68 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



which so many minds had grappled, and, on the 

 whole, so very unsuccessfully ? Primarily of course 

 it was the doctrine of natural selection through the 

 struggle for existence. As students of social phi- 

 losophy, we are specially interested to recall that 

 Malthus's doctrine of population directed Darwin's 

 attention to the aspect of struggle in nature, a fact 

 or aspect of things which he speedily traced through- 

 out all living nature, vegetable or animal. But the 

 doctrine of natural selection of survival of the fittest l 

 of improvement of species through the struggle, 

 and gradual development of new species that was 

 Darwin's own brilliant corollary. He perceived that 

 selection was sure to accompany struggle, if at least 

 there were any differences or variations separating 

 competitors from each other. The best man, or 

 brute, or plant must win, upon the average, and in 

 the long run, if only there were better and worse, 

 better and best, blended in the competition. Other- 

 wise struggle might mean deadlock and mutual ex- 

 haustion, as of two equally matched armies after a 

 long campaign, and general doom to extinction, as of 

 the survivors from a wreck when food runs short. 

 But variations do notoriously exist. Nature, which, 

 "red in tooth and claw," unmistakably asserts the 

 fact of struggle, not less clearly reveals the fact of 

 selection with its two sides of defeat and victory, and 

 with its basis in a tendency to vary. This variation 

 is mainly conceived as congenital. Some are born 

 better, some worse. Not only are the offspring of 

 better parents better equipped ; within the same family, 

 as experience shows, some are better equipped than 



* Spencer's phrase, however. 



