Darwin, Charles (1809–82)

Abstract Charles Darwin was an English naturalist who proposed the theory of biological evolution through the mechanism of natural selection in his classic work, The Origin of Species (1859). The publication of the Origin came more than two decades after Darwin first formulated its central ideas following his five‐year voyage on HMS Beagle . Despite the existence of competing and complementary evolutionary accounts both during and since Darwin's lifetime, Darwin's theory as originally expressed in the Origin remains by far the single most influential expression of the idea of biological evolution. While Darwin's theory is first and foremost one of natural history, a variety of factors joined both at its inception and subsequently to lend enormous social and political significance to Darwin's thought. Among the social and political implications that have been alleged to stem from Darwin's writings are laissez‐faire capitalism, socialism, eugenics, and Nazism.