6 THE WONDER OF LIFE 



well understood that while Charles Darwin's grandfather 

 wrote a book about The Loves of the Plants, it is not 

 particularly useful for us to employ such a phrase. Never- 

 theless, it is entirely sound science to emphasize the 

 fact that rich as plants are in adaptations which secure 

 food, they are not less rich in adaptations which secure 

 the nurture and dispersal and development of their off- 

 spring. 



One is tempted sometimes to say that the primal impulse 

 of organisms even before hunger and love is self- 

 assertion, self-expression, and insurgence. But these big 

 words are all covered by the little word ' life '. For life 

 is activity, effective activity, regulated activity, self-asser- 

 tive activity. If we start with this postulate, we may 

 then say that the mainsprings of an organism's activity 

 may be summed up in the words ' hunger ' and ' love ', 

 the imperious motive forces of life. 



One Great Problem. As we contemplate the drama, 

 both as we can see it with our eyes, and as we can see it 

 with the help of telephotic apparatus (such as a palaeonto- 

 logical museum !), we may discern that, in spite of all the 

 variety, there is one perennial problem and endeavour, 

 namely, to adjust relations between the active, self-asser- 

 tive, insistent, insurgent organism and the inert, indifferent, 

 heavy-handed environment. Living has often been de- 

 scribed as action and reaction between the organism and 

 the environment, but this is not quite adequate. The facts 

 of the case have been better stated by Prof. Patrick Geddes. 

 On the one hand, the Enviroment acts upon the organism, 

 burning it and stoking it, heating it and cooling it, quicken- 

 ing it and slowing it, moistening it and drying it, exciting 

 it and quieting it, and so on. The organism being acted 



