20 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
rather find everywhere a pitiless, most embittered Struggle 
of All against All. Nowhere in nature, no matter where 
we turn our eyes, does that idyllic peace, celebrated by 
the poets, exist; we find everywhere a struggle and a 
striving to annihilate neighbours and competitors. Passion 
and selfishness—conscious or unconscious—is everywhere 
the motive force of life. The well-known words of the 
German poet— 
“Die Welt ist vollkommen tiberall 
Wo der Mensch nicht hinkommt mit seiner Qual.’’ * 
are beautiful, but, unfortunately, not true. Man in this re- 
spect certainly forms no exception to the rest of the animal 
world. The remarks which we shall have to make on the 
theory of “Struggle for Existence ” will sufficiently justify 
this assertion. It is, in fact, Darwin who has placed this 
important point, in its high and general significance, very 
clearly before our eyes, and the chapter in his theory 
which he himself calls “Struggle for Existence” is one of 
the most important parts of it. 
Whilst, then, we emphatically oppose the vital or 
teleological view of animate nature which presents animal 
and vegetable forms as the productions of a kind Creator, 
acting for a definite purpose, or of a creative, natural 
force acting for a definite purpose, we must, on the other 
hand, decidedly adopt that view of the universe which is 
called the mechanical or causal. It may also be called the 
monistic, or single-principle theory, as opposed to the two- 
fold principle, or dualistic theory, which is necessarily 
implied in the teleological conception of the universe. The 
* The world is perfect save where Man 
Comes in with his strife. 
