196 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



there is a pathway to religion. For untold ages 

 Man has been dependent upon Nature, and she 

 has had many hard lessons to teach him as to 

 food and safety, as to health and conduct. Na- 

 ture has trained her "insurgent son" so that he 

 has entered more and more fully into his kingdom. 

 This has happened partly because Man listened 

 to good purpose to the voices of Nature and to 

 voices which do not belong to Nature at all, but 

 partly because Man, having in him the central 

 secret of life which we call variability, has changed 

 progressively from generation to generation as he 

 has been subjected to Nature's sifting in the Strug- 

 gle for Existence. These three words, which tell 

 half of pain and half of happiness, mean for Man 

 that he fought with wild beasts till he worsted 

 them or tamed them, that at great cost he sifted 

 out the wholesome from the poisonous herbs, 

 that, cowering and crouching for ages, he watched 

 the elemental forces of Nature till he wrested from 

 them their secrets, that he has been to his fellows, 

 too, since the beginning, the strangest mixture 

 of self-assertiveness and sympathy, and that he 

 has kept up an age-long endeavour after well- 

 being always at his best when rowing hard 

 against the stream. 



Nature's has been a stern school; she has let 

 no slackness go unpunished; and the voice that 

 we hear echoing down the ages is Struggle, En- 



