LIFE AND THE COSMOS 



tion does but mold the organism ; the environ- 

 ment it changes only secondarily, without 



truly altering the primary quality of environ- 

 mental fitness. This latter component of fit- 

 ness, antecedent to adaptations, a natural 

 result of the properties of matter and tli<" 

 characteristics of energy in the course of 

 cosmic evolution, is as yet nowise accounted 

 for. It exists, however, and must not be 

 dismissed as gross contingency. The mind 

 balks at such a view. Coincidences so nu- 

 merous and so remarkable as those which 

 we have met in examining the properties of 

 matter as they are related to life, must be the 



metaphor, instead of guiding the ramifications of the tree 

 of life, it would, in Mivart's excellent phrase, do little more 

 than apply the pruning knife to them. In other words, its 

 functions are mainly those of the third Fate, not the first, of 

 Siva, not of Brahma. — Patrick Geddes and J. Arthttb 

 Thomson, 'Evolution." New York, Home University I.i 

 brary, 1911, p. 248. 



"But as my conclusions have lately been much misrep- 

 resented, and it has been stated that 1 attribute the modifica- 

 tion of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be 

 permitted to remark that in the first edition <»f this work, 

 and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position — 

 namely, at the close of the Introduction — the following 

 words: 'I am convinced that natural selection has been the 

 main but not the exclusive means of modification." 

 Charles Darwin, "The Origin of Species by Means of 

 Natural Selection." New York, reprinted from the Sixth 

 London Edition, The Home Library, pp. 495-496. 



