52 THE REALM OF ORGANISMS CONTRASTED 



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." 



We shall come later on to the difficult problem of in- 

 dividuality or species; 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 DarT\dnians 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 individ- 

 uals.'' If we personify ^ 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 in- 

 dividual development, and they can often be classified in a 

 logical series. Linnaeus established his Systema Naturae 

 quite apart from any evolutionist conception, and though the 

 fact of genetic relationship lies behind every so-called nat- 

 ural classification, our present point is simply that ^' Each of 

 her works has an essence of its own ; each of her phenomena 

 a special characterisation; and yet their diversity is in 

 unity ". 



