2S6 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



When it is remembered that, at a later day, 

 Morality and Struggle, and even Religion and 

 Struggle, are bound so closely that it is impossible 

 to conceive of them apart, the tremendous value of 

 this principle and the necessity for providing it 

 with indestructible foundations, will be perceived. 



This association of the Struggle for Life with 

 the physiological function of Nutrition must be con- 

 tinually borne in mind. For the essential nature 

 of the principle has been greatly obscured by the 

 very name which Mr. Darwin gave to it. Prob- 

 ably no other was possible ; but the effect has 

 been that men have emphasized the almost ethical 

 substantive * Struggle ' and ignored the biological 

 term * Life.' A secondary implication of the pro- 

 cess has thus been elevated into the prime one ; 

 and this, exaggerated by the imagination, has led 

 to Nature being conceived of as a vast murderous 

 machine for the annihilation of the majority and 

 the survival of the few. But the Struggle for Life, in 

 the first instance, is simply living itself ; at the best, 

 it is living under a healthily normal maximum of 

 pressure; at the worst, under an abnormal maximum. 

 As we have seen, initially, it is but another name 

 for the discharge of the supreme physiological 

 function of Nutrition. If life is to go on at all, 

 this function must be discharged, and continuously 



