The Heart of Nature; or, The Quest for Natural Beauty

by Sir Francis Edward Younghusband

* * *

Under these stringent and stressful conditions does each living being come into the world. He has to battle his way through—or succumb. Plants as well as men, and men as well as plants. So, as we look into the structure of animals and plants, we are not surprised to find that in order to cope with their surroundings they have developed organs which are specially adapted to enable them to secure the needful food, to hold their own against the competition of their neighbours, to meet the exigencies of their surroundings, and to pursue their own life to the full extent of its possibilities. Even plants are like sentient beings in this respect. The sensitive tips of their roots are organs admirably adapted for feeling their way through the soil and selecting from its constituents what will best nourish the plant. The leaves opening out to the air and sunshine are other organs adapted for gathering in nourishment. And thorns and poisonous juices are means adapted to fend off destructive neighbours. The eyes and ears in animals are other instances of organs which enable them to see what will serve them as food, or to hear what may be possible enemies, and to make use of what will help them to the proper fulfilment of their life.

We see each individual plant and animal striving to the best of his ability to adjust himself to the conditions in which he finds himself, trying to adapt himself to his surroundings—to his physical surroundings, such as the climate and soil, and to his social surroundings, consisting of his plant and animal neighbours and rivals. We shall probably notice, too, that he seems to be driven by some inner impulse (which in its turn is a responding to the impress of the totality of the individual's surroundings) to strive to do something more than merely adapt himself to his surroundings. He is urged on to rise superior to them.

So the course of the individual's life is continually being affected by surroundings which compel him to adapt himself to them on pain of extinction if he fails. On the other hand, he is himself, in his own small way, affecting his surroundings and causing them to adapt themselves to him. Even the humblest plant takes from the surrounding soil and air what it needs as food and changes it in the process of assimilation, so that the surroundings are, to a slight extent at least, changed by the activity of the plant. And we already have noticed how a plant's insect surroundings have to adapt themselves to the plant. There is reciprocal action, therefore—the surroundings forcing the individual to adapt himself to them, and the individual causing the surroundings to adapt themselves to him.

Here we have reached the point where, besides the struggle for existence among the individuals of an abundant, varied, and intense life, there is adaptation among the individuals to their surroundings and of their surroundings to the individuals.

* * *

We have now to note how with the adaptation goes selection. Set amid these physical and organic surroundings, some helpful, some harmful, the individual has to spend his life in selecting and rejecting what will further or hinder his natural development. He has to reject much, for there is much that will harm him. He has to select a little—for that little is vitally necessary for his upbuilding and maintenance. From among the elements of the soil he has to choose those particular elements that he needs. Thus a plant selects through its roots from the elements of the soil, and through its leaves from the elements of the air, those elements and in those quantities that it needs for nourishment and growth. But it has also, by means of thorns or poison juices or other device, to protect itself from being itself selected by some animal for that animal's own nourishment and growth.

So the individual is constantly selecting, and is as constantly on the guard against being selected. The principle of selection among the abundant and varied life is in continual operation. And unless he selects wisely he will not survive; for he will either have insufficient to live on or else have what is harmful to his life. Nor will he survive unless he is able to fend off those who would select him for their own maintenance. There is selection everywhere—selection by the individual and selection of the individual by surrounding neighbours and circumstances.

* * *

Thus far we have only recapitulated what most men are familiar with since Darwin commenced preaching the doctrine of Evolution by Natural Selection sixty years ago. But the Naturalist-Artist of the future will probably not be content with the conclusion to which so many jump that all that Nature teaches or expects of individuals—plants, beasts, or men—is that they should adapt themselves to their surroundings and fit themselves to survive; that all Nature has at heart is adaptability of individuals to their surroundings and their fitness to survive. The lowly amoeba can perform these unenterprising functions more fitly than himself. And the Artist would never be satisfied with so mean and meagre an ambition as merely to adapt himself to his surroundings and fit himself to survive. If he saw evidence of no higher expectation than that in the workings of Nature, his heart would certainly not cleave to her heart. And there being estrangement and coolness between his heart and hers, he would see no Beauty in Nature and his pursuit of Natural Beauty might here end.