THE
STRUGGLE FOR LIFE
When life first appeared on the earth, there was nothing for it to feed on, except
air, salt and water. The only kind of living creature that can live on such lifeless
things is the plant. Therefore the first living things were plants and not animals. Now
what the first plants did then, all plants do the same even now. The trees that have lived for, sometimes, hundreds of years, feed just in the same way as the first plants were not trees nor had any flowers on them. They were plants rather like seaweed. Then came the ferns which became large. These have now become giant ferns. The next stage was the appearance of the
flowering plants. Many of the kinds of plants, that existed before the flowering plants came, either died out or disappeared very nearly. The flowering plants were fitter to live in the world than any of the older kinds. Just as animals, with backbones, are the masters of the animal kingdom, so are the flowering plants the masters of the vegetable kingdom. However they have not entirely distroyed all the older kinds of plants. Now plants have grown even more numerous and more wonderful.
Plants are living things and every living thing requires oxygen to survive. The first plants took oxygen from water because they lived in water. But the flowering plants moved out of the water on to the land and so they take their oxygen from the air. No living thing can go on living without breathing. It breathes in oxygen and breathes out carbon dioxide. But plants breathe in just enough to keep themselves alive. You can suffocate a plant if you keep away all oxygen from it, and it will die. But the wonderful work of the plants is that they split up the carbon dioxide into two things of which it is made - carbon and oxygen. They keep the carbon, which is good food and let go the oxygen into the air. This is a regular process. They take up far more carbon and build up this carbon into their own body. If this process were to stop the whole animal world would starve.
We see plants all round us and to all outward appearances the sight gives the impression of having a quiet, peaceful and friendly atmosphere. The circulation of water by mist and cloud, wind and rain helps the plants greatly. But the plants have their own struggles. They have to face not only the regular changes but also the irregular ones. The regular changes are the day after night, winter after summer. The irregular changes are the tempests, floods, hailstorms, drought and severe frost. The plants must answer back or
struggle against these or else perish. This is the struggle with fate. Darwin pointed out that the plant's struggle with drought at the edge of the desert was as real as the plant's struggle for room and light in the crowded jungls.
The second reason for struggle is to be found in the rate at which many plants multiply. It is said that a single plant of hedge mustard may produce 730,000 seeds. If each seed germinated and dveloped into a plant, the members of the next generation would be touching one another all over the earth. But this does not happen because of the struggle for life. The rule, survival of the fittest, operates here very effectively.
The third reason for struggle is that every vigorous living creature is always asking for more. It is the nature of living creature to assert itself, and to answer back to difficulties and limitations. But the fact is that the more a plant succeeds, the more it asks for. Outwardly everything looks quiet but inside - the struggle is on. In others words the plants do not readily submit to being hindered, whatever by the difficulties, in their way. A young plant can burst its way through the hard asphalted pavement at the side of a street. Without the aid of tools or explosives a plant will make its way to the light by the gentle force of growing.
So we see that plants must struggle because the outer world is changeful and hard; because they tend to have such big families, and because it is their very nature to assert themselves against difficulties.