Such is the condition of organic nature! whose first law might be expressed in the words 'Eat or be eaten!' and which would seem to be one great slaughter-house, one universal scene of rapacity and injustice!
Erasmus Darwin, Phytologia; Or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening. with the Theory of Draining Morasses, and with an Improved Construction of the Drill Plough. by Erasmus Darwin, M.D. F.R.S. Author of Zoonomia, and of the Botanic Garden.
condition, eat-or-be-eaten, injustice, nature, rapacity, slaughterhouse, struggle-of-existence, struggle-of-life