CHAP, xv REACTION FROM DARWINISM: DRUMMOND l6l 



sided. They ask us to define nature more exactly, 

 And they fall back upon biology and its categories in 

 making their new survey of the cosmic process. 



Biology, they tell us, has two main functions, nutri- 

 tion and reproduction. There is indeed a third bio- 

 logical function, co-relation ; but no account is taken 

 of it, in order "to avoid confusing the immediate 

 issue " ; 1 surely a rather airy fashion of dealing with 

 the authority of science ! It is indeed hard to see 

 how and where the omitted function is ever to gain 

 a hearing for itself in the new ethic, based upon the 

 true biology. For the two functions already in evi- 

 dence seem between them to cover the whole ground. 

 " Nutrition" and "reproduction," the "hunger " and 

 " love " of Schiller's witty stanza, claim the whole of 

 life as theirs in joint tenure. The struggle for exist- 

 ence belongs to the first function; it is a struggle 

 for nutrition ; reproduction, with its " other-regard," 

 manifests itself in struggle for the life of others. 

 The male sex stands for the first ; the female sex for 

 the second. Out of the one arises egoism ; out of the 

 other altruism. In their lowest germs these two 

 physiological forces are held to have in themselves 

 and to make manifest the prophecy of their final 

 moral result. Even in reproduction by fission, when 

 a low organism overtaxed by the claims of nutrition 

 upon its existing surface splits in two and becomes 

 two organisms, even there Drummond thought he 

 could see the Divine law of sacrifice worked into the 

 very fabric of the animal world. But without press- 

 ing such doubtful points we find him urging that 

 sociality and self-sacrifice grow more and more mani- 



1 Ascent of Man, p. 17. 

 M 



