the flowers, the squirrel climbing among the tree tops, and all living
things in the possession of health and vigour, and in the enjoyment
of a sunny existence. They do not see the constant and daily search
after food, the failure to obtain which means weakness and death ;
the constant effort to escape enemies ; the ever-recurring struggle
against the forces of nature.”—(Darwinism. ft. 14.)
But elsewhere he says :—
“ Now that'the war of nature is better known, it has been dwelt
upon by many' writers as presenting so vast an amount of cruelty and
pain as to be revolting to our instincts of humanity
Now there is, I think, good reason to believe that all this is greatly
exaggerated ; that the supposed “ torments ” and “ miseries ” of
animals have little real existence, but are the reflection of the
imagined sensations of cultivated men and women in similar circum
stances ; and that the amount of actual suffering caused by the
struggle for existence among animals is altogether insignificant.”—
(.Darwinism. ft. 36-7).
Last, but not least, we come to the differences of
opinion as to whether Natural Selection is, or is not, a
necessary factor in the transmutation of species and in
the production of organic evolution. Pure Darwinism
asserts that Natural Selection is the only method. This
view is stated with great explicitness by Professor E.
Ray Lankester:—
“ I do not hesitate to say that what may be called ‘pure’ Darwinism
—the doctrine of the origin of species by the Natural Selection in
the struggle for existence of non-significant congenital variations—is
everywhere being more completely demonstrated by reasoning and
observation as the single and sufficient theory of that origin ; to the
exclusion of Lamarckism, and still more certainly to the exclusion of
any vestage of the doctrine of design.”—(Nature, vol. xxxviii.,
ft. 364.)
Mr. Darwin, on the other hand, says:—
“ There can be little doubt that the tendency to vary in the same
manner has often been so strong that all the individuals of the same
species have been similarly modified without the aid of any form of
selection.”—(Origin of Species, ft. 72.)