

128 Species; or, Darwinism. 



140. It will be useful however for both schools 

 to observe that, in sound philosophy, no such sup- 

 position can be admitted, as that the economy of 

 nature involves a perpetual and universal struggle, 

 either physically among the brutes, or morally 

 among men. Every problem which nature proposes 

 she solves herself; and what is overdone or under- 

 done in one direction, she makes compensation for 

 in another. There is no need of interposing with 

 such fictitious elements as a system of repression 

 to control, or an imaginary struggle to interpret, 

 what in the last resort is but the smoothly rolling 

 economy of nature. A struggle for existence, if 

 the words are taken to mean what they say, inti- 

 mates a state of violence; and universal organic 

 nature cannot be undergoing habitual violence. 

 Hence the supposition implied in the meaning of 

 the term, struggle for existence, must from a philo- 

 sophical point of view be simply denied. 



141. But as far as the term is taken to signify 

 that endeavor on the part of organic beings to ad- 

 just themselves, as best they can, to their condi- 

 tions of life, the idea is true and real, without being 

 really a struggle. In this true sense, the play of 



'1 a factor, which is otherwise called acclimati- 

 zation or naturalization, is only a small element in 

 the problem, as to which individuals will actually 



ive. It expresses only, in the organic king- 

 doms generally, what we have already considered 



». 77-81), how nature" tends to discriminate in 



