NATURAL SELECTION 163 



one remembers that the initial energy resides 

 already in the organism as its essential condition, 

 and that, without this activity which binds it to 

 the universal mechanics, the influence that at 

 stated times urges the creatures to the struggle for 

 life would be impossible. The famous law is a 

 factor of value only in the rude state, and that as 

 an element, though not the chief one, in the 

 system of evolution. From all this one infers that 

 far greater weight has been given to the principle 

 of the struggle for life than it really possesses, and 

 that it has been much abused in interpreting it, 

 and wishing to apply it to humanity, since Darwin 

 only thought of animals and plants in a primitive 

 state, and as impelled to what man performed by 

 artificial selection. 



I have shown that the part that is attributed 

 to the struggle for existence in society is due to the 

 analogy to which we assimilate the wish to consider 

 money as synonymous with nourishment or feeding- 

 ground; and that, as both are limited terms, the 

 struggle for the possession of money is analogous 

 to the conflict maintained by animals for their 

 feeding-grounds, with the sole and chief difference 

 that what serves to help in animals their improve- 

 ment or selection, for want of a better, in the human 

 species turns out quite the contrary, because in this 

 case money is not such a method of selection ; on 



