CHAPTER II 



THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE AMONGST ANIMALS 



I HAVE already stated that pre-Darwinian writers 

 thought of evolution as a process of calm and orderly 

 unfolding, a placid growth of the tree of life under 

 the benignant reign of natural law. It was in such 

 a sense that Darwin presented his theory of evolution 

 and his doctrine of the struggle for life. The sub-title 

 of the Origin of Species was the " Preservation of 

 Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." By 

 " favoured races " Darwin meant not in the least 

 those that were best armed for the active extermi- 

 nation of their fellows, but those that were best 

 suited to their whole environment, including climate, 

 food-supply, chances of mating and leaving offspring, 

 general adaptation to their place in the composite 

 web of life. In the first edition of the Origin (p. 62) 

 he wrote : "I should premise that I use the term 

 struggle for existence in a large and metaphorical 

 sense, including the dependence of one being on 

 another." 



It was in such a sense that the struggle for exist- 

 ence commended itself to Hooker, one" of its first 



21 



