286 LETTERS TO THE "TIMES." v 



VIII. 



The " Times/' December 29th, 1890. 



Sir, — If Mr. Cunningham doubts the efficacy 

 of the struggle for existence, as a factor in social 

 conditions, he should find fault with Mr. Booth 

 and not with me. 



" I am labouring under no delusion as to the 

 possibility of inaugurating the millennium by my 

 social specific. In the struggle of life the weakest 

 will go to the wall, and there are so many weak. 

 The fittest in tooth and claw will survive. All 

 that we can do is to soften the lot of the unfit, 

 and make their suffering less horrible than it is 

 at present " (" In Darkest England," p. 44). 



That is what Mr. Cunningham would have 

 found if he had read Mr. Booth's book with atten- 

 tion. And, if he will bestow equal pains on my 

 second letter, he will discover that he has inter- 

 polated the word " wilfully " in his statement of 

 my ^' argument," which runs thus: " Shutting his 

 eyes to the necessary consequences of the strug- 

 gle for life, the existence of which he admits as 

 fully as any Darwinian, Mr. Booth tells men whose 

 evil case is one of those consequences that envy is 

 a corner-stone of our competitive system." Mr. 



