164 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



aspirations, nor futile schemes, nor castles in the air, 

 nor roseate delusions, nor generous intentions ; our 

 lives may be young and with all their promise yet 

 before us ; we may have work we want to finish, and a 

 cause we desire to advance before we die. But what 

 of these things ? Does Nature heed them and our 

 vanities ? We come face to face with her angry mood 

 in a cockle-shell of a boat, thinking, like social re- 

 formers and the courtiers of King Canute, that the 

 laws of Nature will cease operating to save us from the 

 consequences of our own folly. Nature does nothing 

 of the sort ; on the bark of our own venturesomeness, 

 while yet we recall the lives that are precious to us 

 and the work we have not finished, the wind increases 

 in intensity, the billows break more angrily as our 

 craft drifts nearer to the rocks upon its lee. The rocks 

 neither melt nor soften for us ; they are adamantine 

 and enduring. One thing alone can save us ; and 

 that is to intimately know the forces with which we 

 are dealing, the capacities of our craft, and the degree 

 of reliance we can place upon ourselves. For there 

 are no social reformers, nor County Councils, nor 

 Medical Inspectors, nor vote-catching Chancellors who 

 think they can save incompetent or cowardly navi- 

 gators. It is then we learn that political buffoons 

 playing before an electorate of merry-andrews, are 

 fools if they believe that Nature will turn aside her 

 relentless processes because of their zanic antics ; and, 

 if they do not believe it, it is then we recognise the 

 deep pathos of the imminent tragedy which their 



