RIVALRY OF PLANTS 169 



transits over the hills, and valleys, and streams; 

 we found woodchoppers to make ties, we found 

 steel makers who for the first time in their lives 

 fashioned a rail, we found engineers, and fire- 

 men, and switchmen and superintendents, and 

 railroad presidents, each to play his part in ful- 

 filling the great common desire for transporta- 

 tion, each able to adapt himself to new duties — 

 and all because of this acquired variation that is 

 within us. 



As a people, we submitted to a ruler across the 

 seas till among our variant individuals there 

 arose some who, different from the rest, adapted 

 themselves to the formulation of a declaration of 

 independence, the framing of a code of prin- 

 ciples, the organization of a successful revolution. 



As a people, threatened with the constant peril 

 of cures which were worse than their diseases, 

 there appeared out of the variable mass one who 

 gave us antiseptic surgery. 



Where are those who, a century ago, said 

 that railroads could never be? Where are 

 the Tories of revolutionary times? And where 

 are those barbers of ancient days with their 

 cupping glasses and their lancets and their 

 leeches? 



Ah, where are the pear trees of Eurasia that 

 failed to fit into the scheme of adaptation — where 



