76 The Biological Errors 



looking for it — that bitter struggle for the means 

 of existence among animals belonging to the same 

 species, which was considered by most Darwinists 

 (though not always by Darwin himself) as the 

 dominant characteristic of struggle for life, and the 

 main factor of evolution. 



The terrible snow-storms which sweep over the 

 northern portion of Eurasia in the later part of the 

 winter, and the glazed frost that often follows them; 

 the frosts and the snow-storms which return every year 

 in the second half of May, when the trees are already in 

 full blossom and insect life swarms everywhere; the 

 early frosts, and, occasionally, the heavy snow-falls in 

 July and August, which suddenly destroy myriads of 

 insects, as well as the second broods of the birds in the 

 prairies ; . . . and finally, the heavy snow-falls, early 

 in October, which eventually render a territory as 

 large as France and Germany absolutely impracticable 

 for ruminants and destroy them by the thousand — 

 these were the conditions under which I saw animal 

 life struggling in Northern Asia. They made me 

 realize at an early date the overwhelming importance 

 in Nature of what Darwin describes as "the natural 

 checks to over-multiplication," in comparison to the 

 struggle between individuals of the same species for 

 the means of subsistence, which may go on here and 

 there to some limited extent, but never attains the 

 importance of the former. . . . 



Consequently, when my attention was drawn 

 later on, to the relations between Darwinism and 

 Sociology, I could agree with none of the works and 

 pamphlets that had been written upon this important 

 subject. They all endeavoured to prove that Man, 

 owing to his higher intelligence and knowledge, may 



