Evolutionism and Darwinism. 61 



/ and for time the duration of geological ages ; its 

 characters are made up of that infinitude of indi 

 viduals which constitute the organic world ; but 

 so full of horrors is the drama that most of the ac 

 tors are cut down at their first entrance upon the 

 stage, while those who escape are doomed to a 

 never-ending struggle for life, in which only the 

 strongest and the best favored have any chance 

 of reaching the second scene, that opens, like 

 the first, with mutual conflict and all but uni 

 versal extermination. Now, in this struggle of all 

 against all, and of each with the conditions of 

 life, it is easy to see that the struggle will gen 

 erally be most severe between closely related or 

 ganisms, between species of the same genus, or 

 individuals and varieties of the same species, ow 

 ing, of course, to the similarity of their structure, 

 constitution, and habits. The fish does not com 

 pete with the bird ; and of birds, swallow com 

 petes against swallow, and robin against robin. 

 So complex, however, is the web of relations 

 by which all organic beings of the same country 

 are bound together that helps or checks to the in 

 crease of a species frequently come from the most 

 distant and unexpected sources. Who would have 

 suspected that the growth of red clover was largely 

 dependent on cats ? Yet, as this flower can be f er- 



