THE DRAMA OF LIFE 3 



out organic nature which is a fugue developed to great 

 length from a very simple subject everything is linked on 

 to and grows out of that which comes next to it in order 

 errors and omissions excepted '. ' And yet all must be 

 new ', for it would not be a drama if it did not develop, and 

 it would not be life if it were not creative. The Aristotelian 

 maxim that there is nothing in the end which was not also in 

 the beginning, is true if we believe that in the beginning was 

 the Logos. Otherwise it requires safeguarding. For while 

 individual development is the expression or realization of 

 the given inheritance, it is a self-expression that can only 

 come about by trafficking with the environment, and may 

 greatly enrich itself in so doing. And similarly, through 

 the ages, the evolving organisms have been trading with 

 Time, and thus ' all must be new '. 



Beyond doubt the most impressive fact about animate 

 nature is the ascent of life. It has gone on, reaching from 

 step to step in a manner for which we have no word but 

 progress. Its historic movement, as Lotze finely said, is like 

 that of an onward-advancing melody. It is a fact that 

 nobler and finer forms of life have appeared on the world's 

 stage as one geological period has succeeded another. 

 The bodies of animals have become more complex and 

 more controlled, that is to say in technical terms, more 

 differentiated and more integrated. The life of the creature 

 has escaped more and more from the thraldom of the 

 environment. We instinctively think of a bird as the 

 emblem of freedom. There has been an increasing ampli- 

 tude in life, as is evident when we compare birds and 

 mammals with amphibians and fishes, or insects and 

 spiders with sea-urchins and medusae. There has been, it 

 appears to us, an increasing liberation of the Psyche ; 



