Evolution and Ethics | Page 9

to the local conditions, these despised native weeds would
soon choke their choice exotic rivals. A century or two hence, little
beyond the foundations of the wall and of the houses and frames would
be left, in evidence of the victory of the cosmic powers at work in the
state of nature, over the temporary obstacles to their supremacy, set up
by the art of the horticulturist.
It will be admitted that the garden is as much a work of art,* or artifice,
as anything that can be mentioned. The energy localised in certain
human bodies, directed by similarly localised intellects, has produced a
collocation of other material bodies which could not be brought about
in the state of nature. The same proposition is true of all the
* The sense of the term "Art" is becoming narrowed; "work of Art" to
most people means a picture, a statue, or a piece of bijouterie; by way
of compensation "artist" has included in its wide embrace cooks and
ballet girls, no less than painters and sculptors,
[11] works of man's hands, from a flint implement to a cathedral or a
chronometer; and it is because it is true, that we call these things
artificial, term them works of art, or artifice, by way of distinguishing
them from the products of the cosmic process, working outside man,
which we call natural, or works of nature. The distinction thus drawn
between the works of nature and those of man, is universally
recognized; and it is, as I conceive, both useful and justifiable.
III.
No doubt, it may be properly urged that the operation of human energy
and intelligence, which has brought into existence and maintains the
garden, by what I have called "the horticultural process," is, strictly
speaking, part and parcel of the cosmic process. And no one could
more readily agree to that proposition than I. In fact, I do not know that
any one has taken more pains than I have, during the last thirty years, to
insist upon the doctrine, so much reviled in the early part of that period,
that man, physical, intellectual, and moral, is as much a part of nature,
as purely a product of the cosmic process, as the humblest weed.*
* See "Man's Place in Nature," Collected Essays, vol. vii., and "On the
Struggle for Existence in Human Society" (1888), below.
But if, following up this admission, it is urged [12] that, such being the
case, the cosmic process cannot be in antagonism with that horticultural

process which is part of itself--I can only reply, that if the conclusion
that the two are, antagonistic is logically absurd, I am sorry for logic,
because, as we have seen, the fact is so. The garden is in the same
position as every other work of man's art; it is a result of the cosmic
process working through and by human energy and intelligence; and, as
is the case with every other artificial thing set up in the state of nature,
the influences of the latter, are constantly tending to break it down and
destroy it. No doubt, the Forth bridge and an ironclad in the offing, are,
in ultimate resort, products of the cosmic process; as much so as the
river which flows under the one, or the seawater on which the other
floats. Nevertheless, every breeze strains the bridge a little, every tide
does something to weaken its foundations; every change of temperature
alters the adjustment of its parts, produces friction and consequent wear
and tear. From time to time, the bridge must be repaired, just as the
ironclad must go into dock; simply because nature is always tending to
reclaim that which her child, man, has borrowed from her and has
arranged in combinations which are not those favoured by the general
cosmic process.
Thus, it is not only true that the cosmic energy, working through man
upon a portion of [13] the plant world, opposes the same energy as it
works through the state of nature, but a similar antagonism is
everywhere manifest 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?*
* 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 antagonism to the left arm; yet both arms
derive their energy from the same original source.
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