NATURE AND NATURAL HISTORY 



course, cares more for his army as a unit than for 

 the individual privates that compose it; he is often 

 obliged to sacrifice many of the soldiers for the 

 safety and well-being of the army; but the care he 

 takes to safeguard the whole applies to every sepa- 

 rate unit. In like manner Nature is as solicitous for 

 the individual as she is for the race, but, on the whole, 

 in the battle of life the chances are that the few will 

 fall while the many escape. 



True it is Nature does not make a man or a bird, 

 and say, "Now I will look after him, or it; I will 

 temper the wind to the shorn lamb; my special 

 providences will see that no harm befalls this one, 

 or that one." Nothing of the kind. The forethought 

 of what we call God is only the sequence of biolog- 

 ical laws which brings about the development of 

 species and leaves them to the fate of the blind 

 but, on the whole, beneficent forces. We have to 

 say that there is an intelligence in nature — an all- 

 pervasive mind that gives rise to the vital order 

 which we see, and of which we are a part, and that 

 through the nature of things makes our continuance 

 possible, but it is in no other sense paternal or 

 human. But here is the queer thing: it has made 

 it possible for us to pass this judgment upon it, to 

 be thus critical toward it, to utter the verdict I have 

 been uttering. It is no invention or selection of our 

 own that we are men and have these wonderful 

 bodies and these capacities. 



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