CHAP, m The Struggle of Life 33 



simist from amid the din of individualistic competition. 

 Nature is full of struggle and fear, but the struggle is 

 sometimes outdone by sacrifice, and the fear is sometimes 

 cast out by love. We must be careful to remember 

 Darwin's proviso that he used the phrase "struggle for 

 existence " " in a large and metaphorical sense, including the 

 dependence of one being on another, and including (which 

 is more important) not only the life of the individual, but 

 success in leaving progeny." He also acknowledged the 

 importance of mutual aid, sociability, and sympathy among 

 animals, though he did not carefully estimate the relative 

 importance of competition on the one hand and sociability 

 on the other. Discussing sympathy, Darwin wrote, " In 

 however complex a manner this feeling may have originated, 

 as it is one of high importance to all those animals which 

 aid and defend one another, it will have been increased 

 through natural selection ; for those communities which 

 included the greatest number of the most sympathetic 

 members would flourish best, and rear the greatest number 

 of offspring." I should be sorry to misrepresent the 

 opinions of any man, but after considerable study of 

 modern Darwinian literature, I feel bound to join in the 

 protest which others have raised against a tendency to 

 narrow Darwin's conception of "the struggle for existence," 

 by exaggerating the occurrence of internecine competitive 

 struggle. Thus Huxley says, " Life was a continuous free- 

 fight, and beyond the limited and temporary relations of 

 the family, the Hobbesian war of each against all was the 

 normal state of existence." Against which Kropotkine 

 maintains that this "view of nature has as little claim to 

 be taken as a scientific deduction as the opposite view of 

 Rousseau, who saw in nature but love, peace, and harmony 

 destroyed by the accession of man.'' ..." Rousseau has 

 committed the error of excluding the beak-and-claw fight 

 from his thoughts, and Huxley is committing the opposite 

 error ; but neither Rousseau's optimism nor Huxley's pessi- 

 mism can be accepted as an impartial interpretation of 

 nature." 



2. Armour and Weapons. — If you doubt the reality 



D 



