THE INSURGENCE OF LIFE 129 



organisms to be adapted to resist other than normal con- 

 ditions. Our expectations are often, however, agreeably 

 disappointed. 



We admit, then, that organisms are often tender plants, 

 frail edifices, dehcate pieces of vital machinery, adapted 

 for a relatively constant, or at any rate regular environ- 

 ment, and not for casualties. But the much bigger fact 

 is the toughness of life, which we wish to illustrate in this 

 chapter. It is difficult to get a fitting word for the quahty 

 that impresses us all — the seK-assertiveness of life, its power 

 of persistence against difficulties, its habit of attempting 

 the apparently impossible and leading forlorn hopes. We 

 have called it the insurgence of life. 



Perhaps the primary illustration of the quality is to be 

 found in the fundamental fact about hfe, that although the 

 organism is always changing, it yet remains approximately 

 the same. It is always burning away, but it is not con- 

 simied. It is continually arising like a Phcenix from its 

 own combustion. Ceaseless metabohsm in all ordinary 

 cases, and yet a retention of integrity or intactness — that 

 is the fundamental wonder of life. To this we shall have 

 to return in our final chapter. 



Productivity 



In illustration of what we venture to call the insurgence 

 of life, we may begin by recalhng a few instances of pro- 

 ductivity. Life is Hke a stream that is continually tending 

 to overflow its banks. A httle one is always becoming a 

 thousand, and a small one a great nation. Some of us 

 on an ocean voyage may have watched the sim set in the 

 water, lingering for a minute or two hke a ball of fire 

 balanced on the tight string of the horizon, and may have 



