THE ARRIVAL OF THE FIT 



pervade the organic world, and that reaches its con- 

 scious expression in the brain of man, is just as man- 

 ifest in all the forms of animals and plants that are 

 inimical to him, in all his natural enemies, — ven- 

 omous snakes and beasts of prey, and insect pests, — 

 as in anything else. Nature is as wise and solicitous 

 for rats and mice as for men. In fact, she has en- 

 dowed many of the lower creatures with physical 

 powers that she has denied him. Evidently man is 

 only one of the cards in her pack; doubtless the 

 highest one, but the game is not played for him 

 alone. 



There is no economy of effort or of material in 

 nature as a whole, whatever there may be in special 

 parts. The universe is not run on modern business- 

 efficiency principles. There is no question of time, 

 or of profit, of solvency or insolvency. The profit- 

 and-loss account in the long run always balances. 

 In our astronomic age there are probably vastly 

 more dead suns and planets strewing the depths of 

 sidereal space than there are living suns and planets. 

 But in some earlier period in the cycle of time the 

 reverse may have been true, or it may be true in 

 some future period. 



There is economy of effort in the individual or- 

 ganism, but not in the organic series, at least from 

 the human point of view. During the biologic ages 

 there have been a vast number of animal forms, 

 great and small, and are still, that had no relation to 



247 



