PROLEGOMENA 



13 



plant world, opposes the same energy as it works 

 through the state of nature, but a similar an 

 tagonism is everywhere manifest between the 

 artificial and the natural. Even in the state of 

 nature itself, what is the struggle for existence 

 but the antagonism of the results of the cosmic 

 process in the region of life, one to another ? l 



IV 



Not only is the state of nature hostile to the 

 state of art of the garden ; but the principle of 

 the horticultural process, by which the latter is 

 created and maintained, is antithetic to that of the 

 cosmic process. The characteristic feature of the 

 latter is the intense and unceasing competition of 

 the struggle for existence. The characteristic of 

 the former is the elimination of that struggle, by 

 the removal of the conditions which give rise to 

 it. The. tendency of the cosmic process is to bring 

 about the adjustment of the forms of plant life 

 to the current conditions ; the tendency of the 

 horticultural process is the adjustment of the con 

 ditions to the needs of the forms of plant life 

 which the gardener desires to raise. 



The cosmic process uses unrestricted multiplica- 



1 Or to put the case still more simply. When a man lays 

 hold of the two ends of a piece of string and pulls them, with 

 intent to break it, the right arm is certainly exerted in 

 antagonism to the left arm ; yet both arms derive their energy 

 from the same original source. 



