EACH FOR ITS OWN SAKE 



acted? The question, put in this way, is a purely 

 human one; it is applying to the vast scheme of 

 creation purely human standards. We instinctively 

 ask the why and the wherefore of things, and in our 

 practical lives try to avoid letting one hand defeat 

 the other as Nature does in the above incident. We 

 guard one form of life against another hostile form. 

 Our aim is to make things pull together for our own 

 advantage. We seek to check the ravages of the tent 

 caterpillar, the forest worms, the gypsy moth, the 

 potato-beetle, and the invisible enemies that rot our 

 grapes and mar our apples, as well as the germs that 

 sow fatal diseases in our midst. But not so Nature. 

 She does not take sides. As I have said, she has 

 no special and limited aims. The stakes are hers, 

 whoever wins. One condition of the season favors 

 the growth of the potato- vines; another condition 

 favors the development of the fungus that destroys 

 them. Nature is just as much on the side of the rat 

 as on the side of the cat; she arms each to defeat the 

 other, and the fittest survives. She has not given 

 the rabbit strength or ferocity, but she has given 

 her speed and a sleepless eye and great fecundity, 

 and her enemies do not cut her off. 



The struggle and competition of life go on every- 

 where. But life is not all a struggle; it is unity and 

 cooperation as well. The trees of the forest protect 

 one another; one form of life profits by another 

 form. 



37 



