FIELD AND STUDY 



§ 

 When, during a recent cold, wet May, I saw the 

 delicate wood warblers perishing for want of food, 

 and, during the dry, hot August that followed, saw 

 the robins dying for the same reason, I said, "Dame 

 Nature takes no thought of her. children." It has 

 taken her long geologic ages to develop and perfect 

 them, and then she weans them as a hen weans her 

 chickens, and leaves them to take their chances in 

 the great complex or maelstrom, of physical forces 

 that surrounds them. Many are cut off, but enough 

 survive to serve her purpose — the continuance of 

 the race. For the individual, we are in the habit of 

 saying, she cares nothing, her solicitude is only for 

 the race. Tennyson sings this in a striking manner 

 in his "In Memoriam." 



"So careful of the type, she seems, 

 So careless of the single life." 



Is it true? Do not the biological laws favor the 

 individual as well as the mass of which he is the unit? 

 In other words, can the race be favored except 

 through its units? Are there any biological laws that 

 apply to the many and not to the one? If it were the 

 mass against the one, the race against the individ- 

 ual, then one might say yes. The multitude has 

 advantages that the one does not possess, but in this 

 case the one is a part of the multitude, as the single 

 soldier is a part of the army. The wise general, of 

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