Man, the animal, in fact, has worked his way to the headship of the
sentient world, and has become the superb animal which he is in virtue
of his success in the struggle for existence. The conditions having
been of a certain order, man's organization has adjusted itself to them
better than mat of his competitors in the cosmic strife. In the case of
mankind, the self-assertion, the unscrupulous seizing upon all that
can be grasped, the tenacious holding of all that can be kept, which
constitute the essence of the struggle for existence, have answered.
For his successful progress, throughout the savage state, man has been
largely indebted to those qualities which he shares with the ape and
the tiger; his exceptional physical organization; his cunning, his
sociability, his curiosity, and his imitativeness; his ruthless and
ferocious destructiveness when his anger is roused by opposition.
But, in proportion as men have passed from anarchy to social
organization, and in proportion as civilization has grown in worth,
these deeply ingrained serviceable qualities have become defects. After
the manner of successful persons, civilized man would gladly kick down
the ladder by which he has climbed. He would be only too pleased to see
"the ape and tiger die." But they decline to suit his convenience; and
the unwelcome intrusion of these boon companions of his hot youth into
the ranged existence of civil life adds pains and griefs, innumerable
and immeasurably great, to those which the cosmic process necessarily
brings on the mere animal. In fact, civilized man brands all these ape
and tiger promptings with the name of sins; he punishes many of the acts
which flow from them as crimes; and, in extreme cases, he does his best
to put an end to the survival of the fittest of former days by axe and
rope.