718 
[November, 
Analyses of Books. 
answer may be found in the letter of Nemo. 1 ' A further reply 
is that in many cases the triumph of the weaker, if it had been 
possible, would have been very much better. Suppose the place 
in creation now held by the rat were occupied by a species 
feebler, less courageous, less cunning, less prolific, would this 
not be an immense gain ? The author says “ if death is to 
exist at all it is difficult to see why it is any more cruel to have 
it come in this way than any other.” But the charge against 
the “ struggle for existence ” is that it needlessly multiplies 
death. Nature calls a hundred species into existence, turns 
them into a spherewhere there is only room for ten, and bids 
them fight it out. Man puts in a given space only so . many 
animals or plants as can there find room, and thus obtains far 
finer products. Much more might be said on this part of the 
subjedt did space allow showing that “ Natural Selection has 
little claim to the beneficent character with which the author 
invests it. . . 
Mr. Savage tells us that as the ages pass “ physical force is 
dethroned, and thought, first as cunning, afterwards as intelli- 
gence, sits on the throne.” It will be some time before physical 
force is dethroned, or before thought in its higher manifestations 
wins in the struggle for life. “The nations discover,” says 
our author, “ in the stern school of experience, that the people 
which loves most is most closely bound together, developes 
most of tenderness, pity, charity, and mutual help ; that this 
people wins, is mightiest, and so the fittest to survive. ’ But 
what would be the fate of a nation which, like some of our 
modern English “ advanced thinkers,” had outgrown patriotism, 
and extended to all mankind alike that mutual help which others 
confine to their own countrymen? Just what would happen to 
any individual man who should open his table and his purse 
indiscriminately to all his neighbours whilst they rendered him 
no similar favours. Mr. Sydney Billing warns us that “ A 
nation actuated alone by moral lav/, with conscience as a regu- 
lator or administrator, could not exist beside other nations im- 
pulsed by a lower ideal because it would be the prey of instinc- 
tive rapacity.”! . , 
As regards the discussion of the question “ Is life worth 
living?” our author is scarcely fair. He writes “ That the 
vast Majority of men desire life — stay in instead, of going out— 
turns the question as to whether it is worth living into an ab- 
surdity.” To this argument it may be replied that men cling to 
life from hereditary instina, from hope or curiosity as to what 
may befall them, from religious conviaions, from a suspicion 
that it is safer to “ bear the ills we have than fly to others that 
we know not of;” and, lastly, from a reluaance to abandon 
• Journal of Science, Sept., 1880, p- 598- 
t “ Scientific Materialism and Ultimate Conceptions. 
Sc ence, 1879, p. 665. 
See Journal of 
