I3i8 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



The general thesis we are stating finds vivid expression in 

 Kropotkine's Mutual Aid, and in Drummond's Ascent of Man, 

 perhaps best of all in Cresson's L'Espece et son Serviteur. Bishop 

 Mercer has given a masterly statement of it in The Nineteenth 

 Century, February 1915, which may serve as a useful correc- 

 tion of Huxley's famous Romanes Lecture on "Evolution and 

 Ethics". 



There is another point of great importance, that the sifting that 

 goes on in Nature is necessarily in part determined by the already 

 established inter-relations. Darwin laid great emphasis on the 

 conception of the web of life — that Nature is a vibrating system of 

 subtle linkages. No organism lives or dies quite to itself. Earthworms 

 have made most of the fertile soil, and their lives are curiously 

 intertwined with those of moles and birds, and even centipedes 

 and ground-beetles; cats have to do with next year's clover-crop, 

 and with the abatement of the plague, since ancient Egypt. Eighty 

 seeds germinated from one clodlet on one bird's foot; squirrels affect 

 the harvest, and water wagtails the health of the sheep. Darwin laid 

 emphasis on these inter-relations partly because, as a naturalist in 

 the keenest sense, he was closely interested in the actual life of 

 living creatures as it is lived in Nature; and this helped him to 

 discern how the sifting that goes on must always be upon the 

 related threads of the web of life. There is progressive integration 

 in Nature, linking lives together, complexifying inter-relations, 

 weaving an intricate vibrating system ; and the selecting or sifting 

 operates not blindly or haphazardl}^ but in relation to what has 

 been already established. The selection of variations is very far 

 from being a chapter of accidents. The texture of the web of life is 

 so fine that even an apparently trivial quality may be of vital 

 importance in securing survival and success. Those variations are 

 rejected which are incongruous with the established correlations of 

 organisms. This idea is of great importance in regard to human life, 

 where again selection is in part determined by the existing systems 

 of linkages. Thus Man has in part replaced Natural Selection by 

 social or rational selection. To a large extent it is his prerogative to 

 make his own sieves. The non-dependable person increasingly tends 

 to be sifted out by our social web. 



War a Reversion to the Crudest and most Primitive Mode 

 OF THE Struggle for Existence. — Socially regarded, going to 

 war may be inevitable (in our present civilization), and, as above 

 said, the only course open to a nation that would stand for honour, 

 justice, and libert}^ Ethically regarded, waging war may afford 

 opportunity for the development of high virtues; but, biologically 

 regarded, war is a reversion to that mode of the struggle for exist- 

 ence which is commoner at the lower reaches, namely internecine 

 competition. We have seen that there are many forms of the struggle 



