THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 231 



he is endowed. The individuals of the various species 

 of the lower creation are not differentiated in such a 

 manner that while some can obtain food others are 

 unable to do so. The weaker individuals of a species 

 as well as the stronger live in such an abundance of 

 their proper food that they cannot, under normal 

 conditions, starve for want of it. Every one of the 

 lower animals that survives to become a food-seeker is, 

 so far as regards his power of obtaining food, and as 

 regards all the other ends of his being, " in seipso totus 

 teres atque rotundus." Though no two of them are 

 quite alike, there yet exist no important differentiations 

 between the members of a species that affect their 

 individual well-being. But it is different with man, 

 the crown of the animated creation, and therefore 

 of created things the most complex in his powers, 

 capacities, and habits. It is due to the fact that man 

 has a moral basis to his being, that men cast in 

 the same society differ to so great an extent as they 

 do in regard to the principles and motives of their 

 actions, and that their individual differentiations are 

 subject so largely to be modified, accentuated, or 

 weakened by the moral and material conditions and 

 circumstances in which they are reared. 



This consideration it is which renders it almost as 

 difficult to conceive of a Newton or a Shakespeare 

 being born and reared in a London slum as in a tribe 

 of Australian aborigines. The moral element as 

 instrumental in determining the characters and careers 

 of men is exemplified by what is often seen within the 



