WITH THE DOMAIN OF THE INORGANIC 63 



9. The Other Side of the Picture. 



It may be said, perhaps, that we have given a one-sided 

 picture that Animate Nature is a vast gladiatorial show 

 reeking with blood, that every hedgerow is crowded with 

 cruelty, that parasitism is rife, that there is much ugliness 

 and devilry, that the exuberant abundance of life is shad- 

 owed by the obtrusive abundance of death, and that there 

 are numerous dis-harmonies or imperfect adaptations. 

 " Throughout the organic world," Professor Hobhouse says, 

 " harmony is shot through with discord." It would be 

 utterly unscientific to disregard these shadows, and we shall 

 consider them at later stages in our argument Anticipat- 

 ing that discussion, we venture to say that many of the 

 shadows are of man's making, that many are due to mis- 

 understanding, and that those that are real do not seriously 

 affect the general truth of our impressionist picture of Ani- 

 mate Nature, of which the prominent features are: the 

 multitude of individualities in an orderly Systema Naturae; 

 the abundance and insurgence of life; the ceaseless struggle 

 and endeavour, which makes for self-preservation, self- 

 assertion, and self-realisation, but also for the welfare of the 

 race; the sifting and singling that works towards both these 

 ends; the extent to which every creature is a bundle of 

 adaptations; and the beauty that is everywhere. 



10. Resemblances between the Realm of Organisms and 

 the Domain of the Inorganic. 



With our impressionist picture of the realm of organisms 

 clearly in view, let us now briefly compare it with what 

 is true of the domain of the organic. We must avoid two 

 extremes. On the one hand, there is the error of exaggerat- 



