Struggle for Existence 471 



Man 1 , concludes that "sterility, mental debility, premature death and, 

 finally, the extinction of the stock were not specially and exclusively 

 the fate of sovereign dynasties ; all privileged classes, all families in 

 exclusively elevated positions share the fate of reigning families, 

 although in a minor degree and in direct proportion to the loftiness 

 of their social standing. From the mass of human beings spring 

 individuals, families, races, which tend to raise themselves above the 

 common level ; painfully they climb the rugged heights, attain the 

 summits of power, of wealth, of intelligence, of talent, and then, no 

 sooner are they there than they topple down and disappear in gulfs 

 of mental and physical degeneracy." The demographical researches 

 of Hansen 2 (following up and completing Dumont's) tended, indeed, 

 to show that urban as well as feudal aristocracies, burgher classes 

 as well as noble castes, were liable to become effete. Hence it might 

 well be concluded that the democratic movement, operating as it does 

 to break down class barriers, was promoting instead of impeding 

 human selection. 



So we see that, according to the point of view, very different 

 conclusions have been drawn from the application of the Darwinian 

 idea of Selection to human society. Darwin's other central idea, 

 closely bound up with this, that, namely, of the "struggle for 

 existence " also has been diversely utilised. But discussion rhas 

 chiefly centered upon its signification. And while some endeavour 

 to extend its application to everything, we find others trying to 

 limit its range. The conception of a " struggle for existence " has in 

 the present day been taken up into the social sciences from natural 

 science, and adopted. But originally it descended from social science 

 to natural. Darwin's law is, as he himself said, only Malthus' law 

 generalised and extended to the animal world : a growing dispro- 

 portion between the supply of food and the number of the living is 

 the fatal order whence arises the necessity of universal struggle, a 

 struggle which, to the great advantage of the species, allows only 

 the best equipped individuals to survive. Nature is regarded by 

 Huxley as an immense arena where all living beings are gladiators 3 . 



Such a generalisation was well adapted to feed the stream of 

 pessimistic thought ; and it furnished to the apologists of war, in 

 particular, new arguments, weighted with all the authority which in 

 these days attaches to scientific deliverances. If people no longer 

 say, as Bonald did, and Moltke after him, that war is a providential 



1 Etudes sur la Selection dans ses rapports avec Vhereditt chez Vhomme, Paris, p. 481, 

 1881. 



2 Die drei Bevolkerungsstufen, Munich, 1889. 



2 Evolution and Ethics, p. 200 ; Collected Essays, vol. ix, London, 1894. 



