ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Nietzsche's productive (mis)reading of Darwinism, the objections and criticisms that he formulates regarding what he understood as Darwin's work. Quite fervent discussions around Darwin's writings must have occurred throughout the period of Nietzsche's studies, and Darwinism remained one of the most contested and elaborated theoretical contributions of the nineteenth century. As with much of the discussion of Darwinism, his polemic was ideological rather than scientific, and it had scant bearing on the true interest and importance of Darwin's theories. Darwin’s understanding of natural selection posits both an internal dynamism within living beings and an external force, outside individuals, which generate two parallel series: the series of individual variations and the series of natural selection. Nietzsche claims that Darwinism elevates the struggle for mere existence, for need or survival above the struggle for something more noble, which is the struggle that exhibits and strengthens the will to power.
