successful — or almost always. That is to say, whichever species succumbs at 

 any moment, it enables others to continue, and so the struggle continues. 



A struggle like the one between Uttle fish and larger enemies ends when a still 

 larger animal, like a whale, suddenly swallows several barrelfuls of ocean, with 

 all the hundreds of squirming struggling life. That struggle ends — but the 

 vanquished participants enable the whale to continue a while longer, A storm 

 washes out the life of plants and animals in an acre. The struggle of a few 

 moments ago ends. But those destroyed plants and animals now become the 

 raw materials for other living things. Life goes on, nou in these forms, now 

 in those others. And so the struggle, which is one way of describing life ac- 

 tivities, also continues. 



How Does the Human Struggle for Life Differ from That 



of Other Species? 



Man and Other Animals Under certain circumstances, or for certain 

 purposes, man is the same as other animals. But nearly always he is different 

 too. Like animals, we need food to still our hunger. Yet we can learn to 

 postpone eating — for a time — without letting the hunger distress us too much. 

 At the table human beings do not have to claw each other, or even elbow each 

 other, to make sure that each gets enough. We can wait at least long enough 

 to have things passed our way. This fact alone makes a great difference not 

 alone in the manner of eating, but in the whole manner of life. For it means 

 that we can guide conduct by imagining the future, as well as by remembering 

 the past. Man can plan; he can struggle for food between meals, when he is 

 not hungry. Where other animals are driven by the feeling of hunger, man 

 acts to avoid hunger. He can shape his conduct through ideas or knowledge. 



Fighting Drives We can make almost any animal fighting mad by 

 striking it, or by stopping it as it is chasing possible prey, or by taking its 

 food away from it. In general, man fights under very much the same circum- 

 stances as other animals. When there is not enough food (or other things they 

 want), men will fight other animals, and they will fight one another. When 

 men are blocked in their efforts, they will fight those who obstruct them. 



Animals can be aroused to fight by a threat or a gesture — as if you were 

 about to strike. But man alone can be aroused to fighting by words in a news- 

 paper or on a banner. When the jocular shepherd boy shouts "Wolf! Wolf!" 

 in a certain tone of voice, other shepherds come rushing along as if there were 

 really wolves to fight. Or when another humorist shouts 'Tire! Fire!" he 

 can drive perfectly sensible people into a panic. We can be deceived into 

 fighting imaginary enemies, and by imaginary fears. We can also be deceived 

 into submitting to abuses, into remaining quiet while we are being robbed. 



We can imagine so much more than we can experience that we sometimes 



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