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orthodoxy. Prominent among those that claim our attention is the doctrine of the "selfish gene," with its corollary that individual animals and plants never act "for the good of the species." Presumably, survival is good, species continue to survive, and what keeps them extant if not the activities of the individuals that compose them? When we reflect that anatomical similarities among diverse animals, such as primates, ungulates, bats, and birds, provide strong evidence for evolution, fervently supported by orthodox biologists, it is puzzling to find them so vehemently rejecting suggestions of psychic resemblances between humans and other creatures, which they condemn as anthropomorphism.

Another scientific heresy is teleology, the ascription of ends or purpose to any part of nature except our very purposeful selves; as though, after a prolonged purposeless preparation for humanity and its manifold material and spiritual needs, purpose suddenly sprang up in the world without antecedents. Equally difficult to understand is the widespread insistence that natural selection acts exclusively upon individuals, never upon populations or groups, apart from which no sexually reproducing organism can propagate its kind.

Chapter 5 compares the consequences of unilateral exploitation with those of cooperation among organisms, noticing the many benefits that we owe to the latter, whereas exploitation has been a major source of life's ills. Finally, we arrive at the paradox that humans, each separated from the surrounding world by a skin that protects his or her finely adjusted vital processes from disastrous intrusions and lethal losses, reach out beyond this insulating integument with love, sympathy, and thirst for understanding that know no bounds.

We look at conservation, which is the effort to halt, or at least to retard, the rapid deterioration of the paradoxical living world, rife clearly revealed in the growth of organisms, even the simpler of which are of greater complexity, and more closely integrated, than anything of comparable size we can find in inorganic nature. The same process is apparent in the moral endeavor to create harmoniously integrated societies, in the efforts of thinkers to form coherent systems of thought, and of artists to create beauty. We owe to harmonization all the values that enhance existence and make life worth living. It appears to be a universal striving to enrich the cosmos by actualizing potentialities, thereby transforming bare Being to full Being, replete with high values.

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with antagonisms and conflicts. This growing enterprise is supported, vocally and often materially, by people with contrasting temperaments and opposing interests. This lack of unanimity is not surprising in a movement that enlists such a diversity of people committed to the preservation of such a perplexing world; conservation is not devoid of its own internal conflicts. Hunters support conservation to ensure a continuing supply of targets for their guns, while friends of animals deplore their needless destruction. Many try to protect, and even increase, the raptors that prey heavily upon the birds, especially Neotropical migrants, whose decline others deplore. Some assign priority to the preservation of habitats, whereas others are more concerned about the fate of species on the verge of extinction. To avoid contrary efforts and waste of inadequate funds, conservationists need to clarify their objectives and agree upon priorities. In chapter 8, I suggest a criterion for conservation that is objective in the sense of being independent of individuals' preference of this or that category of organisms. Wide-spread adoption of this criterion should greatly promote the ends of conservation.

I wrote this book because I was convinced that examination of some of nature's paradoxes could deepen our understanding of life. Each chapter is an independent essay, understandable without reference to the others; together, they develop a view of the living world that is not despondent but cautiously optimistic.