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 eliminates 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 account 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 final 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 
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