pessimism can be accepted as an impartial interpretation of
nature.

As soon as we study animals--not in laboratories and
museums only, but in the forest and the prairie, in the steppe
and the mountains--we at once perceive that though there is an
immense amount of warfare and extermination going on amidst
various species, and especially amidst various classes of
animals, there is, at the same time, as much, or perhaps even
more, of mutual support, mutual aid, and mutual defence amidst
animals belonging to the same species or, at least, to the same
society. Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual
struggle. Of course it would be extremely difficult to estimate,
however roughly, the relative numerical importance of both these
series of facts. But if we resort to an indirect test, and ask
Nature: "Who are the fittest: those who are continually at war
with each other, or those who support one another?" we at once
see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are
undoubtedly the fittest. They have more chances to survive, and
they attain, in their respective classes, the highest development
of intelligence and bodily organization. If the numberless facts
which can be brought forward to support this view are taken into
account, we may safely say that mutual aid is as much a law of
animal life as mutual struggle, but that, as a factor of
evolution, it most probably has a far greater importance,
inasmuch as it favours the development of such habits and
characters as insure the maintenance and further development of
the species, together with the greatest amount of welfare and
enjoyment of life for the individual, with the least waste of
energy.