BIOLOGY IN ITS WIDER ASPECTS 1317 



we begin to see something of the subtlety of the struggle for exist- 

 ence. But we must go further. 



{e) What has got into circulation is a caricature of Nature — an 

 exaggeration of part of the truth. For while there is in wild Nature 

 much stern sifting, great infantile and juvenile mortality, much red- 

 ness of tooth and claw, and — even outside of parasitism — a general 

 condemnation of the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, there is much 

 more. In face of limitations and difficulties, one organism intensifies 

 competition, but another increases parental care; one sharpens its 

 weapons, but another makes some experiment in mutual aid; one 

 thickens its armour, but another triumphs by kin-sympathy. It is 

 realised by few how much of the time and energy of living creatures 

 is devoted to activities which are not to the advantage of the 

 individual, but only to that of the race. Not that this is deliberate 

 altruistic foresight, it is rather that in the course of Nature's tactics 

 survival and success have rewarded not only the strong and self- 

 assertive, but also — and yet more — the loving and self-forgetful. 

 Especially among the finer types, part of the fitness of the survivors 

 has been their capacity for self-sacrifice. And must it not be recog- 

 nised as part of Nature's strategy that the individual organism, 

 being kin-bound, realises itself in self-subordination to the interests 

 of the species and may, in its self-forgetfulness, contribute to the 

 larger welfare of the whole. Here may be gained a glimpse of one 

 of Life's main axes, by which its movement is oriented, that which 

 we call ethical in ourselves. 



It is sometimes urged, however, that since evolution depends on 

 individual variations and the sifting of these, we come back, in 

 spite of ourselves, to the struggle between individuals. Thus Sir 

 Ray Lankester writes: "The struggle for existence, to which Darwin 

 assigned importance, is not a struggle between species, but one 

 between closely similar members of the same species." As a matter 

 of fact, Darwin assigned importance to many different forms of the 

 struggle for existence: and although he heads a paragraph "Struggle 

 for Life most severe between individuals and variations of the same 

 species; often severe between species of the same genus", he did not 

 bring forward many convincing illustrations. We do not, of course, 

 deny that there is sometimes in Nature a life-to-death struggle 

 between fellows at the margin of subsistence. What we maintain is 

 that the decisive clash is often not between competing fellows, but 

 between organisms and their surroundings, both animate and 

 inanimate. It is often the environment that prunes. The fact is 

 that the struggle for existence need not be competitive at all; it is 

 illustrated not only by ruthless self-assertiveness, but also by all the 

 endeavours of parent for offspring, of mate for mate, of kin for kin. 

 The world is not only the abode of the strong, it is also the home of 

 the loving. 



