But Natural Selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a
power incessantly ready for action, and is as 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 bear in mind, that though food
may be now superabundant, it is not so at all seasons of each
recurring year.
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