FIELD AND STUDY 



" For it the nebula cohered to an orb, 

 The long slow strata piled to rest it on. 

 Vast vegetables gave it sustenance. 



Monstrous saiu-oids transported it in their mouths and depos- 

 ited it with care. 



" All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight 

 me. 

 Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul." 



But we must beware about being too sure about 

 the friendliness of the biological laws. They fail 

 to favor us at least in this respect: the micro- 

 scopical germs that destroy us are as strictly the 

 work of these laws as we ourselves are. They are 

 real beings lying in wait upon all sides ready to 

 pounce upon us and undo the work of the beneficent 

 germs whenever our guard is down. I do not mean 

 to say that there is any malevolent intention in Na- 

 ture toward us, but that we are now and then the 

 victims of the indiscriminating operation of her 

 laws, in the organic as well as in the inorganic world. 



The caterpillar hurriedly crawling about my 

 porch, going this way and that way, changing its 

 course every second or two, lifting up it^ head and 

 feeling right and left as if searching for some par- 

 ticular object, crossing and recrossing the porch 

 floor, feeling into the cracks, climbing up the vines 

 and creeping to the pendent end of one of the shoots, 

 and then hanging by the tip of its body, then feeling 



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