MAN AND THE WEB OF LIFE 95 



and the multiplicity of consequences flowing from every 

 change. 



One of the many significant documents that have appeared 

 of late is the Labour Party's draft report on reconstruction. 

 While there is much in it with which many will disagree, there 

 are some wise words that will command general assent. 

 " Good Will without Knowledge is Warmth without Light. 

 Especially in all the complexities of politics, in the still un- 

 developed Science of Society, the Labour Party stands for 

 increased study, for the deliberate organisation of research, 

 and for a much more rapid dissemination among the whole 

 people of all the science that exists." That is well said ; it 

 sounds like the New Earth if not the New Heavens ; but may 

 we not plead that the science be science interpenetrated by 

 the fundamental biological idea of the web of life ? 



The theory of Organic Evolution is still being evolved ; it 

 bristles with unsolved problems ; all its propositions are 

 crowded with difficulties. But some of the difficulties are 

 not so formidable as they look. The central idea of Darwinism 

 is the Natural Selection idea, that there is in the course of 

 Nature a continual sifting or criticism of the novelties that 

 well forth, the relatively less fit to the given conditions being 

 in the long run, or in the short run, eliminated. To many 

 naturalists the evidence of this discriminate elimination seems 

 strong. But, it is often asked, how could the sifting and 

 singling operate on little finicking details, which are so 

 characteristic of living creatures ? To this very reasonable 

 question Darwin himself gave the answer by the emphasis 

 he laid on the web of life. For in the gradually evolved and 

 ever complexified system of inter-relations there is a sieve of 

 extraordinary delicacy, which discriminates between even 

 minute variations to the plus or minus side. Not that a 

 slight disadvantage in a particular direction need mean " off 

 with his head " ; there is in the subtle struggle for existence 

 a principle of compensations ; a decision may waver for a 

 millennium, and it may take another millennium of slightly 

 smaller and slightly handicapped families to bring the rela- 

 tively less fit to the vanishing point. 



