NATURE'S METHOD 185 



that divine joy of battle that fighters for the highest 

 always feel. And they fight with power and con- 

 viction because they know that their ideal has come 

 into their hearts straight from Nature herself, and 

 experience has shown that what Nature has in mind 

 she does in the end achieve : she not only has the will 

 and intention but the power to carry into effect what 

 she determines. 



This is how we formulate the ideal to ourselves 

 in ever-developing completeness ; and this is how 

 with pain and effort but with over-compensating joy 

 we carry it into effect. And these experiences of 

 ours in the formulation and working out of our ideal 

 give us the clue to the manner in which Nature on 

 her part works out her ideal. We are the representa- 

 tions and representatives of the whole, and we may 

 assume that the whole works in much the same way 

 as we ourselves work. If this be so we may expect 

 to find that Nature will work as an artist works, 

 that is, out of his own inner consciousness, spon- 

 taneously generating and continually creating new 

 and original forms approaching (through a process 

 of trial and error experimentation) more and more 

 closely to that ideal of perfection which he has al- 

 ways, though often unconsciously, before him. And 

 this is how we actually do find Nature working. 

 We find her reaching after perfection of form, 

 now in one direction, now in another ; first 

 in plants, next in animals, then in insects, 

 then in birds, then in apes, then in men, here 

 in one type and there in another, never reach- 

 ing complete perfection anywhere, any more than 



