se results,
as we shall more fully see in the next chapter, follow from the struggle
for life. Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight,
and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an
individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other
organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of
that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. The
offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of surviving, for, of the
many individuals of any species which are periodically born, but a small
number can survive. I have called this principle, by which each slight
variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in
order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. We have seen that
man by selection can certainly produce great results, and can adapt organic
beings to his own uses, through the accumulation of slight but useful
variations, given to him by the hand of Nature. But Natural Selection, as
we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as
{62} 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
philosophically 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
difficult--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 bea