You don't have to believe him, but you would be wrong. Charlie hizzelf stated ---Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse: a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.[emphasis mine]
from On the Origin Of Species (1859) Charles Darwin, Chapter XV: Recapitulation and Conclusion