92 GRAND STRATEGY OF EVOLUTION 



be in some way immediately made use of when created. 

 Nature, however, does not move in such petty and 

 obvious ways. On the contrary, the newer properties 

 and working capital of life are invariably the by-prod- 

 ucts, or surplus products of life. They may, or may 

 not find a use. In any case, while they may or may not 

 be of immediate harm, they cannot, at the very outset 

 of their being, cooperate in giving aid and comfort to 

 the whole. That comes, when it comes, later, and then 

 only by mutual adjustments to a new end, or purpose. 



It is the readjusted part, or organ, which has at 

 last attained a fitting place and function in the or- 

 ganism; and the perfected plant, or animal, which has 

 at last found a fitting place in the maze of social life, 

 on land or sea, which excites our admiration; amazing 

 us with its stability and the perfect adaptation of 

 means to a given end. On the other hand, the wealth 

 of nature in living things, and the overloading of 

 animal life with armament and ornament, still con- 

 founds us by it apparent lack of present usefulness, or 

 future purpose. But this constant over-production, and 

 the accumulation of reserve organic capital, releases 

 life from a too rigid hand-to-mouth existence, giving it, 

 as it were, a leisure margin of safety, which, sooner or 

 later, is utilized to explore new fields, and to find there- 

 in the ways and means for a larger life. 



3. The Demands of Growth. So far as the biolo- 

 gist is able to determine, all vital action depends, pri- 

 marily, on the cooperative response of protoplasmic 

 constituents to one another, and to their outer world. 

 This response is manifest in the changing chemical 

 composition of protoplasm, in its internal streaming, 

 change of form, and locomotion. 



