THE FALLACIES OP NATURAL SELECTION. 143 



their weaker brethren. An idea of the battle for life, 

 which Darwin pictures, as the ordeal through which 

 all organisms have to. pass, may be derived from the 

 extracts given below. The tale which the picture tells, 

 it must be acknowledged, is not the happiest possible 

 inducement to an argument, designed to prove advance 

 in development — net advance, too. It is, however, the 

 misfortune with Darwin, in his exposition of his theory 

 of Evolution, that, at each stage, as he advances, he 

 has been constrained to a choice between rival absurdi- 

 ties. Darwin's description of the Struggle for Exist- 

 ence, shows conclusively, that, so far from animals and 

 plants, having advanced in development, the most that 

 it has been possible for them to do, has been to hold 

 their own; and, that, when they have not remained 

 stationary (which, as the reader will see, is quite diffi- 

 cult of performance, in the face of such conditions), 

 their movement has been in the direction of degenera- 

 tion. It must be conceded, that the adverse conditions 

 under nature, are sufficiently strongly portrayed, in the 

 following quotations, to prompt an estimate, rather, of 

 how much even "the strongest and most vigorous" ' 

 have deteriorated, than of how much they have ad- 

 vanced in development. 



In his Origin of Species, Darwin says: 



" Nothing is easier than to admit, in words, the truth 

 of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult, — at 

 least I have found it so, — than constantly to bear this 

 conclusion in mind. Yet, unless it be thoroughly in- 

 grained in the mind, I am convinced that the whole 

 economy of Nature, with every fact on distribution, 

 rarity, abundance, extinction, and variation, will be 



