WAYS OF NATURE 
We marvel at what we call the wisdom of Nature, 
but how unlike cur own! How blind, and yet in the 
end how sure! How wasteful, and yet how conserv- 
ing! How helter-skelter she sows her seed, yet be- 
hold the forest or the flowery plain. Her springs 
leap out everywhere, yet how inevitably their waters 
find their way into streams, the streams into rivers, 
and the rivers to the sea. Nature is an engineer 
without science, and a builder without rules. 
The animals follow the tides and the seasons; they 
find their own; the fittest and the luckiest survive; 
the struggle for life is sharp with them all; birds of 
a feather flock together; the young cowbirds reared 
by many different foster-parents all gather in flocks 
in the fall; they know their kind — at least, they 
are attracted by their kind. 
A correspondent asks me if I do not think the 
minds of animals capable of improvement. Not in 
the strict sense. When we teach an animal anything, 
we make an impression upon its senses and repeat 
this impression over and over, till we establish a 
habit. We do not bring about any mental devel- 
opment as we do in the child; we mould and stamp 
its sense memory. It is like bending or compressing 
a vegetable growth till it takes a certain form. 
The human animal sees through the trick, he 
comprehends it and does not need the endless repe- 
tition. When repetition has worn a path in our 
minds, then we, too, act automatically, or without 
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