XI 



EACH AFTER ITS KIND 



HOW sharply most forms of life are differenti- 

 ated! The die that stamps each of them is 

 deeply and clearly cut. As I sit here in my bush 

 camp under the apple-trees, I see a chipmunk spin- 

 ning up the stone wall a few yards away. His alert 

 eye spies me, and he pauses, sits up a few moments, 

 washes his face with that hurried movement of his 

 paws over it, then hesitates, turns, and goes spin- 

 ning back down the stone fence. He seems to sniff 

 danger in me. He is living his life, he has a distinct 

 sphere of activity; in this broad, rolling landscape 

 he is a little jet of vital energy that has a character 

 and a purpose of its own; it is unlike any other. How 

 unlike the woodchuck in the next field, creeping 

 about the meadow, storing up his winter fuel as fat 

 in his own flabby body, or the woodpecker on the 

 apple-tree, or the noisy crow flying by overhead! 

 Each is a manifestation of the psychic principle in 

 organic nature, but each is an individual expression 

 of it. The chemistry and the physics of their lives 

 are the same, but how different the impressions 

 they severally make upon us ! Life is infinitely vari- 

 ous in its forms and activities, though living things 

 all be made of one stuff. 



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