And is this life but the child of death? Then blessed also be the word Death, the mother of life; I will no more call thee Marah, but Naomi; for thou art not bitter, but sweet; more pleasant, though swifter in thy gait, than roe or hind. _Henry Montague._ In a world of creatures where the interests of each kind are focused on the preservation of the species, and each individual's attention and powers are in the main concentrated on the pressing need for reproduction, and for food and shelter to maintain life in itself and its young progeny, conflict must ensue, a conflict of both ends and means. Because, too, in these creatures the way of life is not open, as in man, habit-memories may be taken as being the chief agents for ensuring both species-life and individual life, and as dominating both their history and their character. Indeed the contracted world and the completed character of such creatures with rare exceptions shuts out the interests of other species. Hence the struggle for existence. Hence a nature 'red in tooth and claw,' despite the general signs of a love that of itself is ample prophecy of an enlargement beyond the bounds of such restricted interests; despite also a general and very obvious enjoyment of life for life's own sake. We must not exaggerate either pain or its significance in creatures who have neither our sensitive nervous system, nor our ability not only to look forward and see consequences and imagine our pain prolonged and growing, but to increase that very pain by dwelling on it and exercising in regard to it, more than it deserves, the magical power of attention. Yet if we do not exaggerate, neither must we ignore. Suffering, conflict, death are there and must be reckoned with. That the biologists of the latter part of the last century should magnify beyond due measure the place of natural selection in one regard, that of the origin of species, was to be expected. It was a great discovery; it filled men's minds. That they minimized, where they did not deny, the importance of the selective, determining and creative power of life itself was also to be expected. All this last was for the time obscured for want of evidence. Few men indeed, and those not biologists, then kept a level head. It is for this century to bring about a much needed balance in reckoning and in esteem.