12 THE KINGDOM OF MAN 



his readers, between different species, but between indi- 

 viduals of the same species, brothers and sisters and 

 cousins. The struggle between a beast of prey which 

 seeks to nourish itself and the buffalo which defends 

 its life with its horns is not ' the struggle for existence ' 

 so named by Darwin. Moreover, the struggle among 

 the members of a species in natural conditions differs 

 totally from the mere struggle for advancement or wealth 



which perhaps may be conceded to every author who writes of human 

 character. His works are so deservedly esteemed, and his erudition is 

 as a rule, so unassailable, that in selecting him as an example of the 

 frequent misrepresentation, among literary men, of Darwin's doctrine, 

 I trust that my choice may be regarded as a testimony of my admiration 

 for his art. In his novel Un Divorce, published in 1904, M. Bourget, 

 says : ' La lutte entre les especes, cette inflexible loi de 1'univers animal, 

 a sa correspondance exacte dans le monde des idees. Certaines men- 

 talites constituent de veritables especes intellectuelles qui ne peuvent 

 pas durer a cote les unes des autres ' (Edition Plon, p. 317). This in- 

 flexible law of the animal universe, the struggle between species, is one 

 which is quite unknown to zoologists. The ' struggle for existence,' to 

 which Darwin assigned importance, is not a struggle between different 

 species, but one between closely similar members of the same species. 

 The struggle between species is by no means universal, but in fact very 

 rare. The preying of one species on another is a moderated affair of 

 balance and adjustment which may be described rather as an accommo- 

 dation than as a struggle. 



A more objectionable misinterpretation of the naturalists' doctrine 

 of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence is that made 

 by journalists and literary politicians, who declare, according to their 

 political bias, either that science rightly teaches that the gross quality 

 measured by wealth and strength alone can survive and should there- 

 fore alone be cultivated, or that science (and especially Darwinism) has 

 done serious injury to the progress of mankind by authorizing this 

 teaching. Both are wrong, and owe their error to self-satisfied flippancy 

 and traditional ignorance in regard to nature-knowledge and the teach- 

 ing of Darwin. The 'fittest' does not mean the 'strongest.' The 

 causes of survival under Natural Selection are very far indeed from 

 being rightly described as mere strength, nor are they baldly similar to 

 the power of accumulating wealth. Frequently in Nature the more 

 obscure and feeble survive in the struggle because of their modesty and 

 suitability to given conditions, whilst the rich are sent empty away and 

 the mighty perish by hunger. 



