Chap. III.] STRUGGLE FOE EXISTENCE. 61 



may be exactly the same as in its former home. If its average lum- 

 bers are to increase in its new home, we should have to modify it in 

 a different way to what we should have had to do in its native 

 country ; for we should have to give it some advantage over a different 

 set of competitors or enemies. 



It is good thus to try in imagination to give to any one species an 

 advantage over another. Probably in no single instance should we 

 know what to do. This ought to convince us of our ignorance on 

 the mutual relations of all organic beings; a conviction as necessary, 

 as it is difficult to acquire. All that we can do, is to keep steadily 

 in mind that each organic being is striving to increase in a geometri- 

 cal ratio ; that each at some period of its life, during some season of 

 the year, during each generation or at intervals, has to struggle for 

 life and to suffer great destruction. When we reflect on this struggle, 

 we may console ourselves with the full belief, that the war of nature 

 is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, 

 and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and 

 multiply. 



