154 THE FALLACIES OF NATURAL SELECTION. 



lected, cannot well be questioned by any one who 

 reads Darwin's statements respecting Natural Extinc- 

 tion and Natural Selection. According to Darwin, 

 all, even the elect, are amenable to the Struggle for 

 Existence. Numbers are born into the world at a 

 rate, Darwin says, which, if not met by Natural Ex- 

 tinction, would soon cover the world with the progeny 

 of a single pair. They all join in the battle for life; 

 and, although thousands succumb, they have during 

 even their short lives, helped to sharpen the competi- 

 tion which " the stronger and more vigorous " have to 

 endure; and have thus lent their aid to induce the 

 deterioration of those selected to continue the line of 

 descent. All have to struggle for their existence, from 

 the hour of their birth to the moment of their death : 

 according to Darwin. Natural Extinction carries off 

 — not those whose constitutions are merely impaired, 

 or those which are merely degenerate in structure, 

 for multitudes of these do actually survive and pro- 

 create others endowed with their defects — but those 

 only, whose impaired constitutions, or whose defective 

 structures, are absolutely incompatible with prolonged 

 existence. The adverse conditions, which occasion 

 Natural Selection, manifestly do more than kill off 

 the weakest. They also cause a degeneration, both 

 of those which have barely escaped extinction, and of 

 "the stronger and more vigorous." The "stronger 

 and more vigorous " may, in view of the competition 

 for means of subsistence, to which Darwin pictures 

 them as being subjected, count themselves very fortu- 

 nate, if they merely manage to hold their own. Hold- 



