DARWIN 



countries is not in a condition to which a struggle for 

 existence can be applied. What man struggles for are 

 the luxuries and not the necessities of life, and it is 

 quite probable that the desire for comforts and luxu- 

 ries is more potent to reduce population than are vice, 

 misery, and war. Even if his law were true, which 

 cannot be admitted, it would not apply, except in 

 congested localities, to the race as a whole until the 

 land supply has been exhausted. We should give 

 Malthus the excuse that he was specially discussing 

 the condition of Great Britain which offers a condi- 

 tion peculiarly susceptible to overpopulation with re- 

 spect to its land supply. 



When the Malthusian doctrine is applied to all 

 organic beings, as was done by Darwin, it becomes 

 absurd. If we keep in mind the fact that the food of 

 an organic being is other organic beings, then it 

 should be evident that if organic beings increase geo- 

 metrically their food supply also increases geomet- 

 rically. It is true that individuals perish by the com- 

 petition of life. Darwin showed quite truly that in 

 certain fields thousands of little trees never came to 

 maturity because they were cropped by cattle, and 

 also that thousands, and even millions, of seeds and 

 eggs perish for one which comes to maturity; but 

 where one kind is eliminated in a certain locality by 

 adverse conditions, in other places conditions are 

 likely to be favourable to multiplication so that, so 

 far as the species is concerned, the struggle for exist- 



C 207 :] 



