WAYS OF NATURE 



We marvel at what we call the wisdom of Nature, 

 but how unhke our own ! How blind, and yet in the 

 end how sure ! How wasteful, and yet how conserv- 

 ing! How helter-skelter she sows her seed, yet be- 

 hold the forest or the flowery plain. Her springs 

 leap out everywhere, yet how inevitably their waters 

 find their way into streams, the streams into rivers, 

 and the rivers to the sea. Nature is an engineer 

 without science, and a builder without rules. 



The animals follow the tides and the seasons ; they 

 find their own; the fittest and the luckiest survive; 

 the struggle for life is sharp with them all ; birds of 

 a feather flock together; the young cowbirds reared 

 by many different foster-parents all gather in flocks 

 in the fall ; they know their kind — at least, they 

 are attracted by their kind. 



A correspondent asks me if I do not think the 

 minds of animals capable of improvement. Not in 

 the strict sense. When we teach an animal anything, 

 we make an impression upon its senses and repeat 

 this impression over and over, till we establish a 

 habit. We do not bring about any mental devel- 

 opment as we do in the child ; we mould and stamp 

 its sense memory. It is like bending or compressing 

 a vegetable growth till it takes a certain form. 



The human animal sees through the trick, he 

 comprehends it and does not need the endless repe- 

 tition. When repetition has worn a path in our 

 minds, then we, too, act automatically, or without 

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