FIELD AND STUDY 



irresponsible mob-life to the unity of organized and 

 law-directed life, as in human progress; from 

 myriads to scores or hundreds; from the chance 

 of winds and waters to parental care and protection. 

 The first life multiplied by fission or division; 

 later the stage of egg-laying was reached. The fish 

 lays thousands of eggs and trusts to luck; the 

 higher insects such as the ants and bees lay few eggs 

 and care for them and nurse the young. The more 

 intelligence, the more restricted is reproduction. 

 The element of chance has less play; there is less 

 waste, more system and less risk. The progress of 

 nature in this respect suggests the progress from rude 

 pioneer life to our more specialized and intensive 

 life. The fish produces thousands of eggs, the am- 

 phibian hundreds, the reptile tens, the birds five, 

 the mammals one. Nature is lavish only with her 

 lower forms; free with her pennies, but stingy with 

 her dollars. 



§ 

 "There is no innate or necessary tendency in each 

 being to its own advancement in the scale of organ- 

 ization," says Darwin; yet he says there is in all 

 living forms an inherent tendency to variation — 

 iihat is, to push on and out in all directions, an 

 inherent activity or push of life, just as there is in a 

 fountain to flow and make itself a channel. Is not 

 this the necessary tendency that Darwin denies? 

 The fountain may vary its course every rod by rea- 

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