=1. The Theory Exaggerates the Rôle of Antagonistic Competitive Struggle in the Darwinian Theory.=--(a) The initial step in any "progress" is _variation_; this is not so much struggle _against_ other organisms, as it is _invention_ or discovery of some _new_ way of acting, involving better adaptation of hitherto merely latent natural resources, use of some possible food or shelter not previously utilized. The struggle against other organisms at work preserves from elimination a species already fixed--quite a different thing from the variation which occasions the introduction of a higher or more complex species. (b) Moreover, so far as the Darwinian theory is concerned, the "struggle for existence" may take any conceivable form; rivalry in generosity, in mutual aid and support, may be the kind of competition best fitted to enable a species to survive. It not only may be so, but it is so within certain limits. The rage for survival, for power, must not be asserted indiscriminately; the mate of the other sex, the young, to some extent other individuals of the same kin, are spared, or, in many cases, protected and nourished.[173] (c) The higher the form of life, the _more_ effective the two methods just suggested: namely, the method of intelligence in discovering and utilizing new methods, tools, and resources as substituted for the direct method of brute conflict; and the method of mutual protection and care substituted for mutual attack and combat. It is among the lower forms of life, not as the theory would require among the higher types, that conditions approximate its picture of the gladiatorial show. The higher species among the vertebrates, as among insects (like ants and bees), are the "sociable" kinds. It is sometimes argued that Darwinism carried into morals would abolish charity: all care of the hopelessly invalid, of the economically dependent, and in general of all the weak and helpless except healthy infants. It is argued that our current standards are sentimental and artificial, aiming to make survive those who are unfit, and thus tending to destroy the conditions that make for advance, and to introduce such as make towards degeneration. But this argument (1) wholly ignores the reflex effect of interest in those who are ill and defective in strengthening social solidarity--in promoting those ties and reciprocal interests which are as much the prerequisites of strong individual characters as they are of a strong social group. And (2) it fails to take into account the stimulus to foresight, to scientific discovery, and practical invention, which has proceeded from interest in the helpless, the weak, the sick, the disabled, blind, deaf, and insane. Taking the most coldly scientific view, the gains in these two respects have, through the growth of social pity, of care for the unfortunate, been purchased more cheaply than we can imagine their being bought in any other way. In other words, the chief objection to this