COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



for one that survives long enough to produce 

 other seeds. A single codfish has been known 

 to lay six million eggs within a year. If these 

 eggs were all to become adult codfishes, and 

 the multiplication were to continue at this rate 

 for three or four years, the ocean would not 

 afford room for the species. Yet we have no 

 reason to suppose that the race of codfishes is 

 actually increasing in numbers to any notable 

 extent. With the codfish, as with animal spe- 

 cies in general, the numbers during many suc- 

 cessive generations oscillate about a point which 

 is fixed, or moves but slowly forward or back- 

 ward. Instead of a geometrical increase with a 

 ratio of six millions, there is practically no 

 marked increase at all. Now this implies that 

 out of the six million embryo codfish a suffi- 

 cient number will survive to replace their two 

 parents, and to replace a certain small propor- 

 tion of those contemporary codfishes who leave 

 no progeny. Perhaps a dozen may suffice for 

 this, perhaps a hundred. The rest of the six 

 million must die. We may thus understand 

 what is meant by the " struggle for existence." 

 Battles far more deadly than those of Gettys- 

 burg or Gravelotte have been incessantly waged 

 on every square mile of the earth's life-bearing 

 surface, since life first began. It is only thus 

 that the enormous increase of each species has 

 been kept within bounds. Of the many oflf- 



i6 



