294 Sir William B. Grove [April 20, 



health and wealth to his descendents, the improvident man poverty 

 or gout. One main element of what we call civilisation is the capa- 

 bility of looking further back into the past, and further forward into 

 the future ; but, though measured on a different scale, the average 

 antagonism and approximate equivalence appear to me to be the 

 same. 



Can we suppose a state of things either in the inorganic or the 

 organic world which, consistently with our experience or any deduc- 

 tion di\awn from it, would be without antagonism ? In the inorganic 

 world it would be the absence of all movement, or, what practically 

 amounts to the same thing, movement of everything in the same 

 direction, and the same relative velocity ; for, as movement is only 

 known to us by relation, movement where nothing is stationary or 

 moving in a different direction or with a different velocity would be 

 unrecognizable. 



So in the organic but non-sentient world, if there wore no struggle, 

 no absorption of food, no growth, nothing to overcome, there would 

 be nothing to call life. If, again, in the sentient world there were no 

 appetites, no hopes — for both these involve discontent — no fear, no 

 good or bad, what would life be? If fully carried out, is not life 

 without antagonism no life at all, a barren metajDliysical concej^tion 

 of existence, or rather alleged conception, for we cannot present to 

 the mind the form of such conception. 



In the most ordinary actions, such as are necessary to sustain 

 existence, we find, as I have already pointed out, a struggle more or 

 less intense, but we also find a reciprocal interdcj)endence of effort 

 and result. The graminivorous animal is during his waking hours 

 always at work, always making a small but continuous effort, select- 

 ing his pastures, croj^ping vegetables, avoiding enemies, &c. The 

 Carnivora suffer more in their normal existence ; their hunger is 

 greater, and their physical exertion when they arc driven by hunger 

 to make efforts to obtain food is more violent than with the Herbivora, 

 if they capture their prey by speed or battle, or their mental efforts 

 are greater if they capture it by craft. But then their gratification 

 is also more intense, and thus there is a sort of rough equation 

 between their pain and their pleasure, the more sustained the labour 

 the more permanent is the gratification. 



As, with food or exercise, deficiency is as injurious in one, as is 

 excess in another direction, so as affecting the mind of communities, 

 as I have stated it to be with individuals, the effect of a life of ease 

 and too much repose is as much to be avoided as a life of unremitting 

 toil. The Pitcairn islanders, w^ho managed in some way to adapt 

 their wants to their suj^j^ly and to avoid undue increase of poiDulation, 

 are said never to have reached old age. In consequence of the un- 

 eventful, unexcited lives they led, they died of inaction, not from 

 deficiency of food or shelter, but of excitement. They should have 

 migrated to England ! They died as hares do when their ears are 

 stuffed with cotton, i. e. from want of anxiety. We have hope in our 



