240 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



marvellously-elaborated arts, extensive and profound know 

 ledge, and multitudinous appliances to welfare ? &quot; The 

 answer to this question will best be conveyed by an 

 analogy. 



As carried on throughout the animate world at large, the 

 struggle for existence has been an indispensable means to 

 evolution. Not simply do we see that in the competition 

 among individuals of the same kind, survival of the fittest, 

 has from the beginning furthered production of a higher type ; 

 but we see that to the unceasing warfare between species is 

 mainly due both growth and organization. Without univer 

 sal conflict there would have been no development of the 

 active powers. The organs of perception and of locomotion 

 have been little by little evolved during the inter-action of 

 pursuers and pursued. Improved limbs and senses have 

 furnished better supplies to the viscera, and improved visceral 

 structures have ensured a better supply of aerated blood to 

 the limbs and senses ; while a higher nervous system has at 

 each stage been called into play for co-ordinating the actions 

 of these more complex structures. Among predatory animals 

 death by starvation, and among animals preyed upon death 

 by destruction, have carried off the least-fa vourably modified 

 individuals and varieties. Every advance in strength, speed, 

 agility, or sagacity, in creatures of the one class, has necessi 

 tated a corresponding advance in creatures of the other class ; 

 and without never-ending efforts to catch and to escape, with 

 loss of life as the penalty for failure, the progress of neither 

 could have been achieved. 



there would be no distinction between right and wrong, remarks that &quot; if it 

 were not for the dark shadow cast over it by this loss of life&quot; [of two of our 

 men], &quot; the whole episode would he somewhat humoroiis.&quot; Doubtless, after 

 the &quot; childish mind of the savage &quot; lias accepted the &quot;glad tidings&quot; brought 

 by missionaries of &quot; the religion of love,&quot; there is humour, somewhat of the 

 grimmest, perhaps, in showing him the practice of this religion by burning 

 his house. Comments on Christian virtues, uttered by exploding shells, may 

 fitly be accompanied by a Mephistophelian smile. Possibly the king, in declin 

 ing to trust himself on board an English ship, was swayed by the common 

 Negro belief that the devil is white. 



