468 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION: 



environment, as part of the system in relation to which they 

 were naturally selected. Similarly with the insects in rela- 

 tion to ' entomophilous ' flowers. And as the inter-relations 

 became more and more intricate, more and more precise, 

 they would tend to make the selection progressive. 



There may be a sort of momentum in the organism itself, 

 for nothing succeeds like success. As Walt Whitman wisely 

 said, " It is provided in the essence of things that from any 

 fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth some- 

 thing to make a greater struggle necessary.'' As was said 

 of old time : '' For to every one who has shall more be given 

 and richly given; but from him who has nothing, even that 

 which he has shall be taken.'' Organisms run on a com- 

 pound interest principle. But our present point is that the 

 external web of life becoming ever more complex will tend 

 to secure progressiveness. 



Whether or not our idea means as much as we think it 

 does, its consideration should in any case put an end to 

 the notion that Natural Selection is capricious. Both as 

 regards the raw materials and the sieve, evolution is very 

 far removed from being ^ a chapter of accidents '. 



§ 9. Selectionist Interpretations and the Argument 



from Design. 



This seems the appropriate place for a consideration of 

 what has been called the Argument from Design. Discover- 

 ing some of the thousand-and-one ways in which the structure 

 and function of organisms are fit for the conditions of life, 

 many keen-sighted and reverent naturalists of older days 

 argued directly from the adaptations to the agency of a 

 Divine Adapter. It was in a way a wholesome attitude, 

 for the abundance of adaptations is a prominent fact in the 



