CHAPTER XII

EPILOGUE

AN epilogue after a “ conclusion ” may seem pleonastic,
 and but a dull humour. There is a sense,
however, in which a second conclusion may not be
without interest in considering our main theme.
Man’s view of his world is frankly anthropocentric.
Certain sacred writings accord with this point of view.
On the other hand, the study of the story of life upon
earth, it may be said, has rendered it of a value which
is not exhausted by thinking of it wholly in connection
with its relation to him. Apparently zons passed in
earth’s life-story before even the crudest progenitors
of the human race appeared. Colossal animals had
wandered over the world-surface, only to pass to
oblivion, except in so far as their traces remain as
fossil skeletons. Prof. E. Rignano has submitted in
Scientia, and elsewhere, reasons for their disappearance,
among which may be mentioned even 200 favourable
conditions for their development. This operated to
cause an increase which produced numbers that could
not be maintained: sometimes the consequence was
annihilation! * Attempts have been made to formulate
the life-experiences of living forms quantitatively, and
to develop even a mathematical theory of the struggle
for existence.” Drs. Pearl and Reed have thought to
show that Man’s rate of increase follows a very simple
biological law. In certain experiments of theirs they

* By Vita Volterra, “Une teoria matematica sulla lotta per Lesissenza,”
 Scientia, Vol. XLI, No. 178, pp. 85-102 (1927).
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