206 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE v 



the great majority of the human race. But, in 

 civilized society, the inevitable result of such 

 obedience is the re-establishment, in all its in- 

 tensity, of that struggle for existence the war 

 of each against all the mitigation or abolition of 

 which was the chief end of social organization. 



It is conceivable that, at some period in the 

 history of the fabled Atlantis, the production of 

 food should have been exactly sufficient to meet 

 the wants of the population, that the makers of 

 the commodities of the artificer should have 

 amounted to just the number supportable by the 

 surplus food of the agriculturists. And, as there 

 is no harm in adding another monstrous suppo- 

 sition to the foregoing, let it be imagined that 

 every man, woman, and child was perfectly vir- 

 tuous, and aimed at the good of all as the high- 

 est personal good. In that happy land, the natu- 

 ral man would have been finally put down by 

 the ethical man. There would have been no 

 competition, but the industry of each would have 

 been serviceable to all; nobody being vain and 

 nobody avaricious, there would have been no rival- 

 ries; the struggle for existence would have been 

 abolished, and the millennium would have finally 

 set in. But it is obvious that this state of things 

 could have been permanent only with a station- 

 ary population. Add ten fresh mouths; and as, 

 by the supposition, there was only exactly enough 

 before, somebody must go on short rations. The 



