.170 The Descent of Man. 



invitation to keep ahead of the destroying Angel. The 

 method of evolution and the conception of a beneficent 

 tendency in the universe are not therefore necessarily con- 

 tradictory. 



My friend, Major Powell, has recently affirmed in this 

 city that man is exempt from the operation of the law of 

 natural selection — that he has. placed himself outside of 

 the struggle for existence which prevails throughout the 

 lower range of biological evolution. I do not see by what 

 line of argument he can substantiate this view. The strug- 

 gle still prevails in the competition which affects all our 

 social and business interests, and it is likely to become 

 greater rather than less as time goes on. Competition will 

 increase as the population increases. No expedients yet 

 devised by man will wholly prevail to prevent this. Tariffs 

 will not help us — they will only postpone the final 

 reckoning. The severity of the struggle, however, will 

 only occur when the land is crowded everywhere — a time 

 which is yet very far off. The most useful form of charity 

 is the distribution of population from the overcrowded cen- 

 ters to the uncultivated lands of the interior. In this way, 

 and by respect for the moral code which has been revealed 

 to us by human experience, we may hasten the steps of 

 progress, and long postpone the severity of the struggle 

 which must otherwise constantly augment with the intensity 

 of competitive effort. It is true, as has been asserted, that 

 man relieves himself from the pressure of natural forces by 

 the discovery and manufacture of mechanical contrivances. 

 But this only constitutes a new element in the struggle for 

 existence, which favors the discoverer, maker, and user, of 

 such appliances, and constitutes them the fittest to survive, 

 as far as it goes. It is also true that the discovery and use 

 of the steam-engine has augmented the power of human 

 labor, it is said, seventeen-f old ; but this power, it must be 

 remembered, is not equally distributed, but gives some men 

 an advantage over others. And since men are not made 

 "equal," even if they are "free," the gifts of power never 

 can be equally distributed, and so long as that is the case,, 

 natural selection must operate. 



