ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



From our limited human point of view there are 

 phases of creation that make it look like a game be- 

 tween intelligent contending forces, or as if one god 

 tried to undo the work of another god, or at least to 

 mar and hinder his work — some mischievous and 

 malignant spirit that sows tares amid the wheat, 

 that retards development, that invents parasites, 

 that produces the malformed, that scatters the 

 germs of disease. How much at heart Nature seems 

 to have the production and well-being of offspring, 

 yet what failures there are ! in the human realm the 

 deformed, the monstrous, the idiotic. It seems as if 

 all things in heaven and earth had a stake in a per- 

 fect baby and in its growth and development. A 

 land swarming with beautiful and happy children 

 should make the very stars rejoice. Motherhood 

 itself is a beautiful and divine symbol, yet what 

 perils attend it! In many cases mother and child 

 sink into the same grave. Then along comes some 

 malignant spirit and sows the germs of infantile pa- 

 ralysis, and great numbers of children perish, and 

 still greater numbers are crippled and deformed for 

 life. What a miscarriage of nature is that! What 

 a calamity, and unmitigated evil! 



When an insect stings a leaf or plant-stalk and 

 the plant forthwith builds a cradle and nursery for 

 the young of the insect, that is one form of life using 

 another form; or when a parasitical bird, such as 

 the European cuckoo, or our cowbird, lays its egg in 



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