210 THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 



environment of modern life the cripple is cared for by 

 the people, is judged fit to live by a moral world, 

 while the pugilist, handicapped by his very health, 

 has to conduct his own struggle for existence. Physi- 

 cal fitness here is actually a disqualification ; what 

 was once unfitness is now fitness to survive. As we 

 rise in the scale, the physical fitness of the early world 

 changes to fitness of a different quality, and this law 

 becomes the guardian of a moral order. In one era 

 the race is to the swift, in another the meek inherit 

 the earth. In a material world social survival de- 

 pends on wealth, health, power ; in a moral world the 

 fittest are the weak, the pitiable, the poor. Thus 

 there comes a time when this very law, in securing 

 survival for those who would otherwise sink and fall, 

 is the minister of moral ends. 



When we pass from the animal and the savage 

 states to watch the working of the Struggle for Life 

 in later times, the impression deepens that after all, 

 the " gladiatorial theory " of existence has much to 

 say for itself. To trace its progress further is denied 

 us for the present, but observe before we close what 

 it connotes in modern life. Its lineal descendants are 

 two in number, and they have but to be named to 

 show the enormous place this factor has been given 

 to play in the world's destiny. The first is War, the 

 second is Industry. These in all their forms and 

 ramifications are simply the primitive Struggle con- 

 tinued on the social and political plane. War is not a 

 casual thing like a thunderstorm, nor a specific thing 

 like a battle. It is that ancient Struggle for Life car- 

 ried over from the animal kingdom, which, in the later 

 as in the earlier world, has been so perfect an instru. 



