NECESSITY OF STRUGGLE 355 



whose complexity and beauty astonish us, would have been, at 

 any rate, infinitely slow, and very different from what it has 

 been. The motive for an ever-increasing complexity of detail, 

 for the exclusion of less perfect complexes, for the ever-growing 

 division of labour, with its accompanying perfecting of parts, 

 would have been lacking. All this has been effected because 

 space and food are limited, and because the numbers of organic 

 beings brought into existence immeasurably exceed these limits. 

 Eeproduction beyond the possible conditions of existence is 

 thus a condition essential to progress, for on this condition 

 alone is the survival of the fittest effected. Only thus are the 

 weak eliminated, and the stronger and more perfect preserved. 



Here, then, we have the first condition of the progress alike of 

 species and of the races and individuals within a species. It is 

 obvious that the very idea of a survival of the fittest and the 

 elimination of the weak implies conflict. It is through conflict 

 alone that the fittest can be selected, because it is through 

 conflict alone that they are afforded the chance of manifesting 

 those qualities, physiological and psychical, which make them 

 the fittest. And, as a matter of fact, conflict is the law of 

 Nature. It is no exaggeration, nor is it a mere figure of speech, 

 to say that progress is accomplished through blood. The con- 

 flict between the plants which occupy the same space ; between 

 the very blades of grass on the same plot ; between the trees 

 which form the forest, may not literally be marked in blood ; 

 but they are marked, just as much as the competition among 

 camivora or among human beings, by the ruthless extermina- 

 tion of the weaker. When we pass from the plant to the animal 

 world, we everywhere find conflict ; life persists and is main- 

 tained around us solely by conflict — conflict arising from the 

 fundamental conditions of existence, which demand an excess 

 of reproduction. In the animal world this conflict is often 

 waged under conditions of peculiar complexity ; it is a fight 

 between members of the same species for food, as well as against 



23—2 



