Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/632

614 of the blood are permanent enemies of bacteria, and by inoculation will absorb poisonous germs; a recurrent war, as it appears, going on between them. If the corpuscle is the conqueror, the bacteria are swallowed up and the patient lives. If the corpuscles are vanquished, the patient dies and the bacteria live, at all events for a time. If the theory is founded, it affords a strong additional argument to the doctrine of internal antagonism. Possibly, if there were no bacteria, and the corpuscles had nothing to do, it would be worse for them and the animal whom they serve.

Let us now consider the external life of animals. I will take as an instance, for a reason which you will soon see, the life of a wild rabbit. It is throughout its life, except when asleep (of which more presently), using exertion, cropping grass, at war with vegetables, etc. If it gets a luxurious pasture, it dies of repletion. If it gets too little, it dies of inanition. To keep itself healthy it must exert itself for its food; this, and perhaps the avoiding its enemies, gives it exercise and care, brings all its organs into use, and thus it acquires its most perfect form of life. I have witnessed this effect myself, and that is the reason why I choose the rabbit as an example. An estate in Somersetshire, which I once took temporarily, was on the slope of the Mendip Hills. The rabbits on one part of it, viz., that on the hill-side, were in perfect condition, not too fat nor too thin, sleek, active, and vigorous, and yielding to their antagonists, myself and family, excellent food. Those in the valley, where the pasturage was rich and luxuriant, were all diseased, most of them unfit for human food, and many lying dead on the fields. They had not to struggle for life, their short life was miserable, and their death early; they wanted the sweet uses of adversity—that is, of antagonism. The same story may be told of other animals. Carnivora, beasts or birds of prey, live on weaker animals; weaker animals herd together to resist, or, by better chance of warning, to escape, beasts of prey; while they, the herbivora, in their turn are destroying vegetable organisms.

I now come to the most delicate part of my subject, viz., man (I include women, of course!). Is man exempt from this continual struggle? It is needless to say that war is antagonism. Is not peace so also, though in a different form? It is a commonplace remark to say that the idle man is worn out by ennui, i. e., by internal antagonism. Kingsley's "Do-as-you-like" race—who were fed by a substance dropping from trees, who did no work, and who gradually degenerated until they became inferior to apes, and ultimately died out from having nothing to do, nothing to struggle with—is a caricature illustrative of the matter. That the worry of competition is nearly equivalent to the hardships and perils of military life seems proved to me by the readiness with which