Vice as an Eliminative Agent. 
279 
1883.] 
for its object, the intensification of the struggle for existence. 
In proportion as it is successful it must render life the harder 
and the less worth living. It is said, by the followers of 
Darwin, that the struggle for existence is necessary for human 
improvement. We are by no means certain that such would 
be the case : in all cultivated animals and vegetables we stamp 
out this struggle. In our fields and gardens we sow only so 
many trees or plants as can find sufficient soil, sun, and air, 
thus preventing all struggles among themselves, and we ex- 
tirpate as far as possible weeds and noxious animals, thus 
limiting, if we cannot eradicate, competition with other spe- 
cies ; and the result justifies our wisdom. Compare the crop 
of an ordinary turnip fiejd with that of what might be styled 
a “ competition turnip field,” where the roots had been let 
spring up, grow, and fight it out among themselves. The 
produce of such a field would not be one-half that of the 
non-competitive plot, and its finest root would not be. worth 
exhibiting. Is it not very probable that a similar result might 
follow in a human society where the struggle for existence 
had been stamped out ? No one, indeed, sees clearly how 
the end isto.be reached, but in the meantime we are scarcely 
wise in working in the very opposite direction. 
It may, meantime, be questioned whether every vice cuts 
short the days of its votaries, and leads to the extermination 
of their descendants. We doubt if this can be said of the 
inordinate covetousness of the present day. Says Mr. 
McElroy, “ The policeman on the next corner will bear de- 
cided testimony that the number of scoundrels who survive 
their thirtieth year is astonishingly small.” But with per- 
haps the most dangerous scoundrels of the day policeman 
Z 22 has nothing further to do than perhaps to touch his hat 
to them. The scoundrel now knows how to carry out his 
plans without breaking the law. He robs not by crying 
“ Stand and deliver! ” but by rigging the market. He be- 
longs not to a gang, but to a syndicate, and when he has 
done more harm than a generation of bandits, burglars, or 
forgers, he dies in peace, and leaves his children in good 
positions. 
No! Mr. McElroy: it is not demonstrable that the pro- 
portion of bad men is steadily decreasing. They have assumed 
a new aspect, and the statistician who should enumerate 
them would encounter endless actions for libel. 
