278 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



for the Life of Others — has not even a place. Al- 

 most the whole emphasis of science has fallen upon 

 the opposite — the animal Struggle for Life. Hunger 

 was early seen by the naturalists to be the first and 

 most imperious appetite of all living things, and the 

 course of Nature came to be erroneously interpreted 

 in terms of a never-ending strife. Since there are 

 vastly more creatures born than can ever survive, 

 since for every morsel of food provided a hundred 

 claimants appear, life to an animal was described to 

 us as one long tragedy ; and Poetry, borrowing the 

 imperfect creed, pictured Nature only as a blood- 

 red fang. Before we can go on to trace the 

 higher progress of Love itself, it is necessary to 

 correct this misconception. And no words can be 

 thrown away if they serve, in whatever imperfect 

 measure, to restore to honour what is in reality the 

 supreme factor in the Evolution of the world. To 

 interpret the whole course of Nature by the 

 Struggle for Life is as absurd as if one were to 

 define the character of St. Francis by the tempers of 

 his childhood. Worlds grow up as well as infants ; 

 their tempers change, the better nature opens 

 out, new objects of desire appear, higher activi- 

 ties are added to the lower. The first chapter or 

 two of the story of Evolution may be headed the 

 Struggle for Life; but take the book as a whole 



