LIFE THE TRAVELER 



of life, yet the variations could not be initiated in 

 a non-growing, a non-vital, a non-developing body. 

 Darwin had a vision of spontaneously varying 

 organisms, the form their variations should take 

 determined by outward conditions, or contingent 

 upon them, but the inward push and plasticity of 

 life is impUed in his theories. He saw a world of 

 living forms arise and people the earth under the 

 action of natural selection, but natural selection 

 working on an ever-growing, expanding, irrepress- 

 ible, self-renewing vital impulse. Natural selec- 

 tion can do nothing without variation, and varia- 

 tion springs from an inherent tendency to vary. 

 Outward conditions determine in the same way 

 the course and the form that water from a foun- 

 tain shall assume, but it plays no part in the push- 

 ing and flowing properties of the water itself. Dar- 

 win took pains to say that "there is no innate or 

 necessary tendency in each being to its own ad- 

 vancement in the scale of organization," but is not 

 the innate tendency to vary the first step in this 

 advancement? 



None of man's ways throw light on Nature's 

 ways. Man works to specific or partial ends. Na- 

 ture works to universal ends. Artificial selection 

 throws no light on natural selection, because man 

 singles out one or more forms and favors them 

 against all others, whereas Nature favors all forms 

 and multiplies her types endlessly. She has no 

 273 



