THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 5 



not only overcharged with gloom, but is wholly un- 

 true, not merely without support and corroboration from 

 the actual phenomena of Nature, but is contradicted at 

 all points by these phenomena ; and that universal 

 misery and an unremitting struggle for life are neither 

 the essential, nor the prevailing, conditions of organic 

 existence. 



"The causes," Darwin writes, "which check the 

 natural tendency of each species to increase are most 

 obscure. Look at the most vigorous species : by as 

 much as it swarms in numbers, by so much will it 

 tend to increase still further. We know not exactly 

 what the checks are even in a single instance." 



In this chapter I shall deal only with the most vigor- 

 ous species, or the class of vertebrate animals, the checks 

 upon whose increase seemed to Darwin so mysterious 

 and obscure ; and in so doing, I shall show Nature, 

 averting from them a struggle for existence such as 

 he imagines to be their lot, by the manner in which 

 she eliminates their excess of reproduction without 

 calling to her aid the instrumentality of individual 

 variations, either advantageous or injurious. In the 

 chapter which follows this, I shall demonstrate that 

 she cannot and does not use such variations for any 

 evolutional purpose, while in this I confine myself to 

 making it clear that they play no part in deciding 

 what individuals shall survive and what shall perish. 



In this work I aim at dispelling the pessimistic 

 view of Nature in her dealings with her sentient 

 creatures, according to which, with the followers of 



