us. If, as
evolutionists tell us, the hostility of the wolf tends to improve the
breed of sheep, to encourage him to think more and to sharpen his wits,
the sheep may be, on the whole, the better for the wolf, in this sense
at least: that the sheep of a wolfless region might lead a more
wretched existence, and be less capable animals and more subject to
disease and starvation than the sheep in a wolf-haunted region. The
wolf may, so far, be a blessing in disguise.

This suggests another obvious remark. When we speak of the struggle for
existence, the popular view seems to construe this into the theory that
the world is a mere cockpit, in which one race carries on an
interminable struggle with the other. If the wolves are turned in with
the sheep, the first result will be that all the sheep will become
mutton, and the last that there will be one big wolf with all the
others inside him. But this is contrary to the essence of the doctrine.
Every race depends, we all hold, upon its environment, and the
environment includes all the other races. If some, therefore, are in
conflict, others are mutually necessary. If the wolf ate all the sheep,
and the sheep ate all the grass, the result would be the extirpation of
all the sheep and all the wolves, as well as all the grass. The
struggle necessarily implies reciprocal dependence in a countless
variety of ways. There is not only a conflict, but a system of tacit
alliances. One species is necessary to the existence of others, though
the multiplication of some implies also the dying out of particular
rivals. The conflict implies no cruelty, as I have said, and the
alliance no goodwill. The wolf neither loves the sheep (except as
mutton) nor hates him; but he depends upon him as absolutely as if he
were aware of the fact. The sheep is one of the wolf's necessaries of
life. When we speak of the struggle for existence we mean, of course,
that there is at any given period a certain equilibrium between all the
existing species; it changes, though it changes so slowly that the
process is imperceptible and difficult to realise even to the
scientific imagination. The survival of any species involves the
disappearance of rivals no more than the preservation of allies. The
struggle, therefore, is so far from internecine that it necessarily
involves co-operation. It cannot even be said that it necessarily
implies suffering. People, indeed, speak as though the extinction of a
race involved su