THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 211 



merit of evolution. Along with Industry, and for a 

 time before it, War was the foster-mother of civiliza- 

 tion. The patron of the heroic virtues, the purifier of 

 societies, the solidifier of states, the military form of 

 this Struggle— despite the awful balance on the other 

 side— stands out on every page of history as the 

 maker and educator of the human race. Industry is 

 but the same Struggle in another disguise. The in- 

 dustrial conflict of to-day is the old attempt of primi- 

 tive Man to get the most out of Nature— to grow 

 foods, to find clothes, to raise fuel, to gain wealth. 

 Owing to the ever-increasing number of the Strug- 

 glers the supplies fall short of the demands, with the 

 result of perpetuating on the industrial plane, and 

 often in hard and degrading forms, the primitive 

 Struggle for Life. When society wonders at its 

 labor troubles it forgets that Industry is a stage but 

 one or two removes from the purely animal Struggle. 

 And when morality impugns the Struggle for Life, it 

 forgets that nearly the whole later fabric of civihza- 

 tion is its creation. 



But one has only to look at these further phases 

 of the Struggle to observe the most important fact 

 of all— the change that passes over the principle as 

 time goes on. Examine it on the higher levels as 

 carefully as we have examined it on the lower, and 

 though the cruder elements persist with fatal and 

 appalling vigor, there are whole regions, and daily 

 enlarging regions, where every animal feature is dis- 

 credited, discouraged, or driven away. Already, with 

 the social tragedy still at its height around us, the 

 amelioration in many directions makes constant prog- 

 ress ; and partly through the rise of opposing forces, 



