WE had reached the Pass of Tre Croci[2]and from a point a little
below the summit, looked eastward over the glorious Val Buona.
The pines which clothed the floor and lower slopes of the valley,
extended their multitudes into the furthest distance, among the
many recesses of the mountains, and into the confluent Val di
Misurina. In the sunshine the Alpine butterflies flitted from
stone to stone. The ground at our feet and everywhere throughout
the forests teamed with the countless millions of the small black
ants.
It was a magnificent display of vitality; of the aggressiveness
of vitality, assailing the barren heights of the limestone,
wringing a subsistence from dead things. And the question
suggested itself with new force: why the abundance of life and
its unending activity?
In trying to answer this question, the present sketch
originated.
I propose to refer for an answer to dynamic considerations. It is
apparent that natural selection can only be concerned in a
secondary way. Natural selection defines
[1] Proc. Roy. Dublin Soc., vol. vii., 1890.
[2] In the Dolomites of Southeast Tyrol; during the summer of
1890. Much of what follows was evolved in discussion with my
fellow-traveller, Henry H. Dixon. Much of it is his.
60
a certain course of development for the organism; but very
evidently some property of inherent progressiveness in the
organism must be involved. The mineral is not affected by natural
selection to enter on a course of continual variation and
multiplication. The dynamic relations of the organism with the
environment are evidently very different from those of inanimate
nature.