346 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



deserters from home. At one bound they were out 

 into life on their own account, and she who begat 

 them knew them no more. That early .world, 

 therefore, for millions and millions of years was a 

 bleak and loveless world. It was a world without 

 children and a world without Mothers. It is good 

 to realize how heartless Nature was till these arrived. 

 In the lower reaches of Nature, things remain 

 still unchanged. The rule is not that the Mother 

 ignores, but that she never sees her child. The 

 land-crabs of the West Indies descend from their 

 homes in the mountains once a year, march in pro- 

 cession to the sea, commit their eggs to the waves, 

 and come away. The burying-beetles deposit their 

 fragile capsules in the dead carcase of a mouse or 

 bird, plant all together in the earth, and leave 

 them to their fate. Myriads of other creatures 

 are born into the world, and ordained so to be 

 born, whose Mothers are dead before they begin 

 to live. The moment of birth with the Ephe- 

 meridae is also the moment of death. These are 

 not cases nevertheless where there has been no 

 care. On the contrary, there is a solicitude for 

 the Ggg of the most extreme kind — for its being 

 placed exactly in the right spot, at the right time, 

 protected from the weather, shielded from enemies, 

 and provided with a first supply of food. The 



