March 9, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



ic 



Having thus characterized that competition which obtains 

 among the plants and lower animals in the struggle for life. Major 

 Powell continued, " It is proposed to characterize the competition 

 which exists in the higher civilization between man and man, and to 

 show in what respect it may be like, and in what respect it may be 

 different from, biotic, which exists in the lower orders of creation ; 

 and for this purpose the savage and barbaric tribes of men will be 

 neglected. Nor will the nations of early civilization be considered, 

 but only mankind as he has obtained the highest civilization at the 

 present time. 



" In civilization, man does not compete with plants for existence. 

 Thorns cannot drive him from fruits, husks cannot hide nutritious 

 seeds from his eye, shells cannot defend sweet nuts from his grasp ; 

 but he speedily destroys from the face of the earth the plants which 

 are not of the highest value for his purpose, and he plants those 

 that are of value, and multiplies them in a marvellous manner, and 

 by skilled culture he steadily improves their character, making the 

 sweet sweeter, the rich richer, and the abundant more abundant. 



" In the higher civilization, man does not compete with the beast 

 for existence. There are no howling wolves or bears on our farms, 

 there are no lions or tigers in civilized lands, and there are no ser- 

 pents in our cities. All these dwell where civilization has not yet 

 •conquered its way. Civilized man has domesticated the animal : 

 he hives the bee for its honey, he coops the bird for its eggs, he 

 pastures the cow for her milk, and he stables the horse that his boy 

 may ride on its back. 



" In the highest civilization, the world is not crowded with human 

 beings beyond their ability to procure sustentation ; for, if some 

 hunger, it is not because of the lack of the world's food, but because 

 ■of the imperfect distribution of that food to all. Men are not 

 crowded against plants, men are not crowded against beasts, and 

 men are not crowded against one another. The land is yet broad 

 enough for all. The valleys are not all filled, the hillsides are not 

 all covered. The portion of the earth that is actually cultivated 

 and utilized to supply the wants of man is very small ; it compares 

 with all the land as a garden to a plain, an orchard to a forest, a 

 meadow to a prairie. Nature is prodigal of her gifts. The sweet 

 -air, as it sweeps from zone to zone, is more than enough to fan 

 every cheek ; the pure water that falls from the heavens and re- 

 freshes the earth, and is again carried to the heavens on chariots of 

 light, is more than enough to refresh all mankind ; the bounteous 

 earth, spread out in great continents, is more than enough to fur- 

 nish every man a home ; and the illimitable sea has wealth for man 

 that yet has not been touched. Thus it is that in human evolution 

 ■over-population is not a factor, as it is in biotic evolution. 



" In the highest civilization, man does not compete with man in 

 the struggle for existence, and thus human competition is not biotic 

 competition. In biotic evolution the wolf devours the fawn ; but 

 on the average he devours the weakest fawn, and the strongest 

 fawn lives to beget a fleeter race of stags ; and the evolution of 

 stag-life is accompHshed by such means. But when the highway- 

 man waylays the traveller, and there is a struggle for existence 

 which ends in a murder, no step in human evolution is accomplished 

 thereby. 



" Again : in the higher civilization, man does not compete with 

 man in the direct struggle for the means of existence as does the 

 brute. In the struggle for subsistence, one ox gores another to 

 drive him from a blade of grass, one wolf rends another to drive 

 him from a bone. Among the animals the struggle for the means 

 of existence is direct, rapacious, and cruel ; but in civilized society 

 man shares with his fellow-man : the poor and the unfortunate are 

 fed at the table of charity. A maimed beast is driven from the 

 ■crib, but men an^ women will vie with one another to serve a 

 maimed man ; and one of the highest aspirations of civilized 

 society is to dispense generous hospitality. 



" Vestiges of brutal competition still exist in the highest civiliza- 

 tion, but they are called crimes ; and, to prevent this struggle for ex- 

 istence, penal codes are enacted, prisons are built, and gallowses are 

 erected. Competition in the struggle for existence is the agency by 

 which progress is secured in plant and animal life, but competition 

 in the struggle for existence among men is crime most degrading. 

 Brute struggles with brute for life, and in the asons of time this 

 struggle has wrought that marvellous transformation which we call 



the evolution of animals ; but man struggles with man for existence, 

 and murder runs riot : no step in human progress is made. 



" That struggle for existence between man and man which we 

 have considered and called crime is a struggle of one individual 

 with another. But there is an organized struggle of bodies of men 

 with bodies of men, which is not characterized as murder, but is 

 designated as warfare. Here, then, we have man struggling with 

 man on a large scale, and here it is where some of our modern 

 writers on evolution discover the natural law of selection, — ' the 

 survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence.' The strongest 

 army survives in the grand average of the wars of the world. 



" When armies are organized in modern civilization, the very 

 strongest and best are selected, and the soldiers of the world are 

 gathered from their homes in the prime of manhood and in lusty 

 health. If there is one deformed, if there is one maimed, if there 

 is one weaker of intellect, he is left at home to continue the stock, 

 while the strong and the courageous are selected to be destroyed. 

 In organized warfare the processes of natural selection are reversed ; 

 the fittest to live are killed, the fittest to die are preserved ; and in 

 the grand average the weak, physically, mentally, and morally, are 

 selected to become the propagators of the race." 



After illustrating this point at some length, Major Powell said 

 that it must now be shown what man has done with this law of 

 evolution. 



" A river has a precipice in its course, and where the water falls 

 there is danger to man. The Indian, drifting in his canoe too near 

 to the brink, is carried over the cataract, and his bones are left to 

 bleach upon the rocks below. But at the same place the civilized 

 man finds a power, and about the cataract he builds a city, and 

 with the cataract he runs his mills and factories, and that which 

 was a power of destruction to the savage is a beneficent agent in 

 civilization. 



"Two summers ago a young friend of mine, with two comrades, 

 was sailing a boat on Yellowstone Lake. As he neared the shore, 

 a little cloud spread overhead ; then something happened that the 

 members of the party knew not, for it came as an instant flash. 

 Some time after the flash of unconsciousness, my friend, who was 

 the leader of the party and the captain of the boat, opened his eyes 

 once more to the light of day, and the sail of his little boat was all 

 ablaze, and the mast was on fire, and a hole had been pierced in 

 the bottom of his boat, and the waters of the lake were boiling up 

 to fill it, and the gunwales of the boat were sinking down to the 

 water's edge, and before him in the boat were two prostralte forms, 

 — one paralyzed by the lightning-stroke, and the other dead from 

 the lightning-stroke, — and he himself had his right arm seared by 

 the terrible bolt ; and the boat sank, but in shallow water ; and the 

 living struggled out to land, and the maimed buried the dead on 

 the shores of the lake in the land of the beautiful. How terrible is 

 the lightning-stroke ! I had another friend whose daughter was 

 stricken with dire disease, and the wife and mother started with the 

 invalid daughter to go beyond the seas, hoping that the mild breezes 

 of the Mediterranean might waft the balm of healing to the loved 

 one while she dwelt on Italian shores ; but as the loved ones sailed 

 away, and were lost behind the curve of the world, a great fear 

 came over the heart of my friend that his loved daughter would not 

 live to reach the farther land. Day by day the fear grew ; but one 

 day a flash of lightning came from beyond the sea through the 

 ocean depths, and brought him a message of their safety. So the 

 genius of man has transformed the very lightning of destruction 

 into a messenger of love and joy. 



" It is in the same manner that the genius of man has trans- 

 formed this brutal, this cruel law of evolution into a beneficent 

 agency for his own improvement ; and to explain this is our delight- 

 ful task. 



" From the dawn of human culture in savagery, to the mid-day of 

 culture in civilization, human genius has been producing many in- 

 ventions for many purposes, and the good have given place to the 

 better, and the better have yielded to the best. 



" A sheep gathers the grass with his teeth, the ox with his tongue, 

 and the horse with his lips ; and teeth, tongues, and lips are modi- 

 fied and developed as these animals struggle for existence. But 

 the savage, just a little higher than the brute, walks through nat- 

 ural meadows, and, with a stick in one hand, beats the grain from 



