214 THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 



a time in a child's life when coercion gives place to 

 free and conscious choice, the day comes to the world 

 when the aspirations of the spirit begin to compete 

 with, to neutralize, and to supplant the compulsions 

 of the body. Against that day in the heart of human- 

 ity, Nature had made full provision. For there, pre- 

 pared by a profounder chemistry than that which was 

 to relieve the strain on the physical side, had gathered 

 through the ages a force in whose presence the ener- 

 gies of the Animal Struggle are as naught. Beside 

 the Struggle for the Life of Others the Struggle for 

 Life is but a passing phase. As old, as deeply sunk in 

 Nature, this further force was destined from the first 

 to replace the Struggle for Life, and to build a nobler 

 superstructure on the foundations which it laid. To 

 establish these foundations was all that the Animal 

 Struggle was ever designed to do. It has laid them 

 well ; yet it is only when the Struggle for Life stands 

 projected against the larger influence with which all 

 through history — and in an infinitely profound sense 

 through moral history — it has been allied, that at once 

 its worth and its ignominy are seen. 



