PROLEGOMENA 53 



opposes the same energy as it works through the state 

 of nature, but a similar antagonism is everywhere mani- 

 fest between the artificial and the natural. Even in the 

 state of nature itself, what is the struggle for existence 

 but the antagonism of the results of the cosmic process 

 in the region of life, one to another? 13 



IV. 



Not only is the state of nature hostile to the state 

 of art of the garden ; but the principle of the horticultural 

 process, by which the latter is created and maintained, is 

 antithetic to that of the cosmic process. The character- 

 istic feature of the latter is the intense and unceasing 

 competition of the struggle for existence. The character- 

 istic of the former is the elimination of that struggle, by 

 the removal of the conditions which give rise to it. The 

 tendency of the cosmic process is to bring about the 

 adjustment of the forms of plant life to the current con- 

 ditions; the tendency of the horticultural process is the 

 adjustment of the conditions to the needs of the forms of 

 plant life which the gardener desires to raise. 



The cosmic process uses unrestricted multiplication as 

 the means whereby hundreds compete for the place and 

 nourishment adequate for one; it employs frost and 

 drought to cut off the weak and unfortunate; to survive, 

 there is need not only of strength, but of flexibility and of 

 good fortune. 



The gardener, on the other hand, restricts multiplica- 

 tion; provides that each plant shall have sufficient space 



13 Or to put the case still more simply. When a man lays 

 hold of the two ends of a piece of string and pulls them, with 

 intent to break it, the right arm is certainly exerted in antag- 

 onism to the left arm; yet both arms derive their energy from 

 the same original source. [T. H. H.] 



