The Struggle for Existence, H. P. Blavatsky (1/3)

An interesting article attributed to Blavatsky in her Collected Writings. The style doesn't seem to resemble Blavatsky. It's closer to Mabel Collins in style, but with themes closer to Annie Besant. However Collins had just left the magazine and Besant wasn't on board yet. Despite this difficulty, I think that it does give a decent basis and outline for strategies of social activism and is still quite relevant for today.

THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE

[Lucifer, Vol. IV, No. 20, April, 1889, pp. 104-111]

The mother of life is death. Nowhere is this truth more conspicuous than in the animal kingdom; the life of the stronger is prolonged by the lives of the weaker, and the survival of the fittest is proclaimed by the shrieks of the mangled and hapless unfit. Long has the western world sought the solution of this grim riddle propounded to her lord and master, man, by Dame Nature, the sphinx of the ages.

It has, therefore, been found necessary for the continuance of average intellectual contentment to venture some guess which shall decently dispose of this obnoxious problem, and the leading representatives of the mind of the race, proceeding by the methods of the times, have carefully labelled the riddle “The Struggle for Existence,” and having done so, are wisely refraining from further unnecessary explanations, knowing full well that their constituents, the public, who require their thinking done for them, will gladly accept the label as a legitimate answer to the riddle, and, by frequently repeating it with knowing looks, be charmed, and in their turn charm others, with the magic of its sound, and using it as a mantric formula, banish objectors to the limbo of unpopularity.

And yet though the why of this great struggle remains as great a mystery as ever, the attempted answer is of great value from the conciseness with which it formulates the law of the Ever Becoming. Throughout all the kingdoms it obtains, and especially in Man, the crown and synthesis of all. At this point, however, a new development takes place, and when humanity reaches the balance of its cycle of evolution, and each race and individual arrives at the turning point of Ezekiel’s wheel, a new Struggle for Existence arises, and we have God and Animal fighting for existence in Man. Now, at the close of the nineteenth century, in our enormously over-populated cities and in the accentuated individualism of modern competition, we see this deadly struggle in the white heat of its fury. 

Grand, indeed, and magnificent has been the childhood of the white race in which material and intellectual progress have raced on madly side by side; witness the conquest of nearly the whole world’s surface by its spirit of enterprise and adventure, rejoicing as a giant in its physical prowess, the subjugation of the henchman steam, and ever fresh triumphs over the master electricity. But the child cannot be ever a child, and the race draws nigh to its manhood; the God awakes and the Struggle for Existence begins in grim earnest.

First the units of the race, some here, some there, wake dimly to the feeling that they are not apart from the whole, they sympathize with their kind, they rejoice with them. Even in the animal the faint outlines of self-sacrifice have been shadowed forth by nature, as may be seen in the mother love of the females and the formation of gregarious communities. In inferior races, man repeats this lesson of nature, and the animal being dominant, improves on her, but slowly; in races of higher type, however, fresh areas of generous impulse, containing the germ of self-sacrifice, are gradually developed. It must be remembered, however, that the races are here mentioned in this order merely for the convenience of tracing the development of self-sacrifice in a monad, and not according to their natural genesis. Thus far the white race, as a race, or in other words, the average individual of the race, has developed the subtleties of his animal nature to their limit, and now comes in contact with the divine; and it is only by extending this area of interest and sympathy that the individual can expand into the divine to be at last one with universal love, the spirit of which is self-sacrifice. 

From daily life we may take examples which clearly show forth the evolution of this god-like quality. We see the purely selfish man, who cares not if all rot so he have pleasure; the same man married, and an area of generosity developed, but bounded by wife and children; in other cases, the area increased by the extension of sympathy to friends and relations; and still further increased in the case of the fanatic or bigot, religious or patriotic, who fights for sect or country, as the she-animal for her cubs, whether the cause be good or bad. And here we may mention the instruments of national passions and cunning, necessary evils; for the race being in its youth, and very animal-like, not yet recognizing the right of self-sacrifice in the interrelations of its constituent sub-races, requires the individual who serves his country in her wars and political schemes to reduce his moral standard to the race-level. These are types of the evolution of the animal man’s affections, either in his individual development or modified by the development of the race. In most cases such types represent the mere expansion of selfishness or, at any rate, may be traced to selfish causes, or the hope of reward. 

Ascending, however, in the scale of manhood, we come to those who shadow forth the latent God in man in thoughts, words, and deeds of divine self-sacrifice; the prerogative of their God-head first manifesting in acts of real charity, in pity of their suffering fellow-kind, or from an intuitional feeling of duty, the first heralding of accession to divine responsibility, and the realization of the unity of all souls. “I am my brother’s keeper,” is the cry of repentant Cain, and the divine summons of return to the lost Paradise. With this cry the struggle for animal existence begins to yield to the struggle for divine existence. By extending our love to all men, aye, to animals as well, we joy and sorrow with them, and expand our souls towards the One that ever both sorrows and joys with all, in an eternal bliss in which the pleasure of joy and the pain of sorrow are not.

Thus, in every man the mighty battle rages, but the fortune of the fight is not alike in all—in some the animal hosts rage madly in their triumph, in a few the glorious army of the god has gained a silent victory, but in the vast majority, and especially now, at the balance of the race cycle, the battle rages fiercely, the issue still in doubt. Now, therefore, is the time to strike, and show that the battle is not fought in man alone, but in Man, and that the issue of each individual fight is inextricably bound up in that of the great battle in which the issue cannot be doubtful, for the divine is in its nature union and love, the animal discord and hate. Strike, therefore, and strike boldly! These are no idle words, nor the utopian imaginings of a dreamer, but practical truths. 

For in what does man differ from the natural animal? Is it not in his power of association and combination? Therefore does he live in communities, and develop responsibility. From whence spring the roots of society, if not from mutual assistance and interchange of service? And if the race offers the individual the advantages of such combination, perfected by ages of bitter experience, do not those at least who are elder sons of the race, and find themselves in the enjoyment of such organizations, owe a debt of gratitude to their parent, and in return for the fortune amassed with tears and groaning by their forbears, repay the boon, by putting the experience of the past out to interest, and distributing the income acquired among their poorer brethren, who are equally the sons of their parent. And in this race family there are many poor, paupers physical, paupers mental, and moral paupers. How, then, shall the richer brethren help? Shower gold among the masses? Compel all to study the arts and sciences? Display the naked truth to the world? Nay, then should these poor children of the race be bound, not free!