Distortion by Darwin's Followers 33 



Struggle for Existence in Human Society he 

 wrote : 



From the point of view of the moralist the animal 

 world is on about the same level as a gladiator's show. 

 The creatures are fairly well treated, and set to fight — 

 whereby the strongest, the swiftest, and the cunning- 

 est live to fight another day. The spectator has no 

 need to turn his thumb down, as no quarter is given. 



And as among animals so among primitive men : 



. . . the weakest and stupidest went to the wall, 

 while the toughest and shrewdest, those who were 

 best fitted to cope with their circumstances, but 

 not the best in another sense, survived. Life was a 

 continual free fight, and beyond the limited and 

 temporary relations of the family, the Hobbesian 

 war of each against all was the normal state of 

 existence.^ 



But when he begins to apply the theory of evolu- 

 tion to human relations, Huxley turns away from 

 the idea of mutual struggle and shows that a new 

 set of factors enter into play. Thus in the same 

 essay he says : 



. . . society differs from nature in having a definite 

 moral object; whence it comes about that the course 

 shaped by the ethical man — the member of society 

 or citizen — necessarily runs counter to that which 

 the non-ethical man — the primitive savage, or man 

 as a mere member of the animal kingdom — tends to 



' Huxley, Evolution and Ethics, pp. 199, 204. 

 3 



