228 On the Campus 



Here we have brought out very distinctly the effect of 

 cross-fertilization in flowers, the result of grafting and 

 the development of varieties. Better than that, we have 

 here the recognition of that tendency in organisms to 

 vary that lies at the very root of the development of 

 species. Natural selection, survival of the fittest, were 

 impossible were it not true that ''nature is made better 

 by no mean but nature makes that mean"; or, as it is 

 more broadly stated a few lines further on, ''This is an 

 art which does mend nature, change it rather, but the 

 art itself is nature." I consider these very remarkable 

 statements when we reflect on the time in which they 

 were written. Darwin, in 1859, does but unfold the 

 thought. The selection which Shakespeare notes as prac- 

 ticed by gardeners, and a similar selection seen in the 

 world of domestic animals, gave Darwin his cue of nat- 

 ural selection. The beauty of Darwin's thesis lies in the 

 fact that the process is natural, and such is Shakespeare 's 

 dictum. 



Later on, lines 112-128, Perdita brings out another 

 remarkable observation that has only lately been con- 

 firmed by the conclusions of science : 



". . . Now my fairest friend, 

 I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might 

 Become your time of day; and yours; and yours; 

 That wear upon your virgin branches yet 

 Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina, 

 For the flowers now, that frighted thou let 'st fall 

 From Dis's wagon! daffodils, 

 That come before the swallow dares, and take 

 The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, 

 But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 



