46 
gay presently will similarly show that it fails to apply to animals 
and plants generally. 
Yet he and others tell us that this is the basis, the origia of the 
struggle for existence. ‘‘ Reproduction is everywhere, and in all 
species,” he says, ‘‘ outrunning means of subsistence ; and starva- 
tion or competition is for ever keeping down the number of the 
offspring to the level of the average or normal supply of raw 
. material. 
And Darwin himself asserts this geumetrical increase to be the 
cause of the struggle. | Malthus applied the princivle to man only. 
Darwin applies it equally to all animal and plant life. From which 
follow curious conclusions. Correct me if I am wrong in pointing 
out how this application of the principle breaks nown. 
Man, says Malthus, increases geometrically. 
« His food increases arithmetically. 
Therefore the end is starvation. 
But his food consists of animals and plants. And Darwin says 
they increase geometrically. Therefore there is no danger of 
starvation ; consequently Malthus was wrong. 
Again, according to the Darwinites generally, animals increase 
geometrically and their food arithmetically. . 
But, the carnivorous animals feed upon other animals, which 
likewise increase geometrically. Which is absurd. 
And if animals feed on plants, still according to the hypothesis, 
the plants increase also geometrically. 
The whole application breaks down, at whatever point you test 
it. And therefore, though Malthus set Darwin upon a certain 
track of thought, we cannot look on Malthusianism as forming any 
part of the real basis of natural selection. Directly Darwin applied 
it to animals and plants he, ¢pso facto disproved it with relation to 
man. No single law, no single ‘tendency’ in nature is ever 
allowed to act alone, and therefore none ever completely fulfils 
itself. very effect is a resultant of many tendencies ; no cause, 
no antecedent remains unchecked. 
Still it is a fact that Nature is wonderfully prolific; we are 
tempted at times to think wastefully so. So far as the mere 
simple arrangements go for the continuation of the species of either 
animals or plants, the geometrical ratio is an exceedingly high one. 
It is not a case of doubling in 25 years ; it is often a ‘ tendency ” 
of a thousand-fold in one year. Count the number of corns in a 
cob of maize, and multiply it by the number of cobs on one plant, 
all from one seed. You will find in some cases the ratio is not 
limited to one or two thousand Huxley says that a single plant 
producing 50 seeds a year would, if unchecked, cover the whole 
globe in nine years. A single red campion will produce 3,000 
