via 



PREFACE 



are so obscure that in no single instance have they come 

 within the scope of man's knowledge. This ignorance 

 of what checked the growth of the prolific carnivora 

 he considered a sufficient justification for his assertion 

 that in regard to all life there must in every case be 

 a struggle for existence. That my endeavour to 

 discover Nature's method of elimination in regard to 

 all prolific vertebrates is founded upon the amplest 

 possible evidence, can scarcely, I think, be disputed. 

 Neither can it be disputed that in the elimination 

 which I have shown to be Nature's method of averting 

 a Darwinian struggle for existence the survival is not 

 of the fittest but of the average, and is in no sense 

 dependent upon individual qualities or the presence of 

 fortunate variations. 



I might have rested my whole case against 

 Darwin's theory of Natural Selection upon the 

 ascertained fact that Nature exhibits no principle of 

 selection, and makes no use of individual variations, 

 whether fortunate or injurious, in eliminating her 

 excess of reproduction, while she preserves in every 

 case a sufficient number of individuals to continue her 

 various species in undiminished numbers. 



But it appeared to me that an elaborated theory 

 whose fundamental and vivifying principle was a 

 demonstrably false assumption must itself, when 

 examined in detail, be found to be an extraordinary 

 concatenation of weird concepts, of sins against logic 

 and common sense, of criminal violations of Nature's 

 known laws, and of audacious and indefensible asser- 



