Darwin established the argument on the origin of species through an analogy inspired by artificial selection or breeding and natural selection. Darwin provides that the nature’s power of selection explains the human selective practices which mount up variation in a certain direction and by so doing lead to the generation and sustenance of new and distinctive races. As such, natural selection functioning through the continuous selective action which Darwin referred to as the ‘struggle for existence’ is responsible for producing and maintaining new and distinctive species (Darwin 210). According to Darwin, nature provides successive variations while man adds increases then in certain directions that are useful to him. As such, Darwin concludes that man produces species that are valuable to him. He considers this as a characteristic of what refers to as ‘unconscious selection’.
Darwin opines that if there were savages who are very cruel such that they do not bother with the inherited character of the brood of their domestic animals, any one of the animals would be preserved in cases of famine and other calamities, to which the savages are consequently liable. Consequently, such selected animals would produce more offspring than the inferior ones such that in such a scenario there would be unconscious selection. According to Darwin, there is a value placed on animals by the savage races of South America, the Tierra del Fuego, as characterized by their killing and consuming of their aged women in instances of extreme drought, as they are considered to be of less value than even their dogs (200).
The savage races are depicted as having no concern about propagating their species as would be expected from a logical selection and who also do not bother to preserve their own finest animals due to the savage’s nebulous sense of wanting to preserve their stock as in the instances of timely unconscious selection. The savages simply opt to feed the little they have to only their favored animals whenever it is time to tighten belts near the campfire (Darwin 318).
With regard to the foregoing, Darwin uses an example of savages to elaborate his point of unconscious and almost natural kind of selection besides depicting man in a primitive state of civilization. He therefore postulated that there were no diverse human races and that every human race is closely connected to another. He further believed that natural selection was no longer a common aspect within civilized societies as it was among other animals. The mentally and physical weak savages are soon eliminated and those that persist generally exhibit a resilient state of health.
As regards sexual selection, Darwin claimed that it was a way in which certain individuals outdo others in reproduction because they are much better at securing mates (232). According to Darwin this aspect is important in the natural selection theory and contributes immensely in the evolution of species. He argues that sexual selection has played a key role in molding differences between the nature of males and females. However, unlike natural selection, Darwin believes that sexual selection is not about the struggle for existence but rather a power struggle among males for the control of females (235).
Work Cited
Darwin, Charles. On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of
favoured races in the struggle for life (1st Ed.). London: John Murray, 121.5 (1859): 318.
Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1st ed.), London: John
Murray, 1871, pp. 200-243.
