PERPETUATION OF LIVING BEINGS. 125 



the power of production of nutriment, and that thus 

 some check must arise to the further increase of those 

 organic beings. At the end of the ninth year we 

 have seen that each plant would not be able to get 

 its full square foot of ground, and at the end of 

 another year it would have to share that space with 

 fifty others the produce of the seeds which it would 

 give off. 



What, then, takes place ? Every plant grows up, 

 flourishes, occupies its square foot of ground, and gives 

 off its fifty seeds; but notice this, that out of this number 

 only one can come to anything ; there is thus, as it 

 were, forty- nine chances to one against its growing up ; 

 it depends upon the most fortuitous circumstances 

 whether any one of these fifty seeds shall grow up and 

 flourish, or whether it shall die and perish. This is 

 what Mr. Darwin has drawn attention to, and called 

 the " Struggle for Existence ; " and I have 

 taken this simple case of a plant because some 

 people imagine that the phrase seems to imply a sort 



of fight. 



I have taken this plant and shown you that this is the 

 result of the ratio of the increase, the necessary result 

 of the arrival of a time coming for every species when 

 exactly as many members must be destroyed as are 

 born ; that is the inevitable ultimate result of the rate 

 of production. Now, what is the result of all this ? I 

 have said that there are forty-nine struggling against 

 every one ; and it amounts to this, that the smallest 

 possible start given to any one seed may give it an 

 advantage which will enable it to get ahead of all the 

 others ; anything that will enable any one of these seeds 



