94 THE BIOCOSMOS PRELIMINARY. 



merely a dead, but a living Earth-life in its 

 process ever going ' on. Tims Botany and 

 Zoology, both of them essentially sciences of 

 the manifold individual Life, would find their 

 fulfillment in the Earth-life, the one great 

 living organism creative of all the rest the 

 one universal living individual we may con- 

 sider it relatively, even if it too must perish 

 like its own ephemeral butterfly. 



Evidently Life's struggle for existence, 

 taken in all its phases, embraces' much more 

 than the wrestle of individual with individual 

 for existence. Let us note the cases. (1) 

 There is first the struggle of Earth-life itself 

 with the overwhelming mass of Earth's non- 

 vital matter, the never-ending conflict be- 

 tween the Organic and Inorganic, whereby 

 the latter is in a wee point transformed into 

 the former. (2) Then there is the struggle 

 of each species seemingly for the whole of 

 this Earth-life, whereby it falls into conflict 

 with other species. (3) Finally, comes the 

 struggle of individual with individual of the 

 same species for their common means of sub- 

 sistence, whereby results Natural Selection. 

 It is this last phase of Life's total struggle 

 for existence which has been emphasized by 

 Darwin. But the first phase, that of Earth- 

 life itself struggling with its gigantic enemy, 

 is what presupposes and includes all the rest. 



