THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LIFE OF OTHERS 307 



enjoyment of life for the individual, with the least 

 waste of energy." ^ 



In the large economy of Nature, almost more 

 than within these specific regions, the interdepend- 

 ence of part with part is unalterably established. 

 The system of things, from top to bottom, is an 

 uninterrupted series of reciprocities. Kingdom 

 corresponds with kingdom, organic with inorganic. 

 Thus, to carry on the larger agriculture of Nature, 

 myriads of living creatures have to be retained in 

 the earth itself — in the earth — and to prepare and 

 renew the soils in which the otherwise exhausted 

 ground may keep up her continuous gifts of vege- 

 tation. Ages before Man appeared with his tools 

 of husbandry, these agriculturists of Nature — in 

 humid countries the Worm, in sub-tropical regions 

 the White Ant — ploughed and harrowed the earth, 

 so that without the Co-operations of these most 

 lowly forms of life, the higher beauty and fruit- 

 fulness of the world had been impossible. The 

 very existence of animal life, to take another case 

 of broad economy, is possible only through the 

 mediation of the plant. No animal has the power 

 to satisfy one single impulse of hunger without 

 the Co-operation of the vegetable world. It is 

 one of the mysteries of organic chemistry that the 

 ^ Nineteenth Century^ 1 890, p. 340. 



