CHAP, xv REACTION FROM DARWINISM DRUMMOND 149 



reason teaches man that the whole animated cosmos has 

 been and is controlled by a struggle for existence, and 

 by that struggle has been pushed onward and upward, 

 what can man do but reverently bow down before blind 

 selfishness, and practise it in his own life ? Mr. Huxley, 

 a man of science among the moralists, a Saul among 

 the prophets, advancing boldly like Athanasius contra 

 mundum, preached the absolute opposition of human 

 morality to cosmic process, and called on his fellow-men 

 to be moral in spite of the nature of things, the cruel, 

 selfish, pain-dealing nature of things, from which we of 

 the human race have arisen. 



Mr. Drummond and others agree with Huxley and 

 the " strugforlifeur " as to the effect of Darwin's views. 

 But they argue that Darwin's views are one-sided. They 

 ask us to define nature more exactly. And they fall 

 back upon biology and its categories in making their 

 new survey of the cosmic process. 



Biology, they tell us, has two main functions, nutri- 

 tion and reproduction. There is indeed a third biological 

 function, corelation ; but no account is taken of it, in 

 order " to avoid confusing the immediate issue "j 1 surely 

 a rather airy fashion of dealing with the authority of 

 science ? It is indeed hard to see how and where the 

 omitted function is ever to gain a hearing for itself in 

 the new ethic, based upon the true biology. For the 

 two functions already in evidence seem between them to 

 cover the whole ground. " Nutrition " and " reproduc- 

 tion," the "hunger" and "love" of Schiller's witty 

 stanza, claim the whole of life as theirs in joint tenure. 

 The struggle for existence belongs to the first function ; 

 it is a struggle for nutrition ; reproduction, with its 

 " other-regard," manifests itself in struggle for the life of 



1 Ascent of Man, p. 17. 



