48 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



cosmic forces, are destined to starve or be slaughtered 

 by their stronger competitors in internecine strife. 

 There could be no intermission in the incessant war of 

 Nature here declared. The fear of starvation an 

 inheritance handed down from remotest generations 

 would possess every creature, and the resulting war 

 and slaughter would be most ruthless among the 

 individuals of the same species. The lurid est imagin- 

 ings of the most nightmare-ridden seeker for Nature's 

 cruelty would come infinitely short of the feral 

 pandemonium where the war of extermination, for 

 such it must needs be, should be raging at every 

 moment with fellest intensity. But the author of 

 Natural Selection, who sees that the necessary elimina- 

 tion of the excess of reproduction takes place, though 

 he cannot tell in what manner it takes place, closes 

 his survey of warring Nature with the words : " All 

 that we can do is to keep steadily in mind, that each 

 organic being is striving to increase in a geometrical 

 ratio ; that each at some period of its life, during some 

 season of the year, during each generation, or at 

 intervals, has to struggle for life and to suffer great 

 destruction. When we reflect on this struggle, we 

 may console ourselves with the full belief that the war 

 of Nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that 

 death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the 

 healthy, and the happy survive and multiply." 



Let us suppose a traveller, after having described a 

 country in which he had sojourned, as drenched with 

 continual rains, flogged by frequently recurring 



