DARWIN 



wanton cruelty and inspired by the delicately ad- 

 justed cooperation and mutual assistance which are 

 evident in all forms of life. And in spite of this most 

 intricate web of conflicting actions and passions there 

 persists in us the belief that through all the tangle 

 there runs a thread of continuity and a sort of har- 

 mony in the whole of creation. Nature, or God, seems 

 to us to fashion and provide an organism with enor- 

 mous fertility, abundant food, and a congenial en- 

 vironment and then, at one stage of its life, imposes 

 upon it a freakish impediment which threatens its 

 very existence. Thus, the house-fly has great fertility, 

 many of its larva find abundant food, and yet the 

 change from the larva to the fly is accompanied by 

 such perils that one wonders how any survive. Hu- 

 manly speaking, we feel that many plans could be 

 devised easily which would make unnecessary such 

 superabundant fertility and such diabolically ingeni- 

 ous methods of destruction. Yet the balance is pre- 

 served, the fertility of any species does not make it 

 crowd out other species, and extinction is avoided by 

 marvellous instincts and intricate apparatus of preser- 

 vation. And the theories of evolution do not explain 

 at all. Darwin certainly exaggerates the narrowness 

 of the margin between existence and extinction. 

 Confined to a small field of observation by his 

 health, he noted the accidents to individuals and 

 failed to note the community help which preserved 

 the species. As a famous example, he describes a 



I 235 3 



