pars" in the sanguinary
contest. When the imagination views these and similar figures, and
places in contrast to this multitude of living beings, the limited
supply of nourishment, the comparison of nature with a huge
slaughterhouse seems tame enough. But reason, not imagination, as
Darwin observes more than once, should be our guide in a scientific
inquiry.

It is observed on careful reflection that Darwin's theory is endangered
by an extremely large disturbing element, viz., accidental destruction.
Under this term we include all the destruction of life which occurs in
utter indifference to the presence or absence of any individual
variations from the parent form. Indeed, the greatest destruction takes
place among immature forms before any variation from the parent stock
is discernible at all. In this connection we may instance the vast
amount of eggs and seeds destroyed annually irrespective of any
adaptive advantage that would be possessed by the matured form. And the
countless forms in every stage of individual development which meet
destruction through "accidental causes which would not be in the least
degree mitigated by certain changes of structure or of constitution
which would otherwise be beneficial to the species." This difficulty,
Darwin himself recognized. But he was of opinion that if even
"one-hundredth or one-thousandth part" of organic beings escaped this
fortuitous destruction, there would supervene among the survivors a
struggle for life sufficiently destructive to satisfy his theory. This
suggestion, however, fails to meet the difficulty. For, as Professor
Morgan points out, Darwin assumes "that a second competition takes
place after the first destruction of individuals has occurred, and this
presupposes that more individuals reach maturity than there is room for
in the economy of nature." It presupposes that the vast majority of
forms that survive accidental destruction, succumb in the second
struggle for life in which the determining factor is some slight
individual variation, e.g., a little longer neck in the case of the
giraffe, or a wing shorter than usual in the case of an insect on an
island. The whole theory of struggle, as formulated by Darwin, is,
therefore, a violent assumption. Men of science now recognize that
"egoism and struggle play a very subordinate part in organic
development, in comparison with co-operation and social action." What,
indeed, but a surrender of the paramountcy of s