LIFE THE TRAVELER 
prove fatal to the majority. Of a thousand eggs of 
any bird or fowl subjected to the same test, a few 
will pull through when the majority will perish. 
In a state of nature, of course, the exposure to the 
cold will be greater in some cases than in others, 
and the test of endurance will not be equal, but 
I am thinking of equality of exposure. Or, sub- 
ject any number of living animals or men to test 
trials of labor or of cold, or of deprivation of food, 
and a few of each will distance the majority. Of 
our various kinds of farm and garden seeds, ninety 
or more per cent will, under the right conditions of 
soil, warmth, and moisture, sprout the first season; 
usually less than fifty per cent, the second season, 
and astill smaller percentage, the third season; all of 
which indicates the different degrees of vital power 
which living things possess. No doubt the secret 
resides in certain peculiar properties of the somatic 
cells or of their arrangement — which is past finding 
out. The races of all forms of life have been tested 
in some such way by outward conditions for untold 
ages, and the weaker have been eliminated. The 
process has resulted in deepening the hold of each 
upon life, or has increased their hardiness, till life 
is as we see it to-day. Man interferes with this 
weeding-out process in his own species; the weak 
are shielded and preserved, and the fund of vitality 
of the whole is thus depleted. It is no figure of 
speech to say of certain men that they have a deep 
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