20 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



ratliGr find everywliere a pitiless, most embittered Struggle 

 of All against All. Nowhere in nature, no matter where 

 we turn our eyes, does that idyllic peace, celebrated by 

 the poets, exist ; we find everywhere a struggle and a 

 striving to annihilate neighbours and competitors. Passion 

 and selfishness — conscious or unconscious — is everywhere 

 the motive force of life. The well-known words of the 

 German poet — 



** Die Welt ist vollkommen iiberall 

 Wo der Menscli nicht hinkommt mit seiner Qual." * 



are beautiful, but, unfortunately, not true. Man in this re- 

 spect certainly forms no exception to the rest of the animal 

 world. The remarks which we shall have to make on the 

 theory of " Struggle for Existence " will sufficiently justify 

 this assertion. It is, in fact, Darwin who has placed this 

 important point, in its high and general significance, very 

 clearly before our eyes, and the chapter in his theory 

 which he himself calls " Struggle for Existence " is one of 

 the most important parts of it. 



Wliilst, then, we emphatically oppose the vital or 

 teleological view of animate nature which presents animal 

 and vegetable forms as the productions of a kind Creator, 

 acting for a definite purpose, or of a creative, natural 

 force acting for a definite purpose, we must, on the other 

 hand, decidedly adopt that view of the universe which is 

 called the ^mechanical or causal. It may also be called the 

 monistic, or single-principle theory, as opposed to the tivo- 

 folcl principle, or dualistic theory, which is necessarily 

 implied in the teleological conception of the universe. The 



* The world is perfect save where Man 

 Comes in with his stiife. 



