LIFE THE TRAVELER 



ance. Are not all characters adaptive from the 

 first? Do not all organs have an inherent tendency 

 to shape themselves for the use of the organism? 

 Does natural selection do any pruning here? The 

 eye, from its first appearance as a pigmented spot 

 in the earliest form, is adapted for seeing, the ear 

 for hearing, the teeth for cutting and grinding. Life 

 knows what it wants from the start. I do not be- 

 lieve that there is any blind groping in the organ- 

 ism. The blind groping begins when the organism 

 begins to live, or to find its way in the world. Then 

 it comes in contact with blind forces whose cooper- 

 ation it needs, but which heed it not. Then it must 

 fit itself to its environment by the trial-and-error 

 process. 



The winds and air-currents do help to explain 

 the w^inged seeds, but do not help to explain why 

 Nature is so much more solicitous about some 

 seeds than about others. What a beautiful and 

 ingenious device is the delicate parachute of the 

 dandelion-seed, and the balloon of the thistle! but 

 scores of other troublesome plants have no such 



device. 



What possible advantage can it be to the honey- 

 bee that it should lose its sting, and hence its life, 

 in the wound it inflicts — any more than it would 

 be to the advantage of a man to lose his sword in 

 the flesh of his enemy, and have his arm pulled out 

 of the socket into the bargain? The wasps and 



287 



