LIFE THE TRA\^LER 



prove fatal to the majority. Of a thousand eggs of 

 any bird or fowl subjected to the same test, a few 

 will pull through when the majority will perish. 

 In a state of nature, of course, the exposure to the 

 cold will be greater in some cases than in others, 

 and the test of endurance will not be equal, but 

 I am thinking of equality of exposure. Or, sub- 

 ject any number of living animals or men to test 

 trials of labor or of cold, or of deprivation of food, 

 and a few of each will distance the majority. Of 

 our various kinds of farm and garden seeds, ninety 

 or more per cent w^ill, under the right conditions of 

 soil, warmth, and moisture, sprout the first season; 

 usually less than fifty per cent, the second season, 

 and a still smaller percentage, the third season; all of 

 which indicates the different degrees of vital power 

 which living things possess. No doubt the secret 

 resides in certain peculiar properties of the somatic 

 cells or of their arrangement — which is past finding 

 out. The races of all forms of life have been tested 

 in some such way by outward conditions for untold 

 ages, and the weaker have been eliminated. The 

 process has resulted in deepening the hold of each 

 upon life, or has increased their hardiness, till life 

 is as we see it to-day. Man interferes with this 

 weeding-out process in his own species; the weak 

 are shielded and preserved, and the fund of vitality 

 of the whole is thus depleted. It is no figure of 

 speech to say of certain men that they have a deep 



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