226 The Bible of Nature 



and more definitely resisted by the will of Man. If we 

 may, for the purpose of analysis, as it were, extract man 

 from the rest of Nature of which he is truly a product and 

 part, then we may say that Man is Nature's rebel. Where 

 Nature says 'Die!' Man says 'I will live.' 



"Civilized man has proceeded so far in his interference 

 with extra-human nature, has produced for himself and 

 the living organisms associated with him such a special 

 state of things by his rebellion against natural selection, 

 and his defiance of Nature's pre-human dispositions, that 

 he must either go on and acquire firmer control of the 

 conditions, or perish miserably by the vengeance certain 

 to fall on the half-hearted meddler in great affairs. We 

 may indeed compare civilized man to a successful rebel 

 against Nature, who by every step forward renders him- 

 self liable to greater and greater penalties, and so cannot 

 afford to pause or fail in one single step. . . . Man, 

 whilst emancipating himself from the destructive methods 

 of natural selection, has accumulated a new series of 

 dangers and difficulties with which he must incessantly 

 contend." 



The Hopefulness of the Evolutionist Outlook. In 

 general, it seems to us that the evolutionary view 

 is one that inspires and encourages. It is an as- 

 cent, not a descent, that is behind us, and there are 

 no limits to set to our advance. Perhaps, indeed, 

 we shall advance more quickly as we become more 

 vividly conscious that our fates are in our own 

 hands. We are no longer as those who look back 

 to a Paradise in which man fell; we are rather as 

 those ' who rowing hard against the stream, see 

 distant gates of Eden gleam and do not dream it is 



