WHITEFISH OF THE LAKE OF GENEVA 



with its aim, which is to endure. As in a battle, units 

 are sacrificed one after another and then replaced, but 

 the victory is won for the advantage of all. 



This victory is that of conserving life despite the 

 necessary destructions. The species of the globe, in 

 their continual struggle, though they meet and engage 

 in warfare, yet realize a sort of equilibrium, of inter- 

 dependence among themselves, which enables all to 

 survive and to last, in spite of the changes and chances 

 of their struggle. The strongest cannot gain too 

 sweeping a victory or they would lose the prey on 

 which they feed. The weakest cannot go too closely 

 to the wall, or their absence would be felt. There is 

 a general co-ordination, so that all exist side by side, so 

 that in the living world, with its continual disappear- 

 ances and renewals, there is brought into being a 

 permanent, constant whole, which is renewed of itself, 

 always created, always populated. 



Living nature has a morality of its own, which will 

 not suffer the strong utterly to destroy the weak, and 

 prevents them from going too far. It has its system 

 of relief, which tempers the over-vigorous manifesta- 

 tions of any one section, and keeps them within the 

 necessary bounds. Nature has a justice of its own, 

 which brings all existences beneath the same yoke, 

 and gathers them, in time and space, into one har- 

 monious whole within the governed order which it 

 has set up. Under the desperate struggles, beneath 

 the ruin and distress which these struggles cause, we 

 can discern that morality, that solidarity, that justice; 

 we see them in their omnipotence, recognize their 

 results, and use them to our own advantage. Man, 

 become the conqueror of the living world, the dis- 

 penser of the forces of life, is also their beneficiary. 

 He must, if he is to assure his conquest and to extend 

 it, observe the laws inscribed on all the natural objects 

 around him. 



The feeling of serenity, of glorious, tranquil peace, 

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