When Jack London was born in 1876, Charles Darwin's theories of evolution dominated the scientific and theological world, and London utilized many of Darwin's theories in his writings. Then only three years later, London was to write the antithesis to this story in White Fang (1906), showing how a wild animal of the North (three-fourths wolf) who has been severely mistreated can, through a change in environment and proper attention, be changed into a civilized animal of the Southland. Perfect proof of this statement lies in the fact that The Call of the Wild (1903) shows the Darwinian theories of the "survival of the fittest," as a dog is taken from its civilized Southland and is placed in the primitive North, where it must learn to cope with all sorts of primitive conditions if it is to survive. Instead, he fluctuated from one critical view to another as the moment seemed to warrant it. Jack London did not adhere to any particular philosophical or critical theories.
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