The Young Queens 



of what our intellect urges. And this 

 intellect of ours, that, as a rule, its own 

 boundary reached, knows not whither to 

 go — can it be well that it should join 

 itself to these forces, and add to them its 

 unexpected weight? 



[79] 



Have we the right to conclude, from 

 the dangers of parthenogenesis, that nature 

 is not always able to proportion the means 

 to the end ; and that what she intends to 

 preserve is preserved at times by means of 

 precautions she has to contrive against her 

 own precautions, and often through foreign 

 circumstances she has not herself foreseen ? 

 But is there anything she does foresee, 

 anything she does intend to preserve ? 

 Nature, some may say, is a word where- 

 with we clothe the unknowable ; and few 

 things authorise our crediting it with 

 intelligence, or with aim. That is true. 

 281 



