575. 



II. 



The Endeavour after Well-being. 



WITHIN recent years not a few writers, who maybe credited with 

 average intelligence and acquaintance with the subject, have 

 protested that the familiar phrase " The Struggle for Existence " is 

 inadequate to express the general dynamic aspects of animate nature, 

 or to serve as the sole formula for the method of organic progress. 

 Since the views of these writers have been variously regarded, — as 

 imposture and truism, as illusory and absurd, as important and 

 ' scientific,' it may be useful to attempt a brief summary of the question 

 from the point of view of one who believes in 'Natural Selection' 

 and ' The Struggle for Existence,' but in more besides. Little can 

 be argued out in a mere summary, hence references to literature are 

 here and there interpolated. 



i. The idea of a struggle for existence, in the course of which the 

 relatively unfit to given conditions are more or less rapidly eliminated, 

 is probably as old as clear thinking. We find it expressed by 

 Empedocles, Aristotle, and Lucretius, and, apart from those ancients, 

 by several pre-Darwinian naturalists. (See, in illustration, Osborn's 

 admirable history ' : From the Greeks to Darwin," and other historical 

 works.) 



2. But the idea remained on the level of a general impression 

 until Darwin and Wallace gave it credence as an induction, and 

 showed, moreover, in some detail hoiv the struggle operated as a factor 

 in evolution. Darwin was, he tells us, stimulated by the essay of 

 Malthus, who had illustrated the struggle for existence among men ; 

 and it has been said that Mr. Wallace acknowledges a like indebted- 

 ness. (See Darwin's " Life and Letters.") 



3. As a matter of historical interpretation, it may be noted that 

 many theories, e.g., in economics, appear to have arisen as after- 

 thoughts justifying or expressing current social experience. For 

 verification of this scientific anthropomorphism, in some measure 

 probably unavoidable, see, for instance, Ingram's " History of Political 

 Economy." On the same line, it has been suggested that the 

 Darwinian Theory unconsciously projected upon nature a generalisation 

 derived from the keen competitive conditions of the industrial age. (See Geddes' 

 article, " Evolution," in Chambers's Encyclopaedia.) 



