lo8 GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



There is another thought about Nature's fertility 

 which has just been suggested namely, that we find 

 the extremes of productiveness in those cases in which 

 there is most danger of the young not developing on- 

 wards to maturity. The elephant is fairly safe, it is 

 urged ; the oyster and cod-fish, in this respect, and the 

 tapeworm, to boot, are anything but sure and certain of 

 fulfilling their destiny. This thought, however, may be 

 said to go hand in hand with that other idea already 

 suggested namely, that the greater the increase, the 

 better are the chances of advance and progress. 



Be this as it may, we can see that the great pro- 

 ductiveness of Dame Nature is not without its reason. 

 The fifty seeds which are lost are the real measure of 

 the one which comes to maturity, and which does so 

 because, probably, it is stronger and better fitted to bear 

 the brunt of the battle of life. Better a hundred years 

 of Europe than a cycle of Cathay, urges the poet. 

 May we not parallel his saying by the remark that it 

 is better to have fewer units in the field of life, and to 

 find in these units the flowers of the flock, than to see 

 all life sinking to the dead level of the mass, and to 

 the humdrum existence of the crowd ? 



