50 THE REALM OF ORGANISMS CONTRASTED 



be said that a mechanical summing up of even not-living 

 occurrences is necessarily exhaustive. Nor can we speak 

 with satisfactory precision of the ' physical order ' , for living 

 creatures are also physical systems, though more; and the 

 phrase ' purely physical ' is again question-begging. 



So let us call it all from the solar system to the dew-drop 

 the inorganic domain. We cannot hold it rigidly apart 

 from living organisms, for it is continually undergoing mod- 

 ification at their hands. Parts of it are ever entering into 

 the bodies of organisms, and into its repository the disen- 

 chanted dust of life is ever returning. We know the inor- 

 ganic system of things only in terms of mind, and our first 

 adventure of scientific faith is to believe in its external 

 reality; yet it looms impressively over us a great dumb 

 giant, holding us, even in our defiance, in its grip and bear- 

 ing us with it on its stupendous journeying through space. 



2. The Characteristic Features of the Realm of Organisms. 



Let us begin with an impressionist survey of the realm 

 of organisms, and afterwards contrast this with a general 

 view of the inorganic domain. It is surely a magnificent 

 spectacle that the obviously animate presents. What a gamut 

 of life from the microscopic Infusorian to the giant whale, 

 from the hyssop on the wall to the cedar of Lebanon ! What 

 abundance of life is revealed when the dredge comes up, 

 or when the insects rise before us in a cloud as we walk 

 through the grassland of a warm country. What variety of 

 architecture, what abundance of individuality within the 

 same style! All is suggestive of fertile imagination. How 

 strong the pressure, as the waves of life surge up against 

 their shores; how numberless the hand-and-glove fitnesses; 

 how subtle the linkages; how constant the changefulness ; 



