CHAPTER I. 



THE STEUGGLE FOE EXISTENCE. 



evolutional theory of Darwin rests upon the 

 -L doctrine of the struggle for existence as he has 

 formulated it. My purpose in this chapter is to 

 demonstrate that such a struggle for existence, as is 

 required to render his principle of Natural Selection 

 effective for the work which he imposes upon it, is 

 not found in Nature, and is repudiated by all the 

 phenomena of the organic world. How severe and 

 intense, how relentless and unintermitting must be 

 that great and complex battle of life, as Darwin may 

 well call his struggle for existence, in regard to which 

 he feels himself justified in using such language as 

 follows : " Can we doubt (remembering that many 

 more individuals are born than can possibly survive) 

 that individuals having any advantage, however slight, 

 over others would have the best chance of surviving and 

 of procreating their kind ? On the other hand, we 

 may feel sure that any variation in the least degree 

 injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preserva- 

 tion of favourable individual differences and variations, 

 and the destruction of those which are injurious, I 

 have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the 



