The Struggle for Existence. 127 



the different types of this family should have origi- 

 nated and diverged. And, in the most recent mor- 

 phological speculations, I observe that it is pro- 

 nounced a very unsafe principle " to make the apex 

 of any one group in nature the base of the next," 

 as if one type of anatomy could change into an- 

 other. So that no amount of use can originate 

 organs, and, still less, species; no matter what 

 incantation of environment Mr. Darwin employs to 

 invite them into existence, or what "law of perma- 

 nent characterization " he invokes to fix a species, 

 when once he has conjured it into being. 



139. Finally, there remain three terms, the strug- 

 gle for existence, the survival of the fittest, and 

 natural selection. Mr. Darwin takes up 

 an idea already familiar in the English Existence ^ 

 school of political economy, and he 

 reckons that every kind of animal and plant tends 

 to multiply itself indefinitely, according to the ratio 

 of a geometrical progression; just as Malthus had 

 supposed in his theory of population as regards 

 the human species. From this Mr. Darwin infers 

 that every organic individual is put through a 

 severe " struggle for existence," so that only the 

 requisite few survive; just as Malthus had inferred 

 that preventive and repressive measures should be 

 employed to keep down human population. In 

 point of fact, Mr. Wallace tells us that the sum 

 total of animal and vegetable population remains 

 almost stationary. 



