274 
Vice as- an Eliminative Agent. 
[May, 
removing a certain class of persons who, if not dangerous, 
are at least useless. It will at once appear that we have 
here a reference to the “ struggle for existence,” which, 
whether we accept or rejeCt the Darwinian hypothesis of the 
origin of species, must be recognised as a faCt. More re- 
cently Mr. John McElroy, in the “Popular Science Monthly,” 
has taken up the same idea, and given it a somewhat wider 
application. Many men whom we respeCt will at first glance 
be shocked at what they will call the “ cynicism ” of these 
writers. But it seems to us that their contention has in it 
an element of truth which has been hitherto thrust out of 
view, and which deserves serious consideration. 
Let us, in the first place, call to mind what the “ struggle 
for existence ” really means. Almost every organic species 
produces such a quantity of spores, seeds, eggs, or young 
ones, as the case may be, that were no counter-agencies at 
work the world would soon afford neither food nor even 
standing-room. 
Mr. McElroy writes : — “ Even with such limited propa- 
gators as the elephant, each female of which produces but 
six offspring in her bearing period of ninety years, we are 
told that if the species had no parasitic or other enemies it 
would be only 740 years until elephants overran the earth. 
.Where, then, should we assign limits to the productiveness 
of the seven hundred millions of human females on the 
globe, each of whom is capable of producing twenty children 
in her thirty years of bearing.” 
To keep this over-produCtion within limits a variety of 
agencies are at work. There is a war between individuals 
of the same species, though, as far as man is concerned, 
modern politeness gives it the name of competition. In this 
war the weaker — i.e., those less well adapted to surrounding 
circumstances — are trodden down. There is war between 
species and species. One form of life preys direCtly upon 
another, or consumes and destroys its nutriment. Diseases 
carry off multitudes before reaching their normal term of 
existence. Some animals, noted for their extreme rapidity 
of reproduction, indulge from time to time in wholesale 
suicide. The lemmings of Sweden and Norway march in a 
direCt route to the sea, plunge in, and perish. Locusts and 
various butterflies and moths fly out over the ocean, and are 
chiefly drowned. 
Mr. McElroy, however, is open to the charge of exaggera- 
tion when he writes — “ Man alone is practically exempt 
from what is apparently an inseparable condition of all other 
forms of animal life. While he preys on a myriad of created 
