62 
STKUGGLE FOE EXISTENCE. 
Chap. III. 
immeasurably superior to man’s feeble efforts, as the 
works of Nature are to those of Art. 
We will now discuss in a little more detail the struggle 
for existence. In my future work this subject shall be 
treated, as it well deserves, at much greater length. 
The elder de Candolle and Lyell have largely and phi¬ 
losophically shown that all organic beings are exposed 
to severe competition. In regard to plants, no one has 
treated this subject with more spirit and ability than 
W. Herbert, Dean of Manchester, evidently the result 
of his great horticultural knowledge. Nothing is easier 
than to admit in words the truth of the universal 
struggle for life, or more difScult—at least I have found 
it so—than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind. 
Yet unless it be thoroughly engrained in the mind, I 
am convinced that the whole economy of nature, with 
every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction, 
and variation, will be dimly seen or quite misunderstood. 
We behold the face of nature bright with gladness, we 
often see superabundance of food; we do not see, or we 
forget that the birds which are idly singing round us 
mostly live on insects or seeds, and are thus constantly 
destroying life; or we forget how largely these songsters, 
or their eggs, or their nestlings, are destroyed by birds 
and beasts of prey; we do not always bear in mind, 
that though food may be now superabundant, it is not 
so at all seasons of each recurring year. 
I should premise that I use the term Struggle for 
Existence in a large and metaphorical sense, including 
dependence of one being on another, and including 
(which is more important) not only the life of the indi¬ 
vidual, but success in leaving progeny. Two canine 
animals in a time of dearth, may be truly said to 
struggle with each other which shall get food and live. 
But a plant on the edge of a desert is said to struggle 
