CHAPTER III. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE AND ITS VICTIMS. 



Socialism and Darwinism are found to be 

 opposed, it is said, on a second point. Dar- 

 winism proves that the immense majority- 

 plants, animals, men are destined to succumb 

 because only a small minority triumph " in 

 the struggle for life " ; socialism claims that 

 all ought to triumph, and that no one ought 

 to succumb. 



One may first reply that even in the 

 biological domain of the " struggle for 

 existence," the disproportion between the 

 number of individuals who are born and that 

 of those who survive always lessens pro- 

 gressively as one rises from vegetables to 

 animals, and from animals to men. 



This law of decreasing disproportion 

 between the " called " and the " chosen " is 

 shown even in the different species of the 

 same natural order. 



In fact, with vegetables the individual 

 yields each year an infinite number of seeds, 

 and an infinitesimal number of these survive. 

 With animals the number of young from each 

 individual diminishes, and the number of 

 those that survive, on the contrary, increases. 

 Finally, with the human species, the number 

 of individuals to which each gives birth is 

 very small, and the greater number survive. 



But againln the case of vegetables, animals, 



