PERPETUATION OF LIVING BEINGS 93 



the means of existence cannot be made to increase in the 

 same ratio, that there must come a time when the number 

 of organic beings will be in excess of the power of production 

 of nutriment, and that thus some check must arise to the 

 further increase of those organic beings. At the end of 

 the ninth year we have seen that each plant would not be 

 able to get its full square foot of ground, and at the end of 

 another year it would have to share that space with fifty 

 others the produce of the seeds which it would give off. 



What, then, takes place ? Every plant grows up, 

 flourishes, occupies its square foot of ground, and gives off 

 its fifty seeds ; but notice this, that out of this number 

 only one can come to anything ; there is thus, as it were, 

 forty-nine chances to one against its growing up ; it 

 depends upon the most fortuitous circumstances whether 

 any one of these fifty seeds shall grow up and flourish, or 

 whether it shall die and perish. This is what Mr. Darwin 

 has drawn attention to, and called the " STRUGGLE FOR 

 EXISTENCE " ; and I have taken this simple case of a plant 

 because some people imagine that the phrase seems to 

 imply a sort of fight. 



I have taken this plant and shown you that this is the 

 result of the ratio of the increase, the necessary result of 

 the arrival of a time coming for every species when exactly 

 as many members must be destroyed as are born ; that is 

 the inevitable ultimate result of the rate of production. 

 Now, what is the result of all this ? I have said that there 

 are forty-nine struggling against every one ; and it amounts 

 to this, that the smallest possible start given to any one 

 seed may give it an advantage which will enable it to get 

 ahead of all the others ; anything that will enable any one 

 of these seeds to germinate six hours before any of the 

 others will, other things being alike, enable it to choke them 

 out altogether. I have shown you that there is no particular 

 in which plants will not vary from each other ; it is quite 

 possible that one of our imaginary plants may vary in such 

 a character as the thickness of the integument of its seeds ; 

 it might happen that one of the plants might produce seeds 

 having a thinner integument, and that would enable the 

 seeds of that plant to germinate a little quicker than those 

 of any of the others, and those seeds would most inevitably 

 extinguish the forty-nine times as many that were struggling 

 with them. 



I have put it in this way, but you see the practical result 



