16 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. 



V. 



The process of colonisation 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 coun- 

 try 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 hut 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 man- 

 kind, 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. 

 Considered as a whole, the colony is a composite 

 unit introduced into the old state of nature; and, 



