Darwin's Language of Violence.
On 1 July 1858, Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace jointly presented the Theory of Natural Selection to the Linnean Society. The presentation had an interesting history. Some months earlier, Darwin had received a latter from Wallace outlining the same theory of natural selection that he had been secretly working on for many years. This letter forced Darwin into the open, and it was arranged that both Darwin and Wallace would make a joint presentation to the Linnean Society.
Darwin's paper
Darwin went first, and launched his War of Nature in the very first line of his paper.
De Candolle, in an eloquent passage has declared that all nature is at war, one organism with another, or with external nature. Seeing the contented face of nature, this may at first be well daubted; but reflection will inevitably prove it to be true.
Darwin's paper is partly a section of a manuscript, and partly a 1857 letter to Asa Gray. The manuscript is not written in the clear English of his subsequent book, The Origin of Species. There is a sense that Darwin's paper was thrown together rather hurriedly, and that at least part of his attempt was to provide evidence that he was working on the same idea when he received Wallace's letter.
Darwin cites the propensity of animals to multiply, and give several examples. This propensity results in a struggle for life, in which only those with some advantage survive.
Wallace's paper
Wallace's paper, by contrast, is one carefully crafted argument from beginning to end. It begins with the propensity of domestic species to revert to wild type.
One of the strongest arguments which have been adduced to prove the original and permanent distinctness of species is, that varieties produced in a state of domesticity are more or less unstable, and often have a tendency, if left to themselves, to return to the normal form of the parent species;
For Wallace the "struggle for existence" in the wild is almost entirely hard work.
The life of wild animals is a struggle for existence. The full exertion of all their faculties and all their energies is required to preserve their own existence and provide for that of their infant offspring
Wallace stresses the stability of animal populations, and largely discounts their rate of reproduction.
those which are best adapted to obtain a regular supply of food, and to defend themselves against the attacks of their enemies and the vicissitudes of the seasons must necessarily obtain and preserve a superiority in population; while those species which from some defect of power or organization are the least capable of counteracting the vicissitudes of food supply, &c., must diminish in numbers, and, in extreme cases, become altogether extinct.
There is no "war of nature" in Wallace's essay. The best adapted survive, and the less well adapted die out. Domestic species, by contrast, lead easy, pampered lives, and
The domestic animal, on the other hand, has food provided for it, is sheltered, and often confined, to guard against the vicissitudes of the seasons, is carefully secured from the attacks of its natural enemies, and seldom even rears its young without human assistance.
and in this circumstance of care and attention, all variants survive and reproduce.
in the domesticated animal all variations have an equal chance of continuance;
But if they were turned loose in the wild would become extinct, or revert to the wild type. Wallace's paper ends by returning to the propensity of domestic animals to revert to the wild type, with which he began his essay.
If turned wild on the pampas, such animals would probably soon become extinct, or under favourable circumstances might each lose those extreme qualities which would never be called into action, and in a few generations would revert to a common type, which must be that in which the various powers and faculties are so proportioned to each other as to be best adapted to procure food and secure safety,---that in which by the full exercise of every part of his organization the animal can alone continue to live. Domestic varieties, when turned wild, must return to something near the type of the original wild stock, or become altogether extinct.
Comparison of language.
It is fairly clear that both men are presenting substantially the same idea. But they do so in quite differently. Wallace's paper is a jewel of an argument, while Darwin's paper largely consists of a set of assertions, in which a "war of nature" has primacy.
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Darwin's paper regularly uses terms that suggest a war. There is "war", "struggle", "fighting" in which the creatures "exterminate" each other, and there is "victory". There are, in Darwin's paper, some 30 cases of language suggestive of violent struggle.
In Wallace's paper, although there are some 15 examples of language suggestive of violent struggle, they are employed appropriately. Thus where he uses the terms "enemy" he is always referring to the predators of an animal, and violent "attack" by such predators. No-one can deny that attack by predators is not violent. But there is no sense of a general Darwinian War of Nature in Wallace's paper.