over, the struggle among the members of a species in natural conditions differs totally from the mere struggle for advancement or wealth with which uneducated writers so frequently compare it. It differs essentially in this—that in Nature's struggle for existence, death, immediate obliteration, is the fate of the vanquished, whilst the only reward to the victors—few, very few, but rare and beautiful in the fitness which has carried them to victory—is the permission to reproduce their kind—to carry on by heredity to another generation the specific qualities by which they triumphed.
It is not generally realized how severe is the pressure and competition in Nature—not between different species, but between the immature population of one and the same species, precisely because they are of the same species and have exactly the same needs. From a human point of view the pressure under which many wild things live is awful in its severity and relentless tenacity. Not only are new forms established by natural selection, but the old forms, when they exactly fit the mould presented as it were for competitive filling, are maintained by the same unremitting process. A distinctive quality in the beauty of natural productions in which man delights is due to the unobtrusive yet tremendous slaughter of the unfit which is incessantly going on, and the absolute restriction of the privilege of parentage to the happy few who attain to the standard described as 'the fittest.'
7. The Limited Variety of Nature's Products.
The process of development of an immense variety of animal and vegetable forms has proceeded in this
