NATURE AND NATURAL HISTORY 



nothing with Nature; man is everything. At least, 

 so we flatter ourselves. 



Unless we think twice and thrice about this mat- 

 ter, we are likely to exaggerate this apparent in- 

 difference toward man on the part of Nature. The 

 inorganic world is certainly indifferent to him and 

 to all other forms of life. The laws of force and mat- 

 ter know him not. But the organic world as cer- 

 tainly favors him; the biologic laws are on his side; 

 else how would he ever have got here, or remained 

 here? I do not mean to say that they make excep- 

 tions for him, any more than fire and flood do, 

 but I mean that in their inevitable workings they 

 promote his general welfare. They adapt him to the 

 universe in which he is placed, they have endowed 

 him with a brain which gives him dominion over all 

 animal life and enables him to subdue and use the 

 inorganic forces. The biological forces favored man 

 long before he was man. In what large and bold and 

 striking lines Whitman put this idea in his "Leaves 

 of Grass ":- 



"Immense have been the preparations for me, 

 Faithful, and friendly the arms that have help'd me. 



" Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing, like cheerful boat- 

 men, 



For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings, 

 They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. 



" Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me, 

 My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it. 



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