/ 



LIFE THE TRAVELER 



thus brings up the average, and prevents the too 

 great dominance of any one type. 



The struggle of life with life results in deepening 

 the hold of both sides upon life, because it increases 

 effort. It develops cunning, it develops speed, it 

 develops strength, it develops weapons. The weak, 

 those whose measure of life is scant, fail or fall out. 

 It is not this struggle that develops new species; it 

 is this struggle that hardens and perfects species; 

 it eUminates the unfit, but does it hasten the fit? 

 No scientific explanation of this fullness of life, 

 this power of adaptation, is possible. The resist- 

 ance of the environment, or of outward obstacles, 

 may accoimt for variation, as the obstacles in the 

 way of a stream of water account for the form 

 and changing course of the stream; but it does not 

 account for the onward flow or the constant push 

 of the water — only the inherent nature of water 

 and gravitation account for this. Indeed, the full 

 genesis of the fountain and flowing stream involves 

 the sun, the clouds, the rains, the shape of the land 

 surfaces, and the break in the deadlock of the ele- 

 ments which all these things bring about. Science 

 easily sees through this riddle, but the explanation 

 of the organic effort that seems to pervade nature 

 is, in its flnal terms, beyond the reach of science. 

 Science can duplicate or repeat the formation of 

 the fountain and the stream, even to the formation 

 of water from its two constituent gases, but it 

 285 



