The Unity of the Organism 



poured forth fifty lines of purest fantasy. . . . Whole 

 scenes," this student declares, "exist for no other reason than 

 that the author's brain is teeming with situations and humor 

 and infinite jest." 



Now I hear in imagination expressions of astonishment, 

 rising to protest, even to ridicule, on the part of some biol- 

 ogists, and to horror on the part of some literateurs, at the 

 idea of suggesting that there is anything really in common 

 between the two groups of phenomena here placed side by 

 side the activities of a moth and of Shakespeare ! For the 

 moment I do no more in reply than ask the reader to take 

 cognizance of the fact that the whole training and occupa- 

 tion of the naturalist consist largely in comparing all sorts 

 of things, inorganic as well as organic, which to cursory 

 observation seem unlike, for the purpose of finding whether 

 closer and broader examination can not discover resem- 

 blances and affinities which may throw light on the ever- 

 insistent problem of origin and causal relationship. From 

 that procedure, and that alone, initially, came the theory of 

 organic evolution. It is the quintessence of the organic 

 method. To him who is so instructed and disciplined that 

 the recognition of likeness and kinship between, for example, 

 the prothallus of the fern and the flowering plant, or between 

 a horse's fore-foot and a man's hand, will receive no shock 

 from the comparison. The intrinsic justification of the 

 comparison will be deferred until we have a few other illus- 

 trations before us. Another illustration will be taken from 

 an author, J. J. Rousseau, whose activities stand about mid- 

 way between art proper and science proper. 



"I felt," Rousseau says in his Confessions, "that writing 

 for bread would soon have exhausted my genius, etc.," 

 Again: "Nothing vigorous or great can come from a pen 

 totally venal." And finally: "In a severe winter, in the 

 month of February, and in the situation I have described, I 

 went every day, morning, and evening, to pass a couple of 



