EVOLUTION 1041 



beyond acclimatisation in its naturalistic sense; yet all it can teach 

 us may be helpful. For statesmen must more and more go on evolving 

 from politicians to veritable geotects ; and thinking of the countries 

 under their control as no more distant provinces for indiscriminate 

 exploitation, as still too much; but rather as regions to be developed 

 with all the skill and knowledge that the botanical and zoological 

 sciences, and often their utmost specialisms, can contribute to the 

 guidance of forestry, agriculture and horticulture on the one side 

 and to utilisable animal acclimatisation and adaptation on the 

 other: and this from polar to equatorial regions. All this has in too 

 many ways no doubt a tragic prospect for the nature-lover; who has 

 been doing well, yet must still do far more, and even better, for the 

 preservation of great nature-reserves, national parks, and minor 

 life-sanctuaries of all kinds. Yet it is also to the like naturalistic 

 spirit, more as yet than to the economic quest, that the introduction 

 of new trees, new flowers, etc., to our forests and gardens has been 

 due; and similarly often the introduction of new animals. The tax 

 is that in many cases the introductions have included pests as well, 

 and weeds too. Nowadays too careers are opening rapidly for trained 

 zoologists and botanists in economic service over the world; and 

 these are often justifying themselves so conspicuously as to be now 

 manifestly the beginnings of a world-wide public service. Thus when 

 an introduced species becomes a pest, it is often successfully dealt 

 v/ith, as by the introduction of its home enemy, parasitic or other- 

 wise, and so on. Such economic botany and zoology has thus already 

 its teclinical societies and their publications, reinforcing, and when 

 need be criticising the work of government departments, and of 

 agricultural and kindred associations. 



Here, then, in short, is the moment for one of those general views 

 of evolutionary biology in the past, and of its applications in the 

 future, as man's dominance over the world of living nature extends, 

 and this, we may surely hope, in more orderly and even beautiful 

 ways, since biotechnic and geotechnic, than the rude and reckless 

 exploitation, and of inorganic nature especially — so often even 

 geoclastic and bioclastic, for which the industrial age has been and 

 still is so largely responsible. Now that we are again beginning to 

 see the need of making our human groupings of village, town and 

 city again more worthy of civilisation, so surely 'must our regional 

 and rural developments be made ever more worthy of the essential 

 concept of applied biology — and with this the psychologic, social 

 and ethical sciences and arts as well — that of making the best of 

 our world for man's continued evolution of humanity and all associable 

 forms of Life. 



Acclimatisation is the process by which plants and animals 

 become racially adapted to a change of climate. This may follow 

 introduction into a new country with a different climate, as when 



VOL. II X 



