UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
hornets and bumblebees live to sting another day; 
why should this cruel fate attend only the honey- 
bee? Why should the drone fertilize the queen at 
the cost of his own life? Where is the gain to the 
swarm? Where does natural selection come in? 
When we begin to ask the whys and the where- 
fores of Nature’s doings, our human standards soon 
fail us. No plummet can sound these depths. Why 
does one species often destroy another, or why a 
parasite exterminate its host and thus exterminate 
itself? 
There are no rational checks in Nature — all is 
left to chance; and the scheme works because Na- 
ture has all power and alltime. There is no other, 
no rival. The All can go its own way; to play the 
game, to win and lose —the stakes are Nature’s 
in any event. 
Our little plans and wants are specific, individ- 
ual, but our activities are hemmed in by general 
laws which work to no special end. We row and 
steam against the currents and against the winds; 
we check or thwart or control the natural forces: 
this is life as opposed to gravity; but life could not 
oppose gravity without the aid of gravity. Thus 
are we a part of that from which we seek to detach 
ourselves, and are kept going by the force we seek 
to overcome. 
