58 ANIMAL LIFE AND HUMAN PROGRESS 



Therefore we cannot view with equanimity, still less with 

 moral approbation, conditions involving a vast production 

 with a concomitant vast waste of human life and all the 

 misery attendant on the waste. 



It is certain, and no sophistry can remove the certainty, 

 that a great increase in the numbers of a population will lead 

 to competition ; and the larger the numbers, the keener and 

 more cruel will be the competition. 



The labouring classes, upon whom the stress of competition 

 chiefly falls, are impelled by a sound instinct when they cry 

 out against our present social order, and demand that com- 

 petition should be restricted if not entirely abolished. They 

 have various and not altogether consistent schemes for 

 attaining the desired end, but have they considered the 

 fundamental facts taught by zoological science, and the 

 inexorable laws to which mankind, in common with all animal 

 nature, is subject ? 



Perhaps not, but they may urge with some justice that 

 hitherto zoological " laws," as they are called, have been 

 interpreted to the disadvantage of themselves and to the 

 advantage of the so-called " privileged classes." 



It has been confidently asserted that it is a fundamental 

 biological law that progress is only possible through competi- 

 tion, and that with cessation of competition, degeneration of 

 the race must follow. 



But is this a true inference from the facts ? I may remind 

 you of the quotation from the most recent work of one of the 

 most distinguished authorities on breeding and inheritance, 

 Professor T. H. Morgan : " New and advantageous characters 

 survive by incorporating themselves into the race, improving 

 it, and opening to it new opportunities. In other words, the 

 emphasis may be placed less on the competition between the 

 individuals of a species . . . than on the appearance of new 

 characters and modifications of the old characters that become 

 incorporated in the species, for on these depends the evolution 

 of the race." 



Competition is not necessary for improvement. That 

 removes a great load of difficulty in schemes for social reform. 



