40 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS i 



In my belief the innate qualities, physical, 

 intellectual, and moral, of our nation have 

 remained substantially the same for the last 

 four or five centuries. If the struggle for exist- 

 ence has affected us to any serious extent (and I 

 doubt it) it has been, indirectly, through our mili- 

 tary and industrial wars with other nations. 



XIV 



What is often called the struggle for existence 

 in society (I plead guilty to having used the 

 term too loosely m3'self), is a contest, not for the 

 means of existence, but for the means of enjoy- 

 ment. Those who occupy the first places in this 

 practical competitive examination are the rich 

 and the influential ; those who fail, more or less, 

 occupy the lower places, do^^^l to the squalid 

 obscurity of the j^auper and the criminal. Upon 

 the most liberal estimate, I suppose the former 

 group will not amount to two per cent, of the 

 population. I doubt if the latter exceeds another 

 two jDer cent. ; but let it be supjDosed, for the sake 

 of argument, that it is as great as five per cent.^ 



As it is only in the latter group that any- 

 thing comparable to the struggle for existence in 

 the state of nature can take place ; as it is only 



^ Those who read the last Essay in this volume will not 

 accuse me of wishing to attenuate the evil of the existence of 

 this group, whether great or small. 



