The Value of Life and the Value of Death

Abstract

Darwinism was a matter of life and death. No one understood this better than Darwin did. Immediately after explaining that each organism “has to struggle for life, and to suffer great destruction,” he closed his chapter on “The Struggle for Existence” on a more comforting note: “When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.” This put a rather positive spin on the struggle for existence, the “law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.”¹ Even while overtly denying any purpose or goal for evolution, Darwin could not resist the mid-Victorian cult of progress, as these passages illustrate with their vision of increasing health, strength, and even happiness.