DR. ERASMUS DARWIN. 53 



seen already at pp. 45 and 49), Erasmus might have 

 sufficed Charles, without resort to Malthus. The 

 struggle entails for Erasmus " more exquisite pleasure ; " 

 and " higher organisation is the result." Even when 

 internecine, " it serves to increase the sum of happiness 

 of the survivors." So it is that Erasmus is able to put 

 himself quite at home with the " double edge " we have 

 already seen. If, on the one side, there are admirable 

 and perpetually improving appliances for defence, there 

 are, on the other side, equally admirable and equally 

 perpetually improving expedients for attack : so that 

 what is permanent is alone battle, vroXe/zo? iravrwv [lev 

 Trari'ip. " Swiftness of wing has been acquired by hawks 

 and swallows to secure their prey ; and a proboscis of 

 admirable structure has been acquired by the bee, the 

 moth, and the humming-bird, for plundering the nectaries 

 of flowers. All which seem to have been formed by the 

 original organic filament, excited into action by the 

 necessities of the creatures which possess them, and on 

 which their existence depends." And so, the strain 

 continues, considering all these things, " would it be too 

 bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have 

 arisen from one living filament which THE GREAT FIRST 

 CAUSE endued with animality, with power of acquiring 

 new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by 

 irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations ; and 

 thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by 

 its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those 

 improvements by generations to its posterity, world 

 without end 1 " Respective filaments there may be, and, 

 so, different the one from the other, for the various 

 tribes, warm-blooded, cold-blooded, insects, vermes, plants, 

 etc. ; but still, " As the earth and ocean were probably 

 peopled with vegetable productions long before the 

 existence of animals ; and many families of these 



