2 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 



me in an attempt to reach a world which, to many, is 

 probably strange, by the help of a bean. It is, as 

 you know, a simple, inert-looking thing. Yet, if 

 planted under proper conditions, of which sufficient 

 warmth is one of the most important, it manifests 

 active powers of a very remarkable kind. A small 

 green seedling emerges, rises to the surface of the 

 soil, rapidly increases in size and, at the same time, 

 undergoes a series of metamorphoses which do not 

 excite our wonder as much as those which meet us 

 in legendary history, merely because they are to be 

 seen every day and all day long. 



By insensible steps, the plant builds itself up into a 

 large and various fabric of root, stem, leaves, flowers 

 and fruit, every one moulded within and without 

 in accordance with an extremely complex, but, at 

 the same time, minutely defined pattern. In each 

 of these complicated structures, as in their smallest 

 constituents, there is an immanent energy which, 

 in harmony with that resident in all the others, 

 incessantly works towards the maintenance of the 

 whole and efficient performance of the part which 

 it has to play in the economy of nature. But no 

 sooner has the edifice, reared with such exact elabora- 

 tion, attained completeness, than it begins to crumble. 

 By degrees, the plant withers and disappears from 

 view, leaving behind more or fewer apparently inert 

 and simple bodies, just like the bean from which it 

 sprang ; and, like it, endowed with the potentiality 

 of giving rise to a similar cycle of manifestations. 



Neither the poetic nor the scientific imagination is 



