WAYS OF NATURE 



see the grape-vines reaching out bhndly 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 

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