THE FAITH OF A NATURALIST 



the scars are healed. The new generation of trees 

 is feeding upon the accumulations of the old. Evil 

 is turned to good. The destruction of the cyclone, 

 the ravages of fire, the wreckage of the ice-storm, 

 are all obliterated and the forest-spirit is rank and 

 full again. 



There is no wholesale exemption from this rule of 

 waste and struggle in this world, nor probably in any 

 other. We have life on these terms. The organic 

 world develops under pressure from within and from 

 without. Rain brings the perils of rain, fire brings 

 the perils of fire, power brings the perils of power. 

 The great laws go our way, but they will break us or 

 rend us if we fail to keep step with them. Unmixed 

 good is a dream; unmixed happiness is a dream; per- 

 fection is a dream; heaven and hell are both dreams 

 of our mixed and struggling lives, the one the out- 

 come of our aspirations for the good, the other the 

 outcome of our fear of evil. 



The trees in the woods, the plants in the fields 

 encounter hostile forces the year through; storms 

 crash or overthrow them; visible and invisible ene- 

 mies prey upon them; yet are the fields clothed in 

 verdure and the hills and plains mantled with su- 

 perb forests. Nature's haphazard planting and sow- 

 ing and her wasteful weeding and trimming do not 

 result in failure as these methods do with us. A fail- 

 ure of hers with one form or species results in the 

 success of some other form. All successes are hers. 



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