NATURE AS AN ORGANISM 



directed not against them, but against the Power which made them 

 as they are. 



If now, having recognized the modus operandi of Nature, we leave 

 the virgin forest of Ako da Serra in Sao Paulo, and gaze across the 

 grassy levels, rippling in the wind, where the sky-blue Sword-lilies 

 and the white Polygala stand out in their dehcate loveliness (Plate 1 1), 

 the whole beautiful picture will seem transparent as a painting on 

 glass, and we shall see behind it the work of a controlling hand. 

 The insects which float over the flower-enamelled plain will now 

 seem to us like gardeners, each of which appUes the pruning-knife 

 to its special plant, so that it shall not grow too rankly; and the 

 birds, operating from the thickets and the edge of the forest, control 

 this activity, removing those gardeners who have become superfluous, 

 and the hawks circling in the breeze regulate the numbers of the 

 birds. 



This fragment of Nature, like every other, oflfers us an example 

 of a sensitively organized economy. Here that which is in the 

 depths of the soil rises in time to people the winds ; ever more delicate 

 and active forms of life are built up from the lumpish earth. From 

 the earth the plants derive their materials ; in their leaves, with the 

 help of the sunlight, they draw strength from the water taken from 

 the soil and the carbon dioxide of the air, as the first step in building 

 up the substance of the living creature. So the grasses of the plain 

 elaborate in themselves, from the lifeless materials of the earth and 

 its airy envelope, the growing, organized substance, the basis of 

 all life, without which the animal world could not exist. The work 

 of the plants is continued by the smaller creatures : snails, beetles, 

 grasshoppers and caterpillars live in the grass and build up their 

 bodies with the help of its green tissues. They pass on what they 

 have elaborated to the larger insects, and to frogs, lizards, and 

 birds ; the living substance becomes increasingly full of life, and the 

 living creatures more and more independent of the soil. But even 

 of the higher orders of animals many return to this first form of 

 nourishment, for the grass thrives so luxuriantly that it is able to 

 nourish even the larger forms of life ; indeed, it is so organized that 

 it merely grows thicker if shorn, as our own lawns will teach us. 

 Animals which live on the stiff, sharp-edged grasses must have strong 

 teeth with sharp-cutting edges; but the Rodents and Ungulates 

 which live on grass are of course endowed with such teeth. And to 



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