148 Darwin and Romanes dealt with. 



Nature, from the Romanes point of view, seems to 

 be so very capricious that she has no laws at all — 

 she arms birds with a strong instinct where, practi- 

 cally, they don't need it — the deposition of a thrush's 

 egg in a woodpecker's nest being, not comparatively, 

 but absolutely, an " exceedingly rare event," and 

 where they do much need it — the deposition of 

 cuckoos' eggs in the nests of other birds being, by 

 comparison here, not at all an " exceedingly rare 

 event,'' she takes care to think it not worth while 

 to arm them against it, or to allow them to learn 

 anything by constant experience of injury to the 

 species. In a word. Nature — too like, alas ! to Jahve, 

 the Hebrew god — is, according to Mr. Romanes, a 

 playful, capricious bully and tyrant, full of favour- 

 itism and of unreasonable dislikes — allowing some 

 species to increase by wilfully depriving others that 

 more minister to man's pleasure, of countervailing 

 instincts, which she does not think it worth while to 

 bestow, to develop, or to call out, because "it isn't 

 worth her while." Mr. Romanes was a bit of a 

 theologist : here he is so, too, and didn't know it. 



When, therefore, Mr. Romanes said that Nature, 

 because of the rarity of deposition of cuckoo's eggs, 

 had not thought it worth while to bring into play a 

 counteracting instinct in the little birds, he was 

 doubly wrong — wrong (i) as to the fact of the depo- 

 sition of cuckoo's eggs being, " comparatively speak- 

 ing, an exceedingly rare event ; " and wrong (2) as to 

 the fact that Nature had not thought it worth while 

 to call into play in victimised birds a counter-balancing 

 instinct. And the question to be answered by Mr. 

 Romanes' friends and disciples now is, why Nature 



