296 BIRDS AND MAN 



it. Heart and soul are with the brain in all investiga- 

 tion — a truth which some know in rare, beautiful 

 intervals, and others never ; but we are all mean- 

 while busy with our work, Hke myriads of social 

 insects engaged in raising a structure that was never 

 planned. Perhaps we are not so wholly unconscious 

 of our destinies as were the patient gatherers of facts of 

 a hundred years ago. Even in one brief century the 

 dawn has come nearer — perhaps a faint whiteness in 

 the east has exhilarated us like wine. Undoubtedly 

 we are more conscious of many things, both within 

 and without — of the length and breadth and depth 

 of nature ; of a unity which was hardly dreamed 

 of by the naturaHsts of past ages, a commensaHsm 

 on earth from which the meanest organism is not 

 excluded. For we are no longer isolated, standing 

 like starry visitors on a mountain-top, surveying 

 Hfe from the outside ; but are on a level with and 

 part and parcel of it ; and if the mystery of Hfe daily 

 deepens, it is because we view it more closely and with 

 clearer vision. A poet of our age has said that in 

 the meanest floweret we may find " thoughts that 

 do often lie too deep for tears." The poet and 

 prophet is not alone in this ; he expresses a feeling 

 common to all of those who, with our wider know- 

 ledge, have the passion for nature in their hearts, who 



