The Struggle for Life

With Manifold Force

The Struggle for Life It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. Charles Darwin

The Struggle for Life The full title of Darwin's book was "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." "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." Charles Darwin

"But the mere existence of individual variability and of some few well-marked varieties, though necessary as the foundation for the work, helps us but little in understanding how species arise in nature. How have all those exquisite adaptations of one part of the organisation to another part, and to the conditions of life, and of one distinct organic being to another being, been perfected? We see these beautiful co-adaptations most plainly in the woodpecker and missletoe; and only a little less plainly in the humblest parasite which clings to the hairs of a quadruped or feathers of a bird; in the structure of the beetle which dives through the water; in the plumed seed which is wafted by the gentlest breeze; in short, we see beautiful adaptations everywhere and in every part of the organic world."

"Again, it may be asked, how is it that varieties, which I have called incipient species, become ultimately converted into good and distinct species, which in most cases obviously differ from each other far more than do the varieties of the same species? How do those groups of species, which constitute what are called distinct genera, and which differ from each other more than do the species of the same genus, arise? All these results, as we shall more fully see in the next chapter, follow inevitably from the struggle for life. Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring ... I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection."

"But Natural Selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art." Charles Darwin

Darwin's Struggle: The Evolution Of The Origin Of Species (BBC)

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." Charles Darwin

A monk once asked Zen master Mu-chou Lu, "We dress and eat every day, and how do we escape from having to put on clothes and eat food?" Mu-chou replied, "We dress; we eat." The monk said, "I don't understand." Mu-chou answered, "If you don't understand, put on your clothes, and eat your food." (Ku-tsun-hsu Yu-lu)

Dan Ariely:  What makes us feel good about our work?

“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Love Life Enough To Struggle
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© 2013 MU-Peter Shimon