12 The Morality of Nature 



meet the onslaught of hostile nature, not by resenting it, 

 but by continually increased effort to supply the life de- 

 manded. They produce eggs so abundantly that when the 

 greater number is lost in death there are still enough left 

 to stock the waters. In fact this life stream is so lavishly 

 supplied that the suppression of most of it becomes a 

 necessity, for the world could not support all these creatures 

 if they lived. And they achieve in this way the desired 

 result, and their generations succeed one another, and keep 

 the places accustomed to them filled to the normal degree, 

 quite as well as if a lesser number were produced and better 

 preserved. Doubtless there is behind this difference of 

 method, a difference in the impulse of necessity, such as 

 the continuing need in these earlier lower types of a capacity 

 for more rapid adaptation, or for flight, or for more prompt 

 recovery from castastrophic destruction. But an important 

 truth is revealed which is this — That generally the increase 

 of intelligence, and the development of cooperation, tend 

 to make this lavish sacrifice unnecessary, by substituting for 

 it methods of preservation. It is forcibly evident that 

 death thus dealt and ordered is a process quite different from 

 an imposition of a mere penalty or punishment. The view 

 so regarding it is based upon examples which seem plausibly 

 to sustain it but which conceal the true function. Where 

 life is well guarded, death sometimes occurs as a consequence 

 of the failure to sufficiently guard it, and hence it might 

 appear that such a failure is to be suspected as the secondary 

 cause of death, whenever it occurs prematurely. In fact this 

 conception does prevail and its prevalence leads to the 

 erroneous belief that individual life is a natural right, and 



