270 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



society wonders at its labour troubles it forgets that 

 Industry is a stage but one or two removes from 

 the purely animal Struggle. And when morality 

 impugns the Struggle for Life, it forgets that nearly 

 the whole later fabric of civilization is its creation. 

 But one has only to look at these further phases 

 of the Struggle to observe the most important fact 

 of all — the change that passes over the principle 

 as time goes on. Examine it on the higher levels 

 as carefully as we have examined it on the lower, 

 and though the crueler elements persist with fatal 

 and appalling vigour, there are whole regions, and 

 daily enlarging regions, where every animal feature 

 is discredited, discouraged, or driven away. Already, 

 with the social tragedy still at its height around 

 us, the amelioration in many directions makes 

 constant progress ; and partly through the rise of 

 opposing forces, and partly through the very 

 civilization which it has helped to create, the 

 maligner power must disappear. The Struggle 

 for Life, as life's dynamic, can never wholly cease. 

 In the keenness of its energies, the splendour of 

 its stimulus, its bracing effect on character, its 

 wholesome tensions throughout the whole range 

 of action, it must remain with us to the end. 

 But in the virulence of its animal qualities it 

 must surely pass away. There are those who, 



