90. Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 



We see its influence most distinctly in the case of 

 man, whom it obliges to labour : it is at the root of 

 all the movements and operations of that complicated 

 machine which we call Civilisation. It is not, there- 

 fore, upon this first term in his proposition that I am 

 disposed to take issue with Mr. Darwin. He repro- 

 duces the theory of Mr. Malthus, which has always 

 appeared to me quite incontrovertible, and through 

 the agency of which so much of the economy of 

 Life appears to be carried on. Mr. Darwin affords 

 us some strong instances of the working of this prin- 

 ciple. He states that the elephant lives for ninety 

 years, and during that long period only gives birth 

 to young three times, producing a pair at each birth. 

 This animal is supposed to be the slowest of all 

 breeders, and yet Mr. Darwin states that at this rate 

 there would be fifteen millions of elephants at the 

 end of the fifth century. If such be the wonderful 

 increase of this slow-breeding elephant, what would 

 be that of the herring, producing millions of spawn 

 every year ? We do not therefore dispute Mr. Dar- 

 win's first proposition, that all Life tends to a far 

 more rapid increase than the resources of food 

 would be long adequate to support, and that this 

 struggle to maintain it has a great motive power in 



