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THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 145 
We cannot doubt that in pre-historic times, there was a 
real struggle for mere existence, and that it must have affected 
the race. Exposed to the fury of the elements, or, merely 
sheltered by rude huts or caves, and precariously and irregu- 
larly fed, the weaker offspring were destroyed, and only the 
more robust and finer specimens left to reproduce the species 
and perpetuate their own qualities. Surprise has often been 
expressed at the fine and perfect teeth of savages, when com- 
pared with our own deficiences in this respect; but I fancy 
that the reason is easy to understand. Imperfect teeth would 
prevent sufficient mastication of the uncooked or roughly 
cooked food to enable their possessor to properly digest and 
extract the full amount of nutriment from it: and this would 
put him at a disadvantage at a time when the race was em- 
phatically to the strong, and the weakest were bound to 
perish. Members of this Society will remember the admiration 
expressed at the beautiful sets of teeth, still remaining in the 
skulls of our Saxon ancestors, disinterred at Stapenhill in the 
exploration made there some years ago. 
If we turn to the Scandinavian Mythology and examine 
their deities, we find that they, like all pagan gods, were 
anthropomorphous, that is deifications of the qualities held 
most in esteem by their worshippers; they were believed to 
be possessors of superhuman strength, devourers of huge 
beeves and quaffers of unlimited draughts of mead. Their 
earthly heroes also were admired in proportion to their 
prowess and appetites. Similar conclusions may be drawn 
from the study of the savages of the present day. I think 
that I may assume that under such conditions, the chief 
causes of death were as follows—Exposure to the elements, 
insufficiency of food alternating with over-repletion, and 
violence. We know many tribes at the present time who 
deliberately destroy all the weakly, and an undue number 
of female children, and who prevent people from dying of 
old age by the simple process of knocking them on the head, 
