ETHICS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. 227 



struggle for existence, the popular view seems to construe tliis 

 into the theory that the world is a mere cockpit, in which one 

 race carries on an internecine struggle with the other. If the 

 wolves are turned in with the sheep, the first result will be that 

 all the sheep will become mutton, and the last that there will be 

 one big wolf with all the others inside him. But this is contrary 

 to the essence of the doctrine. Every race depends, we all hold, 

 upon its environment, and the environment includes all the other 

 races. If some, therefore, are in conflict, others are mutually 

 necessary. If the wolf ate all the sheep, and the sheep ate all the 

 grass, the result would be the extirpation of all the sheep and all 

 the wolves, as well as all the grass. The struggle necessarily im- 

 plies reciprocal dependence in a countless variety of ways. There 

 is not only a conflict, but a system of tacit alliances. One species 

 is necessary to the existence of others, though the multiplication of 

 some implies also the dying out of particular rivals. The conflict 

 implies no cruelty, as I have said, and the alliance no good will. 

 The wolf neither loves the sheep (except as mutton) nor hates 

 him ; but he depends upon him as absolutely as if he were aware 

 of the fact. The sheep is one of the wolf's necessaries of life. 

 When we speak of the struggle for existence, we mean, of course, 

 that there is at any given period a certain equilibrium between 

 all the existing species ; it changes, though it changes so slowly 

 that the process is imperceptible and diflicult to realize even to 

 the scientific imagination. The survival of any species involves 

 the disappearance of rivals no more than the preservation of 

 allies. The struggle, therefore, is so far from internecine that it 

 necessarily involves co-operation. It can not even be said that it 

 necessarily implies suffering. People, indeed, speak as though the 

 extinction of a race involved suffering in the same way as the 

 slaughter of an individual. It is plain that this is not a necessary 

 though it may sometimes be the actual result. A corporation 

 may be suppressed without injury to its members. Every indi- 

 vidual will die before long, struggle or no struggle. If the rate of 

 reproduction fails to keep up with the rate of extinction, the 

 species must diminish. But this might happen without any in- 

 crease of suffering. If the boys in a district discover how to 

 take birds' eggs, they might soon extirpate a species ; but it does 

 not follow that the birds would individually suffer. Perhaps they 

 would feel themselves relieved from a disagreeable responsibility. 

 The process by which a species is improved, the dying out of the 

 least fit, implies no more suffering than we know to exist inde- 

 pendently of any doctrine as to a struggle. When we use an- 

 thropomorphic language, we may speak of "self-assertion." Bat 

 " self-assertion," minus the anthropomorphism, means self-preser- 

 vation ; and that is merely a way of describing the fact that an 



