248 THE BIOLOGY OF THE SEASONS 



the seeds buried in the ground, the chrysalids hidden in 

 quiet resting-places, the eggs and larvae under still waters, 

 the lethargic frogs in the mud of the pond, the reptiles and 

 mammals who have found their winter nests they are 

 not dead but sleeping. They await the good-morning of 

 another spring, and though to some this never comes, of 

 most it may be said that if they sleep, they shall do well. 



" As is the world on the banks, so is the mind of man," 

 it has its seasons too ; and no one at all sensitive can avoid 

 a suggestion of sadness in Autumn. For some, indeed, this 

 is apt to sink into pessimism. Of this as a philosophical 

 system, the biologist has, of course, nothing to say, but he 

 maintains that those who find only pessimism in Autumn 

 have been but partial students of the season, and he fancies 

 that this may be true of even larger things. He would rest 

 on the fact that the tree stands while the leaves fall, that 

 there is fruition in the midst of decadence, and continuance 

 of life in the midst of death. He knows that the apparent 

 " Vergehen " is the condition and the beginning of a new 

 " Werden." Even in dying he may have the joy of seeing 

 as much as he wants of himself living on in his children. 

 His vision of the past shows a cumulative progress of things, 

 and gives him a sustaining hope for the future ; and his 

 evolutionary postulate that there is nothing in the end 

 which was not also in the beginning, expresses his speech- 

 less faith that in the beginning was the Logos. 



We have spoken of Autumn as the curfew of the year 

 partly because of the covering-up of many vital fires that is 

 then enforced, and partly also because of a memory of curfew 

 bells we used to hear in a country village long ago, which 

 seemed always to sadden and gladden in alternate notes 



