The Economy of Nature. 129 



favor of the better qualified races, and less favor- 

 ably with regard to the rest. Some of the less pro- 

 vided ones may even be eliminated; but it is all a 

 matter of races, and never touches the question of 

 species. It may exterminate a species; but it can- 

 not create a new one, or transform an old one. 



142. All that is only one factor in the problem. 

 There are others besides. Perhaps it is not fair to 

 ask many questions of an ill-digested 

 hypothesis; or we should like to inquire f l xature° m) 

 what possible application can this idea of 

 a struggle for existence meet with universally in na- 

 ture, when there are entire orders of beings evidently 

 meant, not so much to exist themselves, as to keep 

 others in existence by being eaten up continually; 

 and therefore, as useful means to support the higher 

 life of others, the individuals of these lower orders 

 are multiplied in numbers beyond the grasp of or- 

 dinary mathematics. Without pretending to deter- 

 mine the rank of herrings, for instance, in the scale 

 of being, we may consider the shoals of them that 

 are provided for the whales and other big feasters 

 of the deep. Their struggle to exist, if existence 

 means fitness to do their work in life, must be to 

 come forward and get themselves eaten up. Con- 

 sider the spectacle on the banks of Newfoundland. 

 All nature there, above and below water, is de- 

 scribed as a system of gigantic depredation. Near 

 the shore, the smaller classes of fish, such as can 

 be netted in a pocket-handkerchief, are swallowed 



