SOME ECONOMICS OF NATURE. 23 



some of them will hit, and with the equally plain expectation that 

 many must miss altogether. The whole process appears to be waste- 

 ful in the extreme natural affairs notwithstanding ; and the Tenny- 

 sonian couplet is practically realised when the spectacle of tons of 

 wasted pollen is beheld, discharged as these are at the mercy of any 

 wind that blows, and sent into the air to accomplish at haphazard 

 what in other plants is often effected by deliberate and carefully cal- 

 culated mechanism. 



The notion that Nature possesses any system of economics at all 

 might well be questioned by the observer who discerns the apparent 

 waste through which many natural works and ways are carried out. 

 But here, as in the case of so many other phases of life, the two sides 

 of the medal must be carefully studied. It is not the case that 

 Nature is uniformly neglectful of her resources, any more than it is 

 correct to say that she is always saving or perennially economical. 

 Circumstances alter cases in the phases of natural things as in human 

 affairs, and we may readily enough discover that in several instances 

 a very high degree of well-calculated prudence and foresight, speak- 

 ing in ordinary terms, is exercised in the regulation of the universe 

 of living and non-living things alike. 



Take as a broad example of the close adjustment of ways and 

 means to appointed ends the relationship between animals and green 

 plants in the matter of their gaseous food. That the animal form 

 demands for its due sustenance a supply of oxygen gas is, of course, 

 a primary fact of elementary science. Without oxygen, animal life 

 comes to an end. This gas is a necessary part of the animal dietary, 

 It supplies the tinder which kindles life's fuel into a vital blaze, and 

 in other ways it assists not only the building-up but the physiological 

 "breakdown" of the animal frame. Part of this "breakdown" or 

 natural waste accompanying all work, like the inevitable shadow, 

 consists of carbonic acid gas. This latter compound is made up of 

 so much carbon and so much oxygen. It arises from the union of 

 these two elements within the body, and is a result of the produc- 

 tion of heat, representing, in this way, part of the ashes of the bodily 

 fire. Viewed as an excretion, as a something to be got rid of, and as 

 a deadly enough element in the animal domain, this carbonic acid 

 is a thorough enemy of animal life. It is not only useless in, but 

 hurtful to the animal processes. Ventilation is intended as a prac- 

 tical warfare against the carbonic acid we have exhaled from lungs 

 and skin ; and " the breath, rebreathed," is known to be a source 

 of danger and disease to the animal populations of our globe. 

 Here, however, the system of natural economics appears to step in 

 and to solve in an adequate fashion this question of carbonic acid 

 and its uses. Just as the chemist elaborates his coal-tar colours 

 from the refuse and formerly despised waste products of the gasworks, 



