LECTUEE XVIII. 

 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS. 



§1. Difficulties in the Way of a Religious Interpretation of 



Animate Nature. § 2. Extinction of Highly Specialised Types. 



§3. Imperfect Adaptations. §4. Disease. §5. Parasitism. 



§ 6. Cruelty of Nature. § 7. Senescence and Death. § 8. 



Apparent Wastefulness. § 9. J. Balanced View. 



§ 1. Difficulties in the Way of a Religious Interprctalian 



of Animate Nature. 



SciEx^CE has strictly to do with the operations which go 

 on in Nature. It may legitimately inquire, indeed, into the 

 purposes that prompt the efforts of the higher animals, or 

 into the means by which certain results have been achieved, 

 but it has not to do "with the problem of the meaning of Evo- 

 lution. Metaphorically we have occasionally spoken of the 

 tactics of Nature, notably the great trial and error method 

 of Natural Selection, but we confess that this is leaving 

 strictly scientific terminology. And if the metaphor of 

 ^ tactics ^ be allowed to pass, we must not offend by speaking 

 of strategy. Yet as rational beings we insist on pushing be- 

 yond science to a more all-round or synoptic view which in- 

 quires into the significance of things and of organic evolution 

 in particular. That organic evolution has led on to ^fan 

 is certain — the only known organism to understand it a 

 little; the general trend of organic evolution is integrative 

 and towards what at our best we value most — goodness, 

 beauty, and the health that leads to truth; there is, we main- 

 tain, a scientifically demonstrable progressiveness : these and 



573 



