The Wonder of the World 15 



bonds, and nude isolation is as rare in nature as a 

 vacuum. Nature is a vast system of linkages. 

 Every one knows how Darwin, by showing that 

 earthworms have made most of the fertile soil of 

 the world, verified in detail what Gilbert White had 

 foreseen in 1777: "The most insignificant insects 

 and reptiles are of much more consequence and 

 have much more influence in the economy of 

 nature than the incurious are aware of . . . . Earth- 

 worms, though in appearance a small and des- 

 picable link in the chain of Nature, yet, if lost, 

 would make a lamentable chasm." What we 

 may call "nutritive chains" connect many forms 

 of life higher animals feeding upon lower through 

 long series, the records of which read like the story 

 of "The House that Jack Built." The flowering 

 plants and the higher insects have grown up 

 throughout long ages together, in alternate influ- 

 ence and mutual perfecting. Every one knows 

 Darwin's "cats and clover" story, and it is but a 

 type. It was Darwin also who removed a ball 

 of mud from the foot of a bird, and found that 

 fourscore seeds germinated from it. Not a bird 

 can fall to the ground without sending a throb 

 through a wide circle. We can follow the circu- 

 lation of matter from the mud by the pond-side 

 till it becomes part of the physical basis of clear 

 thinking. We can connect the lady's toilet-table 

 with the African slave-trade, or the demand for 



