The Theory of Sexual Selection. 415 
(with its consequence in denying beauty to be an end 
in itself) demonstrate that, zf there be design in nature, 
such design at all events cannot be beneficent. To 
this, however, I should again reply that, just as 
touching the major question of design itself, so as 
touching this minor question of the quality of such 
design as beneficent, I do not see how the matter has 
been much affected by a discovery of the principles 
before us. For we did not need a Darwin to tell us 
that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth to- 
gether in pain. The most that in this connexion 
Darwin can fairly be said to have done is to have 
estimated in a more careful and precise manner than 
any of his predecessors, the range and the severity of 
this travail. And if it be true that the result of what 
may be called his scientific analysis of nature in respect 
of suffering is to have shown the law of suffering even 
more severe, more ubiquitous, and more necessary 
than it had ever been shown before, we must remember 
at the same time how he has proved, more rigidly 
than was ever proved before, that suffering is a 
condition to improvement—struggle for life being the 
raison d éire of higher life, and this not only in the 
physical sphere, but also in the mental and moral. 
Lastly, if it be said that the chozce of such a method, 
whereby improvement is only secured at the cost of 
suffering, indicates a kind of callousness on the part 
of an intelligent Being supposed to be omnipotent, I 
confess that such does appear to me a legitimate 
conclusion—subject, however, to the reservation that 
higher knowledge might displace it. For, as far as 
matters are now actually presented to the unbiased 
contemplation of a human mind, this provisional 
