NATURAL SELECTION CRITICISED. 267 



the way all the sick ones, and leaving free the strong. 

 But for the hawk, the woodpigeon would destroy every 

 green ear. In fact, for the struggle for existence the 

 advantage may be to be weak as well as strong, slow as 

 well as swift, light as well as heavy, thin as well as 

 thick, tall as well as short, small as well as large, etc. etc. 

 Nay, with such a struggle for existence as, according to 

 Mr. Darwin's belief, has necessarily ended in a man, is 

 not this a strange premiss of Mr. Darwin's own ? He 

 tells Lyell (ii. 210), "The one primordial prototype of 

 all living and extinct creatures, may, it is possible, be 

 now alive ! " It was only out of struggle that a man could 

 come, and he has come ; yet that out of which alone he 

 could come, need not have struggled at all : it may be 

 now absolutely unchanged the same that it was millions 

 and millions of incalculable centuries ago ? And if the 

 struggle was, as Mr. Darwin seems only to figure it, in 

 independence of conditions, that is one only of indi- 

 vidual strength, what could or should now be alone in 

 the earth, the sea, or the air ? In each element, through 

 internecine slaughter, there could only have been the 

 production of a single triumphant one ; for these in- 

 calculable ages would surely have given time enough for 

 that, apart from the cunning of Nature in preservation 

 of even the least of her tribes ! 



But this allegation of a struggle for existence (and 

 in connection also with natural catastrophes) has been 

 already subjected to separate consideration, and with 

 this result : There are animals that prey on animals, and 

 there are plants that supplant plants ; but all of them, 

 animals or plants, can save themselves, and, on the 

 whole, the balance of life is, more or less, a permanent 

 one. It is only man that, by injudicious interference, so 

 far as nature is concerned, would make the "balance a bad 

 one (see back, Darwin on the stercovora, at p. 82). 



