Introduction to the Science of Sociology

by Robert Ezra Park; E. W. Burgess

II. MATERIALS

A. THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE

1. Different Forms of the Struggle for Existence[184]

The formula "struggle for existence," familiar in human affairs, was used by Darwin in his interpretation of organic life, and he showed that we gain clearness in our outlook on animate nature if we recognize there, in continual process, a struggle for existence not merely analogous to, but fundamentally the same as, that which goes on in human life. He projected on organic life a sociological idea, and showed that it fitted. But while he thus vindicated the relevancy and utility of the sociological idea within the biological realm, he declared explicitly that the phrase "struggle for existence" was meant to be a shorthand formula, summing up a vast variety of strife and endeavor, of thrust and parry, of action and reaction.

Some of Darwin's successors have taken pains to distinguish a great many different forms of the struggle for existence, and this kind of analysis is useful in keeping us aware of the complexities of the process. Darwin himself does not seem to have cared much for this logical mapping out and defining; it was enough for him to insist that the phrase was used "in a large and metaphorical sense," and to give full illustrations of its various modes. For our present purpose it is enough for us to follow his example.

a) Struggle between fellows.—When the locusts of a huge swarm have eaten up every green thing, they sometimes turn on one another. This cannibalism among fellows of the same species—illustrated, for instance, among many fishes—is the most intense form of the struggle for existence. The struggle does not need to be direct to be real; the essential point is that the competitors seek after the same desiderata, of which there is a limited supply.

As an instance of keen struggle between nearly related species, Darwin referred to the combats of rats. The black rat was in possession of many European towns before the brown rat crossed the Volga in 1727; whenever the brown rat arrived, the black rat had to go to the wall. Thus at the present day there are practically no black rats in Great Britain. Here the struggle for existence is again directly competitive. It is difficult to separate the struggle for food and foothold from the struggle for mates, and it seems clearest to include here the battles of the stags and the capercailzies, or the extraordinary lek of the blackcock, showing off their beauty at sunrise on the hills.

b) Struggle between foes.—In the locust swarm and in the rats' combats there is competition between fellows of the same or nearly related species, but the struggle for existence includes much wider antipathies. We see it between foes of entirely different nature, between carnivores and herbivores, between birds of prey and small mammals. In both these cases there may be a stand-up fight, for instance between wolf and stag, or between hawk and ermine; but neither the logic nor the biology of the process is different when all the fight is on one side. As the lemmings, which have overpopulated the Scandinavian valleys, go on the march they are followed by birds and beasts of prey, which thin their ranks. Moreover, the competition between species need not be direct; it will come to the same result if both types seek after the same things. The victory will be with the more effective and the more prolific.

c) Struggle with fate.—Our sweep widens still further, and we pass beyond the idea of competition altogether to cases where the struggle for existence is between the living organism and the inanimate conditions of its life—for instance, between birds and the winter's cold, between aquatic animals and changes in the water, between plants and drought, between plants and frost—in a wide sense, between Life and Fate.

We cannot here pursue the suggestive idea that, besides struggle between individuals, there is struggle between groups of individuals—the latter most noticeably developed in mankind. Similarly, working in the other direction, there is struggle between parts or tissues in the body, between cells in the body, between equivalent germ-cells, and, perhaps, as Weismann pictures, between the various multiplicate items that make up our inheritance.