CHAPTER III THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE The Idea not so Simple as it seems-The Anthropomorphism of the Idea-Different Forms of the Struggle for ExistenceStruggle for Existence in the Plant World-Illustration of the Complexity of the Struggle for Existence-Reasons for the Struggle for Existence-Results of the Struggle for ExistenceBreadth of the Darwinian Concept of the Struggle for Existence-The other Side of the Struggle for ExistenceMutual Aid-Application of the Concept to Human Life. THE IDEA NOT SO SIMPLE AS IT SEEMS.-No evolutionist phrase is more familiar than "the struggle for existence," which has passed into everyday usage. Yet it is not easy to grasp its full meaning, or to keep it vividly in mind. "Nothing is easier," Darwin said, "than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficultat least I have found it so-than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind. Yet, unless it be thoroughly engrained in the mind, the whole economy of nature, with every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction, and variation, will be dimly seen or quite misunderstood."1 If a recognition of the "struggle for existence is essential to a clear outlook on nature, and if Darwin found difficulty in bearing it constantly in mind, we must be prepared to take some pains in trying to get a grasp of the facts which the "The Origin of Species," p. 49. phrase sums up. This is the more desirable since there is often tyranny in a phrase, especially when it is misunderstood. Are we sure that we understand what the struggle for existence means? Are we clear that it means much more than the bare words suggest? Do we understand that the phrase is a biological formula which has at the same time the misfortune of being an anthropomorphic metaphor ? From ancient days there had been a recognition of a struggle in nature--we find the idea expressed by Aristotle and by Lucretius, and more definitely by several of the pioneers of modern evolution theory-but it was Darwin who first realised its length and breadth, its height and depth, and, what is more, its dynamic significance.1 THE ANTHROPOMORPHISM OF THE IDEA.-In trying to understand the past and present of living creatures naturalists have followed with some success two very different methods, which seem opposed to one another, but are rather complementary. The one method is to inquire into the material machinery of vital activity, to throw on the puzzling drama of life the light of chemistry and physics. This is a sound method as far as it goes. The celery is blanched because 1 It is interesting to notice how often Tennyson turns to certain aspects of the struggle for existence, as when he speaks of Nature "red in tooth and claw with ravine," "So careless of the single life," or in the well-known lines: "For life is not as idle ore; But iron dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears, it is hidden from the light; the child is pale because, roughly speaking, it has not enough of iron in its blood. The defect of the method is that, unless its partiality be borne in mind, it is apt to give a false simplicity to the facts, for it is quite certain that we cannot at present redescribe vital happenings in terms of modern physics and chemistry-vitalistic as these are. The old materialism has been found out. The other method is to read man into the beasts and even into the flowers of the field, to interpret the life of animals and plants in terms of human life. This is also a sound method as far as it goes. Its defect is that, verification being difficult, we are apt to land in fanciful anthropomorphism. Perhaps we may say, without disrespect, that it was in great part Darwin's method, just as the other was Spencer's. Darwin approached the naturalist's problem from above, Spencer from below. No better illustration of Darwin's wholesome anthropomorphism can be found than the cardinal idea of the struggle for existence. It is an idea borrowed from human life; it was consciously suggested to Darwin by reading Malthus; it was subconsciously suggested by the keen industrial competition, more striking-because more novelin Darwin's day than in ours. In human life the phrase "struggle for existence" is a formula summing up in three words half the misery and half the happiness of mankind. It means that when Nature has said to man you must die " he has always answered back "I will live." means that he has fought with wild beasts and 66 1 See "The Kingdom of Man," by Sir E. Ray Lankester. It |