40 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS I 



In my belief the innate qualities, physical, 

 intellectual, and moral, of our nation have 

 remained substantially the same for the last 

 four or five centuries. If the struggle for exist 

 ence has affected us to any serious extent (and I 

 doubt it) it has been, indirectly, through our mili 

 tary and industrial wars with other nations. 



XIV 



What is often called the struggle for existence 

 in society (I plead guilty to having used the 

 term too loosely myself), is a contest, not for the 

 means of existence, but for the means of enjoy 

 ment. Those who occupy the first places in this 

 practical competitive examination are the rich 

 and the influential ; those who fail, more or less, 

 occupy the lower places, down to the squalid 

 obscurity of the pauper and the criminal. Upon 

 the most liberal estimate, I suppose the former 

 group will not amount to two per cent, of the 

 population. I doubt if the latter exceeds another 

 two per cent. ; but let it be supposed, for the sake 

 of argument, that it is as great as five per cent. 1 



As it is only in the latter group that any 

 thing comparable to the struggle for existence in 

 the state of nature can take place ; as it is only 



1 Those who read the last Essay in this volume will not 

 accuse me of wishing to attenuate the evil of the existence of 

 this group, whether great or small. 



