WAYS OF NATURE 
see the grape-vines reaching out blindly in all direc- 
tions for some hold for their tendrils. The young 
arms seize upon one another and tighten their hold 
as if they had at last found what they were in search 
of. Stop long enough beside one of the vines, and 
it will cling to you and run all over you. 
Behold the tumble-bug with her ball of dung by 
the roadside; where is she going with it? She is 
going anywhere and everywhere; she changes her 
direction, like the vine, whenever she encounters an 
obstacle. She only knows that somewhere there is a 
depression or a hole in which her ball with its egg 
can rest secure, and she keeps on tumbling about 
till she finds it, or maybe digs one, or comes to grief 
by the foot of some careless passer-by. This, again, 
is Nature’s way, randomly and tirelessly seeking 
her ends. When we look over a large section of his- 
tory, we see that it is man’s way, too, or Nature’s 
way in man. His progress has been a blind groping, 
the result of endless experimentation, and all his 
failures and mistakes could not be written in a book. 
How he has tumbled about with his ball, seeking 
the right place for it, and how many times has he 
come to grief! All his successes have been lucky 
hits: steam, electricity, representative government, 
printing — how long he groped for them before he 
found them! There is always and everywhere the 
Darwinian tendency to variation, to seek new forms, 
to improve upon the past; and man is under this 
26 
