THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



precise spot In which to sting the spiders and lo- 

 custs which they gather for their young, so that 

 the poison will paralyze but not kill the victim, — 

 how they know that the rose-beetle needs to be 

 stung in one point only, but that the cricket has 

 three nerve-centres that must be paralyzed, and 

 that a certain caterpillar requires nine strokes 

 upon nine nerve-centres, — how these and scores 

 of other curious facts come to be known to insects, 

 is past finding out. I suppose we might as well ask 

 how the organs of our own bodies know so well 

 how to perform their special functions, or how the 

 plants and trees know the best way to scatter 

 their seeds or how to adapt themselves to their 

 environment. 



It would seem as If all nature were pervaded with 

 mind or mind-stuff. As science has to assume the 

 existence of the all-pervasive ether to account for 

 many physical phenomena, so, it appears to me, we 

 have to postulate this universal mind to account 

 for what we find all around us. Things are so wise! 

 The lowest organisms know from the start all that 

 it concerns them to know. I say " know," when of 

 course, in the strict sense, there is no knowledge in- 

 volved In their behavior; it is only a question of an 

 inborn impulse. But whence the impulse? We only 

 rest with words when we say It is the nature of 

 organisms to do so and so. What gave the particular 

 bent of impulse to this nature? 

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