The elder De Candolle and Lyell have largely and philosophically shown that all organic beings are exposed to severe competition.

In regard to plants, no one has treated this subject with more spirit and ability than W.Herbert, Dean of Manchester, evidently the result of his great horticultural knowledge.

Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult--at least I found it so--than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind.

Yet unless it be thoroughly engrained in the mind, the whole economy of nature, with every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction, and variation, will be dimly seen or quite misunderstood.

We behold the face of nature bright with gladness, we often see superabundance of food; we do not see or we forget that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects or seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life; or we forget how largely these songsters, or their eggs, or their nestlings, are destroyed by birds and beasts of prey; we do not always bear in mind, that, though food may be now superabundant, it is not so at all seasons of each recurring year.
THE TERM, STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE, USED IN A LARGE SENSE.
I should premise that I use this term in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny.