i9o6.] JORDAN— THE HUMAN HARVEST. 57 



which it lived. It is variation which gives better as well as worse. 

 It is heredity which saves all that has been attained — for better or 

 for worse. It is selection by which better triumphs over worse, and 

 it is segregation which protects the final result from falling again 

 into the grasp of the general average. In all this, selection is the 

 vital moving changing force. It throws the shaping of the future 

 on the individual chosen by the present. The horse who is left 

 marks the future of his kind. The history of the steed is an elonga- 

 tion of the history of those who are chosen for parentage. And 

 with the best of the best chosen for parentage, the best of the best 

 appears in the progeny. The horse-harvest is good in each genera- 

 tion. As the seed we sow, so shall we reap. 



And this story is true, known to thousands of men. And it wilt 

 be true again just as often as men may try to carry it into experi- 

 ment. And it will be true not of horses alone, for the four fates 

 which guide and guard life have no partiality for horses but work 

 just as persistently for cattle or sheep, or plums or roses, or calla 

 or cactus, as they do for horses or for men. From the very begin- 

 ning of life they have wrought untiringly — and in your life and ini 

 mine — in the grass of the field, the trees of the forest — in bird and 

 beast, everywhere we find the traces of their energy. 



And this brings me to my second story, which is not true as 

 history, but only in its way as parable. 



There was once a man — strenuous no doubt, but not wise, for he. 

 did not give heed to the real nature of things and so he set himself 

 to do by his own unaided hand the work which only the genii can 

 accomplish. And this man possessed also a stud of horses. They 

 were docile, clean-limbed, fleet, and strong and he would make them 

 still more strong and swift. So he rode them swiftly with all his 

 might — day and night, always on the course, always pushed to the 

 utmost, leaving only the dull and sluggish to remain in the stalls. 

 For it was his dream to fill these horses with the spirit of action, 

 with the glory of swift motion, that this glory might be carried on 

 and on to the last generation of horses. There were some who 

 could not keep the pace, and to these and these alone he assigned 

 the burden of bearing colts. And the feeble and the broken, the 



