152 PROBLEMS OF EVOLUTION 



Lamarckian principle was superfluous and unnecessary. It must 

 not be taken to mean that Natural Selection governs the universe. 

 It is inevitable that when a great scientific discovery has been 

 made it should at first be thought to be more far-reaching 

 than it really is. So it has been with the Darwinian theory. 

 What life is has always been a problem that man has wished to 

 solve. Lucretius, in his native simplicity, thought that it was 

 solved by the atomic theory which he worshipped. In the same 

 way on the subject of Darwinism there has been much exaggera- 

 tion, much wild talk, as if the great riddle had now been guessed. 

 If we strip off all untenable inferences, Darwinism is nothing 

 but this the very probable hypothesis that the highest species 

 of animals have been gradually evolved from the simplest forms, 

 at any rate, mainly by the action of Natural Selection. In the 

 lowest types that we know sleeps the possibility of the highest. 

 But the old enigma is still with us what life is, remains unex- 

 plained. It is a great thing to know, or to have good reason to 

 believe, that the lowest micro-organism contains potentially all 

 the qualities that ennoble man. But this only makes the real 

 mystery a mystery greater even that it was. We seem to have 

 got near the inmost secret of nature and yet are infinitely far 

 from it. 



SUMMARY 



The following are the positions which I have tried to 

 establish : 



The struggle for existence that is always going on is not 

 always a struggle among individuals. Very frequently there is 

 mutual help among the members of a group which only by means 

 of that is able to hold its own. The stress is felt only at re- 

 current crises ; an animal must be able to face these emergencies 

 if he is to survive. During the pauses in the struggle the 

 survivors have a superabundance of vigour. 



Though Natural Selection is always acting by means of the 



