442 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION: 



over an unending sieve which never ceases to sift; an un- 

 certain fraction of the variants pass through the meshes and 

 are ground to powder 'twixt the upper and the lower mill- 

 stone; another uncertain fraction escapes and continues its 

 kind. These are no mills of God, but of Moloch, and all 

 is dread automatism. But it was to remove this misunder- 

 standing that we lingered in a previous lecture over the 

 struggle for existence, and saw that it included all the 

 individual endeavours and answers-back which creatures with 

 a will to live and abundance of resource make to their en- 

 vironing limitations and difficulties. After allowing a little 

 for chance, the relatively best candidates will come to the 

 top in a number of wisely and accurately conducted exami- 

 nations. This is not mechanical or automatic; neither is 

 Natural Selection. We must recognise that Natural Selec- 

 tion includes all the subtlety of endeavour, all the patient 

 perseverance, all the indomitable insurgence, of living crea- 

 tures. They share in their own evolution ; they often help 

 to make the sieves by which they are sifted. 



(B) Another sentimental reason for recoil is because of 

 the supposed grimness of the selection-method. " Contention 

 is the vital force " ; rank individualism is the order of Na- 

 ture ; " Each for himself : ' is the cry from every corner, and 

 extinction take the hindmost. It is a vast gladiatorial show, 

 said Huxley, this Nature, a dismal cockpit. But, as we 

 have seen, this is a travesty. The struggle for existence is 

 a metaphor, it includes every new endeavour after well-being ; 

 it is rarely very intense between near kin ; it is often not 

 competitive at all. One organism survives, indeed, by sharp- 

 ening its claws and whetting its teeth, but another by increas- 

 ing maternal care or mutual aid. 



Speaking of the Darwinian conception of the way in which 



