176 ON BIO-GEOLOGY. [vn. 



if it would only help itself ? Surely this is true; true 

 of every organic thing, animal and vegetable, and 

 mineral too, for aught I know : and so we must soften 

 our sadness at the sight of the universal mutual war by 

 the sight of an equally universal mutual help. 



But more. It is true too true if you will that all 

 things live on each other. But is it not, therefore, 

 equally true that all things live for each other ? that 

 self-sacrifice, and not selfishness, is at the bottom the 

 law of Nature, as it is the law of Grace; and the law of 

 bio-geology, as it is the law of all religion and virtue 

 worthy of the name ? Is it not true that everything 

 has to help something else to live, whether it knows it 

 or not ? that not a plant or an animal can turn again 

 to its dust without giving food and existence to other 

 plants, other animals ? that the very tiger, seemingly 

 the most useless tyrant of all tyrants, is still of use, 

 when, after sending out of the world suddenly, and all 

 but painlessly, many an animal which would without 

 him have starved in misery through a diseased old age, 

 he himself dies, and, in dying, gives, by his own carcase, 

 the means of life and of enjoyment to a thousandfold 

 more living creatures than ever his paws destroyed ? 



And so, the longer one watches the great struggle 

 for existence, the more charitable, the more hopeful, 

 one becomes ; as one sees that, consciously or uncon- 

 sciously, the law of Nature is, after all self-sacrifice : 

 unconscious in plants and animals, as far as we know ; 

 save always those magnificent instances of true self- 

 sacrifice shown by the social insects, by ants, bees, and 

 others, which put to shame by a civilisation truly noble 

 why should I not say divine, for God ordained it? 



