xix IS NATURE CRUEL? 373 



vast world of life ; and we also see the absolute necessity — 

 if it was to continue and develop as it has done, filling the 

 earth with infinite variety, and beauty, and the joy of life — 

 for higher and higher forms to come successively into being, 

 and for these forms to exist upon the food provided by the 

 bodies of the lower. It follows that almost simultaneously 

 with the first plant-cells which had the power of extracting 

 carbon from the carbonic acid gas in the air and water and 

 converting it into protoplasm, the first animal cells must also 

 have arisen ; and both must very rapidly have diverged into 

 varied forms in order to avoid the whole of the water from 

 being monopolised by some one form of each, and thus 

 checking, if not altogether preventing, the development of 

 higher and more varied forms. Variation and selection were 

 thus necessary from the very first — were even far more 

 necessary than at any later period, in order to avoid the 

 possibility of the whole available space being occupied by 

 some very low form to the exclusion of all others. Some 

 writers have thought that, owing to the very uniform condi- 

 tions in the primeval ocean, the development of new forms 

 of life would then proceed more slowly than now. But a 

 consideration of the enormously rapid increase of primitive 

 life leads to the conclusion that the reverse was the case. 

 It seems more probable that evolution proceeded as much 

 more rapidly than now, as the rate of increase of the lower 

 animals is more rapid than that of the highest animals. 

 This view is supported by the fact, observed long ago in the 

 Foraminifera, that their variability was immensely greater 

 than in any other animals ; and this will serve to shorten 

 the time required for the development of the life of the 

 Cambrian period from the earliest one-celled animals. 



We find, then, that the whole system of life-development 

 is that of the lower providing food for the higher in ever- 

 expanding circles of organic existence. That system has 

 succeeded marvellously, even gloriously, inasmuch as it has 

 produced, as its final outcome, Man, the one being who can 

 appreciate the infinite variety and beauty of the life- world, 

 the one being who can utilise in any adequate manner the 

 myriad products of its mechanics and its chemistry. Now, 

 whatever view we may take of the universe of matter, of life, 



