20 INTRODUCTION 



make their affinities with lower things unthinkable, 

 but she has never re-laid the foundations of the 

 world. Evolution began with protoplasm and ended 

 with Man, and all the way between, the develop- 

 ment has been a symmetry whose secret lies in 

 the two or three great crystallizing forces revealed 

 to us through this first basis. 



Having realized the significance of the physio- 

 logical functions, let us now address ourselves to 

 their meaning and connotations. The first, the 

 function of Nutrition, on which the Struggle for 

 Life depends, requires no explanation. Mr. Darwin 

 was careful to give to his favourite phrase, the 

 Struggle for Life, a wider meaning than that which 

 associates it merely with Nutrition ; but this quali- 

 fication seems largely to have been lost sight of — 

 to some extent even by himself — and the principle 

 as it stands to-day in scientific and philosophical 

 discussion is practically synonymous with the 

 Struggle for Food. As time goes on this Struggle 

 — at first a conflict with Nature and the elements, 

 sustained by hunger, and intensified by competition 

 — assumes many disguises, and is ultimately known 

 in the modern world under the names of War and 

 Industry. In these later phases the early function 

 of protoplasm is obscured, but on the last analysis. 

 War and Industry — pursuits in which half the world 



