THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 243 



the mind, the whole economy of Nature, with every 

 fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction, 

 and variation, will be dimly seen or quite misun- 

 derstood." How, under the pressures of this great 

 necessity to work for a living, the Ascent of Man 

 has gone on, we have now to inquire. Though 

 not to the extent that is usually supposed, yet in 

 part under this stimulus, he has slowly emerged 

 from the brute-existence, and, entering a path where 

 the possibilities of development are infinite, has been 

 pushed on from stage to stage, without premedita- 

 tion, or design, or thought on his part, until he 

 arrived at that further height where, to the uncon- 

 scious compulsions of a lower environment, there 

 were added those high incitements of conscious 

 ideals which completed the work of creating him a 

 Man. 



Start with a comparatively unevolved savage, 

 and see what the Struggle for Life will do for 

 him. When we meet him first he is sitting, we 

 shall suppose, in the sun. Let us also suppose — 

 and it requires no imagination to suppose it — that 

 he has no wish to do anything else than sit in 

 the sun, and that he is perfectly contented, and 

 perfectly happy. Nature around him, visible and 

 invisible, is as still as he is, as inert apparently, 

 as unconcerned. Neither molests the other ; they 



