124 GRAND STRATEGY OF EVOLUTION 



many different constructive and directive agents are 

 utilized, and while man is more discriminating in his 

 selections and exclusions than any other animal, he 

 brings to his labors no new materials or forces, and no 

 other franchise than a little freer usage, through his 

 intelligence, of nature's resources in constructive right- 

 ness. 



V. The Insurance of Life 



What we sometimes call natural phenomena, or na- 

 ture-action, is the weaving of many different kinds of 

 events and materials, springing from infinitely remote 

 sources, into a moving-picture fabric, whose larger, 

 more stable patterns we may sometimes see and feel, but 

 never the smaller, or more fleeting ones ; nor the basic 

 things which make the web, and do the weaving. Each 

 element of the fabric is subject, on its way, to variable 

 incidents ; and when that occurs, something within our- 

 selves may be sensibly modified; some pattern may 

 abruptly change, or disappear. 



We are so accustomed to the apparent stability of 

 natural phenomena, that it is the change of pattern, 

 the "accident" and the eclipse, which most command 

 our attention, making minor incidents appear the ma- 

 jor. We see the threads of life vanish, swallowed up 

 in new constructing; but we may not see the new con- 

 structions, nor the way in which they are constructed. 

 Thus we often mistake the making of chips, for the 

 making of buildings. Because a thousand fish eggs die 

 where one survives, does not mean that their destruc- 

 tion was the motive, or that it was useless, or that it was 

 necessary, in order to make the survivor any better, or 

 more fit to live. And it does not mean that, seeking to 



