The Theory of Sexual Selection. 415 



(with its consequence in denying beauty to be an end 

 in itself) demonstrate that, if there be design in nature, 

 such design at all events cannot be beneficent. To 

 this, however, I should again reply that, just as 

 touching the major question of design itself, so as 

 touching this minor question of the quality of such 

 design as beneficent, I do not see how the matter has 

 been much affected by a discovery of the principles 

 before us. For we did not need a Darwin to tell us 

 that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth to- 

 gether in pain. The most that in this connexion 

 Darwin can fairly be said to have done is to have 

 estimated in a more careful and precise manner than 

 any of his predecessors, the range and the severity of 

 this travail. And if it be true that the result of what 

 may be called his scientific analysis of nature in respect 

 of suffering is to have shown the law of suffering even 

 more severe, more ubiquitous, and more necessary 

 than it had ever been shown before, we must remember 

 at the same time how he has proved, more rigidly 

 than was ever proved before, that suffering is a 

 condition to improvement struggle for life being the 

 raison d'etre of higher life, and this not only in the 

 physical sphere, but also in the mental and moral. 



Lastly, if it be said that the choice of such a method, 

 whereby improvement is only secured at the cost of 

 suffering, indicates a kind of callousness on the part 

 of an intelligent Being supposed to be omnipotent, I 

 confess that such does appear to me a legitimate 

 conclusion subject, however, to the reservation that 

 higher knowledge might displace it. For, as far as 

 matters are now actually presented to the unbiased 

 contemplation of a human mind, this provisional 



