10 DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE 



of heredity and variation are amenable to 

 scientific analysis, and others that he first clearly 

 showed the affiliation of man to the rest of creation. 

 The fact is that Darwin focussed so many ideas 

 that were previously dim, and made so many old 

 facts new, and gave us keys to so many doors, that 

 it is a matter of opinion which of his services was 

 greatest. This, at least, is certain: that, when 

 we have thought for an hour of what we owe to 

 Darwin, we shall not have discovered how much 

 that is. For his intellectual legacy is still earning 

 interest and increasing our wealth. His leaven 

 will go on fermenting till the whole is leavened. 

 Then it will be time for a new yeast. 



(I) THE WEB OF LIFE. What do we owe to 

 Darwin ? We give precedence to Darwin's picture 

 of " The Web of Life/' the service that appeals 

 most to the naturalist, to whom the conception is 

 absolutely fundamental. It lies below the idea of 

 the Struggle for Existence, and therefore below the 

 idea of Natural Selection. It is a fact of life which 

 will remain, however theories may change. It 

 is a fine idea to dream over and to work with. 



What is meant by Darwin's picture of the Web 

 of Life, and where did he paint it ? We find it 

 in all his works a luminous background the 

 idea of linkages in nature, the idea of the corre- 

 lation of organisms. Cats have to do with the 

 clover crop, Darwin says, and earthworms with 

 the world's bread supply. If there is an orchid in 

 Madagascar with a spur eleven inches long, Darwin 

 prophesies that there is a moth with a proboscis 

 of equal length. No bird falls to the ground 

 without sending a throb through a wide circle, for 

 Darwin rears eighty seedlings from a single clod 



