40 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. i 



In my belief the innate qualities, physical, in- 

 tellectual, and moral, of our nation have remained 

 substantially the same for the last four or five 

 centuries. If the struggle for existence has af- 

 fected us to any serious extent (and I doubt it) 

 it has been, indirectly, through our military and 

 industrial wars with other nations. 



XIV. 



What is often called the struggle for existence 

 in society (I plead guilty to having used the term 

 too loosely myself), is a contest, not for the means 

 of existence, but for the means of enjoyment. 

 Those who occupy the first places in this prac- 

 tical competitive examination are the rich and 

 the influential; those who fail, more or less, oc- 

 cupy the lower places, down to the squalid obscu- 

 rity of the pauper and the criminal. Upon the 

 most liberal estimate, I suppose the former group 

 will not amount to two per cent, of the popula- 

 tion. I doubt if the latter exceeds another two 

 per cent.; but let it be supposed, for the sake of 

 argument, that it is as great as five per cent.* 



As it is only in the latter group that any 

 thing comparable to the struggle for existence 

 in the state of nature can take place; as it is 



• Those who read the last Essay in this volume will 

 not accuse me of wishing to attenuate the evil of the ex- 

 istence of this group, whether great or small. 



