The Evolution of Organisms 171 



fancies and the philosopher's hypotheses; they 

 represent organic imagination. 



Preciousness of Individuality. — An evolutionary 

 lesson which he who runs may read concerns the 

 preciousness of individuality. Variations supply 

 the raw material of progress, and variations spell 

 individuality. This is one of the biological com- 

 monplaces which in human affairs we persistently 

 ignore. In the educational mill — whether of 

 school or of college — and in our inexorable social 

 criticism, how systematically we pick off the buds 

 of individuality — idiosyncrasies and crankiness we 

 say — spoiling how many flowers. It is said that 

 we do this to prevent failures and criminals, but are 

 we very successful in this prevention ? How many 

 of both do we make by repressing individuality? 

 Importance of Struggle and Endeavour.— If there is 

 one thing that the story of organic evolution 

 teaches us more than another, it is the necessity 

 of struggle or of endeavour. Everywhere she pro- 

 nounces judgment on slackness, on the unlit lamp 

 and the ungirt loin. Meredith writes of Nature's 

 sifting: 



"Behold the life of ease, it drifts, 

 The sharpened life commands its course; 

 She winnows, winnows roughly, sifts 

 To dip her chosen in her source. 

 Contention is the vital force 

 Whence pluck they brain, her prize of gifts." 



