting America. In a
House of Lords speech on 2 November 1797,
Lord Gwydir said they were engaged "in a struggle for existence as a nation" in the
French Revolutionary Wars.
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.
Malthus argues that a population will increase exponentially if unchecked, while resources will only increase arithmetically.|281x281px In
An Essay on the Principle of Population,
Thomas Robert Malthus argues that a population will increase exponentially if unchecked, while resources will only increase arithmetically. Malthus explains, for example, that a human check on population growth is the conscious decision not to reproduce because of financial burden. Thus, "population [growth] tends to oscillate around its means of subsistence." The combination of Malthus' "law of multiplication in geometrical progression" and "the law of limited population" leads to the idea of the struggle for existence. In this volume, Lyell strongly defended his view that species were fixed against ideas of
transmutation of species. To explain
adaptation,
Lamarck proposed that species did not become extinct, but constantly transformed to suit a changing environment: Lyell believed in
essentialism in which species were fixed so could not adapt to change, and became extinct.
Hybrids had been proposed as evidence of transmutation; Lyell argued that they would not survive to make new species.
Darwin began developing his ideas of "warring of the species" leading to
natural selection. |265x265px
Charles Darwin initially shared the belief that nature was perfect and harmonious: By mid January 1832, early in the
Beagle voyage, Darwin saw geology from
Charles Lyell's viewpoint. 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. He was reminded of
Malthusianism when his sisters sent him out pamphlets by
Harriet Martineau. Lyell had been unable to show the mechanism for introducing new species, and towards the end of the voyage Darwin noted that the distribution of
mockingbirds found on the
Galápagos Islands raised doubts that species were fixed. Early in 1837
John Gould in London revealed that the mockingbirds were separate species: Darwin was spurred into intensive research and
the inception of his theory to find the mechanism introducing species. Unconventionally, he sought information from
animal breeders. In September 1838, while investigating variation, averages and population statistics, he read
Malthus’
An Essay on the Principle of Population, and wrote: 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." in mid March 1839 he wrote of the "dreadful but quiet war of organic beings. going on the peaceful woods. & smiling fields" in which "a grain of sand turns the balance", a month later he wrote, of the "innumerable seeds" of a
bulrush, "if a seed were produced with infinitesimal advantage it would have better chance of being propagated". He began to see a similarity between farmers selecting breeding livestock and what he came to call
natural selection, still thinking of this as a benevolent law ordained to create adaptation. In his 1842
sketch expanding his theory, Darwin wrote that "De Candolle's war of nature,—seeing contented face of nature,—may be well at first doubted", but "considering the enormous geometrical power of increase in every organism" countries "must be fully stocked" referring to "Malthus on man": later in the
sketch he used the phrase "struggle of nature", and on the back of one sheet "struggle of existence". In his 1844
Essay Darwin began his section on
Natural Means of Selection with "De Candolle, in an eloquent passage, has declared that all nature is at war, one organism with another, or with external nature", and described this "war" as "the doctrine of Malthus applied in most cases with ten-fold force." In later sections, including the summary, he used the phrase "struggle for existence", which he had read in several books including Lyell's
Geology. On 3 March 1857 he wrote chapter 5 of his "big book" on his theory, initially headed "On Natural Selection". The relevant section, titled "
Struggle of Nature" had as an alternative title "
War of Nature". At a later date he changed the chapter heading to "The Struggle For Existence As Bearing On Natural Selection" and made the section title "
The Struggle for existence", making this his main theme to allow a broader interpretation than one of war between organisms: he used the phrase "in a very large sense" to include mutual dependency and the physical environmental as when "a plant on the edge of a desert is often said to struggle for existence" due to its need for moisture. 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", he wrote that: Darwin gradually included the idea that adaptations were not from birth, but rather from organisms responding to external pressures. Supporting this claim, in about 1855, Darwin noted that the struggle for existence would produce diversification – leading to Darwin's principle of divergence.
T.H. Huxley, commonly known as Darwin's Bulldog, clearly explains the struggle for existence in terms of natural selection. Huxley explains that the struggle for existence is concluded based on the fact that populations grow geometrically if unchecked but populations tend to stay constant in number over time. Lyell discusses a struggle between organisms that causes one species to become extinct; Wallace may have taken the phrase struggle for existence from this example. Then, in 1853, Wallace first used the phrase "struggle for existence" when discussing the issue of slavery. Wallace combined the idea of the struggle for existence with variation to argue for the idea of "survival of the fittest." According to Darwin, both variation and the struggle for existence were in large part consequences of living organisms' active responses to the ways they were positioned in the complex 'web of relations' which made up their own particular habitat. The modern synthesis proposed instead, first, that the principal sources of the variations winnowed by natural selection were
biochemical rather than
phenotypic: genetic
mutation and
genetic recombination. Secondly, rather than seeing natural selection as a consequence of living organisms' struggle for existence in a theatre of agency, organisms fell out of the evolutionary picture entirely and the selecting agency was reconceived as
the environment. Overlooking the fact (stressed by Darwin) that the inheritance of parental characteristics requires both the
transmission of heritable material and its
development, scientists commonly discounted the roles of
ontogeny and
epigenesis in the development of an individual's adaptations and spoke of DNA simply
programming the observable characteristics of organisms. This cast
genes—not organisms—as the principal target of selection, whether they were selfish, cooperative, or otherwise. In this scenario, phenotypes become mere stooges, temporary vehicles for conveying genes from generation to generation. This reconceptualization was epitomized in
Richard Dawkins' book
The Selfish Gene (1976) which attributed agency to genes/DNA and reduced the organisms whose cells they inhabited to passive vehicles or what he called 'lumbering robots'. The findings of 21st century
evolutionary biology have given a new lease of life to Darwin's idea of
the struggle for existence. Evidence that the actions of living organisms often create new competitive advantages for their species is now central to several of today's
Extended Evolutionary Syntheses. == Alternative theories: Mutual aid and cooperation ==