132 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



It must be remembered that Darwin has incor- 

 porated this part of the Malthusian theory into his 

 own, and extended its operation over the whole field 

 of animated Nature, calling it the Struggle for 

 Existence, the Survival of the Fittest, or more 

 euphemistically still, Natural Selection. Malthus 

 did not attempt by fine phrases to gloss over the 

 horror of his theory. He did not possess the data 

 (for none such existed in his day) necessary for 

 determining the movements of population and their 

 causes, which are now available to everyone. He 

 had no means of ascertaining the relation that exists 

 between the death-rate and the marriage-rate, which 

 makes a high mortality in any community to be 

 accompanied by a high birth-rate, and a low mortality 

 by a low birth-rate. He perceived misery and miser- 

 able conditions of life everywhere, and causes inimical 

 to human life, and he was satisfied that these ex- 

 plained how his assumed tendency of population to 

 grow faster than the means of subsistence was 

 prevented from over-peopling the globe. But how 

 immoral is this theory ! 



The sense of its immorality was the first impression 

 made upon thoughtful readers by the Essay on 

 Population at the time when it was published, and 

 it drew forth virulent attacks and denunciations 

 from many and varied quarters. But the writers 

 of these attacks could not, from the want of any 

 certain data to go upon, prove that the theory 

 propounded in the Essay was false, and accordingly 



