The Characteristics of Living Creatures 705 



flowering plants on a patch of turf four feet by three, and there 

 may be as many different kinds of animals on one stone brought 

 up from the sea-floor. 



The study of marine animals has been enthusiastic and 

 intense for many years, but those who know most about it will 

 agree with what the poet Spenser said long ago: 



But what an endless worke have I in hand, 



To count the seas abundant progeny, 



Whose fruitful seede farre passeth those on land, 



And also those which wonne in th' azure sky ; 



For much more eath to tell the starres on hy, 



Albe they endlesse seem in estimation, 



Than to recount the seas posterity; 



So fertile be the floods in generation, 



So huge their numbers, and so numberlesse their nation. 



The problem of individuality or species is very difficult; but 

 our view of Nature as a whole must take account of the fact that 

 species are multitudinous and that they represent discontinuous 

 individualities, with much more constancy than the earlier Dar- 

 winians supposed. Linnaeus said: "There are as many species as 

 there were ideas in the Divine Mind," and there is no doubt that 

 a good species is like a clear-cut idea. At the other extreme of 

 comparison, it is like a chemical element, but on a higher plane. 

 As Goethe said: "The one thing Nature seems to aim at is 

 Individuality; yet she cares nothing for individuals." If we per- 

 sonify "Animate Nature," it must at least be as an artist with 

 inexhaustible imaginative resources, with extraordinary mastery 

 of materials. 



But in the prodigal wealth of individuality, it is not a 

 daemonic confusion, but a rational order that we see. The species 

 are remarkably unique and discontinuous, each with a character 

 of its own, yet they are often like stages in individual develop- 

 ment, and they can often be classified in a logical series. Linnaeus 

 established his Systema Naturae quite apart from any evolutionist 



