Charles Darwin

Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-82): English biologist. In 1831 he joined an expedition to study flora and fauna, and published his observations in A Naturalist's Voyage on the Beagle (1839). His theory of evolution, set out in the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871), stated that all kinds of living things developed from, at most, very few simple forms through natural selection among variations. In particular, Darwin denied that the evolution of man as a biological species was governed by forces fundamentally different from those influencing other forms of life, although he did not infer that human beings must or should model their own conduct on "nature red in tooth and claw".

Darwinism: Darwin's view of organic evolution through natural selection, which favours individuals and species best suited to a given environment. This theory undermined beliefs about man's being the supreme product of God's design and was certainly incompatible with any literal reading of Genesis. By showing that living things are not patterned after prototypes, each sharply differentiated from all the others, it made it necessary to revise the view that all natural things have real, though often unknown, essences that can serve as a basis for their differentiation into species. The idea that life is subject to natural laws guarenteeing the survival of the fittest influenced, by action or reaction, many later ethical and sociological theories.