ETHICS AND THE STRUGGLE FOE EXISTENCE. 229 



the "cosmic process/' or as the "beginning of a prolonged contest 

 against it ? 



In the first place, so far as man becomes a reasonable being, 

 capable of foresight and of the adoption of means to ends, he 

 recognizes the necessity of these tacit alliances. He believes it to 

 be his interest not to exterminate everything, but to exterminate 

 those species alone whose existence is incompatible with his own. 

 The wolf eats every sheep that he comes across as long as his ap- 

 petite lasts. If there are too many wolves, the process is checked 

 by the starvation of the supernumerary eaters. Man can preserve 

 as many sheep as he wants, and may also proportion the numbers 

 of his own species to the possibilities of future supply. Many of 

 the lower species thus become subordinate parts of the social 

 organism that is to say, of the new equilibrium which has been 

 established. There is so far a reciprocal advantage. The sheep 

 who is preserved with a view to mutton gets the advantage, 

 though he is not kept with a view to his own advantage. Of all 

 arguments for vegetarianism, none is so weak as the argument 

 from humanity. The pig has a stronger interest than any one in 

 the demand for bacon. If all the world were Jewish, there would 

 be no pigs at all. He has to pay for his privileges by an early 

 death ; but he makes a good bargain of it. He dies young, and 

 though we can hardly infer the " love of the gods," we must ad- 

 mit that he gets a superior race of beings to attend to his comforts, 

 moved by the strongest possible interest in his health and vigor, 

 and induced by its own needs, perhaps, to make him a little too 

 fat for comfort, but certainly also to see that he has a good sty, 

 and plenty to eat every day of his life. Other races, again, are 

 extirpated as " ruthlessly " as in the merely instinctive struggle 

 for existence. We get rid of wolves and snakes as well as we can, 

 and more systematically than can be done by their animal com- 

 petitors. The process does not necessarily involve cruelty, and 

 certainly does not involve a diminution of the total of happiness. 

 The struggle for existence means the substitution of a new system 

 of equilibrium, in which one of the old discords has been removed, 

 and the survivors live in greater harmony. If the wolf is extir- 

 pated as an internecine enemy, it is that there may be more sheep 

 when sheep have become our allies and the objects of our earthly 

 providence. The result may be, perhaps I might say must be, a 

 state in which, on the whole, there is a greater amount of life sup- 

 ported on the planet : and therefore, as those will think who are 

 not pessimists, a decided gain on the balance. At any rate, the 

 difference so far is that the condition which was in all cases ne- 

 cessary, is now consciously recognized as necessary ; and that we 

 deliberately aim at a result which always had to be achieved on 

 penalty of destruction. So far, again, as morality can be estab- 



