216 DARWINIANISM. 



The supply of food Mr. Darwin admits to remain 

 constant ; and its stomach being full, it is not easy to 

 suppose much fight in an animal. " If asked how .this 

 is " (i.e. referring to what has been just quoted), ; ' one 

 immediately replies that it is determined by some slight 

 difference in climate, food, or the number of the enemies : 

 yet how rarely, if ever, we can point out the precise cause 

 and manner of action of the check." Mr. Darwin here 

 pretty well slumps up the struggle with the conditions 

 which are always as good as inexistent for him ; nor any- 

 where else that I know of does it (the struggle) ever re- 

 appear in the Journal less faint or less casual if indeed 

 ever at all. That it was no more than an afterthought 

 only following the reading of Malthus will force itself in ! 

 The most convincing chapter of the Journal, however, is 

 that which concerns the Galapagos (see my last Gifford 

 Lecture, in which they are discussed at full). 



Krause's book, as we have seen, is luminous in a quite 

 multiple Darwinian endorsement. Now no man is more 

 minded than Krause to take the general truth for granted 

 of a balance of life being made good in nature. It is as 

 in reference to this that he says, " Moreover, plants are 

 able to protect themselves from complete destruction." 

 If plants, if animals, then surely men ! Yet it was the 

 struggle of men their competition at least that, in 

 Malthus, suggested to Darwin the whole business. And 

 how does Goethe view it ? Why thus : He " has 

 observed that, in whatever situation of life we are placed, 

 and wherever we fall, we never want actual food." That 

 means, that however galling the straits of life may be, 

 there is no struggle such that, failing to triumph, we 

 must perish in defeat. 



