MISSING FACTOR IN CURRENT THEORIES 23 



humblest forms of life, or for the young among 

 higher forms, the living world would not only 

 suffer, but would cease. For a time in the life- 

 history of every higher animal the direct, personal, 

 gratuitous, unrewarded help of another creature is 

 a condition of existence. Even in the lowliest 

 world of plants the labours of Maternity begin, 

 and the animal kingdom closes with the creation 

 of a class in which this function is perfected to 

 its last conceivable expression. The vicarious prin- 

 ciple is shot through and through the whole vast 

 web of Nature ; and if one actor has played a 

 mightier part than another in the drama of the 

 past, it has been self-sacrifice. What more has 

 come into humanity along the line of the Struggle 

 for the Life of Others will be shown later. But 

 it is quite certain that, of all the things that 

 minister to the welfare and good of Man, of all 

 that make the world varied and fruitful, of all 

 that make society solid and interesting, of all that 

 make life beautiful and glad and worthy, by far 

 the larger part has reached us through the activi- 

 ties of the Struggle for the Life of Others. 



How grave the omission of this supreme factor 

 from our reckoning, how serious the effect upon 

 our whole view of nature, must now appear. Time 

 was when the science of Geology was interpreted 



