14 MARXISM AND DARWINISM. 



everywhere goes on from long continuous observation 

 of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck 

 me that under these circumstances favorable varia- 

 tions would tend to be preserved, and unfavorable ones 

 to be destroyed. The result of this would be the for- 

 mation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got 

 a theory by which to work." 



It is a fact that the increase in the birth of ani- 

 mals is greater than the existing food permits of sus- 

 taining. There is no exception to the rule that all 

 organic beings tend to increase so rapidly that our 

 earth would be overrun very soon by the offspring of 

 a single pair, were these not destroyed. It is for this 

 reason that a struggle for existence must arise. Every 

 animal tries to live, does its best to eat, and seeks to 

 avoid being eaten by others. With its particular pe- 

 culiarities and weapons it struggles against the entire 

 antagonistic world, against animals, cold, heat, dry- 

 ness, inundations, and other natural occurrences that 

 may threaten to destroy it. Above all, it struggles 

 with the animals of its own kind, who live in the same 

 way, have the same peculiarities, use the same weapons 

 and live by the same nourishment. This struggle is 

 not a direct one; the hare does not struggle directly 

 with the hare, nor the lion with the lion — unless it is 

 a struggle for the female — but it is a struggle for 

 existence, a race, a competitive struggle. All of them 

 can not reach a grown-up age; most of them are de- 

 stroyed, and only those who win the race remain. 

 But which are the ones to win in the race? Those 

 which, through their peculiarities, through their bodily 

 structures are best able to find food or to escape an 

 enemy; in other words, those which are best adapted 

 to existing conditions will survive. "Because there 



