OUR HUMBLE HELPERS 



instinct, which says, 'This is the way' in darkness 

 as well as in light, the goose plunges into space and 

 flies northward. 



"But that is only the beginning of the problem. 

 A simple northern direction leads, according to the 

 point of departure, to very different regions, some- 

 times to Siberia, sometimes to Spitzbergen and Lap- 

 land, sometimes to the northern islands of Iceland, 

 Greenland, and what others shall I say? But no 

 such vague destination will do for the goose. The 

 bird must return to its native country, of which it 

 retains an ineffaceable remembrance, just as a man, 

 through all the shifts and changes of his stirring life, 

 preserves the cherished memory of his own village. 

 The goose, then, must again find the sea whose mur- 

 mur it listened to in youth. In that sea is a certain 

 islet, on that islet a certain moor, and on that moor 

 a certain hidden retreat covered with rushes and 

 sheltered from the wind by a rock. That is its birth- 

 place ; it must find its way. 



"Propose such an undertaking to a navigator pro- 

 vided with first-rate charts and versed in all the 

 special lore of his calling, and he would finally suc- 

 ceed, it is true, but would encounter difficulties due 

 to the inhospitable seas of those parts. Propose it 

 to one of us, who have none of the requisite nautical 

 knowledge, and it would put our geography to the 

 test without any chance of ultimate success. But 

 this task which man, with all his reasoning powers, 

 would in the great majority of instances be incapable 

 of performing, the goose accomplishes without the 



