THE PROBLEM OF PARASITISM 203 
compare the attractive free stages of some of them 
with the ungraceful, bloated, absorbent masses of 
tissue which they may become as adults. The ugli- 
ness is Nature’s stamp of degeneracy and dishonor ;. 
it is the natural result of retrogression, involution, 
sluggishness, and overfeeding. Beauty is universal 
among free-living, full-grown, wild creatures in a 
state of health and away from man's fingers; ugli- 
ness is the brand of failure. As George Meredith 
said: ‘“‘ Ugliness is only half-way to a thing.” It 
is interesting to notice that the dodder and mistletoe, 
which every one recognizes as beautiful, are only 
partial parasites. Inextricably associated with the 
purely esthetic repugnance is the feeling that an 
organism which does not fend for itself is a sort of 
contradiction in terms. 
To many minds, indeed, the darkness of the 
shadow is in the inconsistency between the parasitic 
régime and Nature’s usual insistence on a strenu- 
ous life. This must be admitted, and yet there are 
extenuating circumstances. In the struggle for 
existence the organism finds itself beset by environ- 
ing difficulties and limitations, and one of the re- 
actions that sometimes pay is to become a parasite. 
But the struggling creature does not see it in our 
light, and has no prevision of the facilis descensus 
on which it sets foot. It may try to survive inside 
a larger organism which has swallowed it, just as 
another may try to survive in a cave, and another 
in a warm spring. In its searching for food and 
shelter it may discover in or on another organism 
