16 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 



The process of colonization presents analogies 

 to the formation of a garden which are highly 

 instructive. Suppose a shipload of English 

 colonists sent to form a settlement, in such a 

 country as Tasmania was in the middle of the last 

 century. On landing, they find themselves in the 

 midst of a state of nature, widely different from 

 that left behind them in everything but the most 

 general physical conditions. The common plants, 

 the common birds and quadrupeds, are as totally 

 distinct as the men from anything to be seen on 

 the side of the globe from which they come. 

 The colonists proceed to put an end to this state 

 of things over as large an area as they desire to 

 occupy. They clear away the native vegetation, 

 extirpate or drive out the animal population, so 

 far as may be necessary, and take measures to 

 defend themselves from the re-immigration of 

 either. In their place, they introduce English 

 grain and fruit trees ; English dogs, sheep, cattle, 

 horses ; and English men ; in fact, they set up a 

 new Flora and Fauna and a new variety of mankind, 

 within the old state of nature. Their farms and 

 pastures represent a garden on a great scale, and 

 themselves the gardeners who have to keep it up, 

 in watchful antagonism to the old regime. Con- 

 sidered as a whole, the colony is a composite unit 

 introduced into the old state of nature; and, 



