138 THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
In the first place, Nature ordains a definite term of exist- 
ence for everything that hath life. The machinery, so to 
speak, gets worn out and requires renewal, and the in-organic 
materials of which the organism is built up, have to be set 
free to enter into new combinations. 
Every individual accomplishing its full term, passes through 
four stages, viz.—birth, growth, old age, and death. But 
under ordinary circumstances it does not all die, but has, 
while in its highest stage of development, given off parts of 
its own substance to produce offspring. This reduced to its 
simplest form is seen in the lowest plants, where, under the 
microscope, the individual may actually be seen dividing 
bodily into two equal halves; these absorb nourishment, and 
repeat the process an indefinite number of times. In some 
animals, as the Butterfly, as soon as provision is made for 
offspring by the deposit of eggs, the parent’s work is done, 
and it soon perishes itself. In this sense, by means of re- 
production, and the destruction of used up material by death, 
the body of the species is immortal. 
The scheme of Nature is a cruel one. On the one hand, 
every species being the natural food for one or many others, 
each individual has a double set of duties to perform—the one 
being to secure sufficient prey for itself, and the other to 
preserve its body from its enemies which continually seek its 
life for their own sustenance. On the other hand this cruelty 
has its beneficient side, and the net result is advantageous to 
the race, if destructive to the individual. 
The struggle for life is therefore primarily a struggle for 
food on the one hand, and for escape from destruction on the 
other, because practically, except from accidental causes, the 
sum of life, animal and vegetable, possible at a given spot at 
a given time is limited, and any increase of one element is 
compensated by the diminution of others. The inevitable 
waste thus necessitated is provided for by prodigality of re- 
production, and ordinarily the more the dangers to which the 
