THE FERTILITY OF NATURE. 105 



a serious and wasteful business at the best Only a 

 person of huge and, indeed, illimitable resources, like 

 Dame Nature herself, could carry on such a precarious 

 and thoroughly spendthrift policy. Yet, it is a policy 

 of fact, and every summer that comes and every spring 

 that dawns upon us, testify to the fertility I would 

 say the over-fertility of the powers and conditions 

 that rule the living worlds. 



Do you remember those lines in " In Memoriam," 

 wherein Tennyson remarks of Nature's carefulness 

 over the type, and her carelessness in the matter of 

 the single life ? 



" That I, considering everywhere 

 Her secret meaning in her deeds, 

 And finding that of fifty seeds 

 She often brings but one to bear " 



these lines are the poet's recognition of and protest 

 against this terrible fertility of Nature, which seems 

 to crush the individual that it may favour the race. 

 Yet there is something to be said for all this apparent 

 waste of means to gain an end. The whole process 

 is one of favouring the growth of newer and higher 

 types of individual life, after all is said and done. It 

 is true that the crowd seems to occlude the individual 

 interests ; but it is only for a time. 



Out of the mass which is thus favoured, you en- 

 courage your new and better individuals to arise. That 

 is really the meaning of Nature's prodigality. She 

 abhors the dead level, and desires to encourage a de- 

 parture into " fresh woods and pastures new," and 

 this can only be effected through the increase of the 

 number of individuals who are to compete in the race 

 for the better things which stand above life's dead 



