201 
The book of Genesis declares that God formed every- 
thing after its kind, or more properly, after its ideal type,* so 
that we have in the Bible a reasonable explanation of the fact, 
as above stated, that we have everywhere creatures formed to 
fulfil the purpose of keeping down excessive production. 
In the symbolic aspect of nature these typical destroyers 
teach us invaluable lessons. 
Su/z/3o\a yap Ilarpi/cos vooq trmipe sard K6afiov. 
For the paternal mind hath sowed symbols through the world, f 
There is no mercy in the ordinary course of nature. Her 
language is “ woe to the weak and to the miserable.” As soon 
as health and strength decline, whether in the animal or 
vegetable creation, numberless destroyers seize upon their 
predestined prey, to hasten its exit from a world which the 
sickly one seems to disfigure by its presence ,* for nature is 
concerned for the perfection and continuance of the race rather 
than of the individual. At least it would be difficult to read 
in any other light the combats of the males in the season of 
erotic madness. It is obviously an advantage to the herd that 
the strongest should survive, but what are we to say about 
the defeated ones ? 
Nature buries her dead without the slightest regret at their 
departure ; she wears no mourning, and does not even affect 
the resemblance of grief ; for she is ever beautiful and ever 
young ; all the sentimental ideas which we attach to her are 
without foundation in fact, and are only the reflection of certain 
qualities in ourselves. Nature is ever unfeeling, and if the 
earthquake wave or the Indian typhoon sweeps a hecatomb 
of victims to destruction, mingling the tiger of the jungle and 
the serpent of the forest in one common destruction with him 
who calls himself the Lord of Creation, it will not in the 
least diminish the cheerfulness of ocean when the storm is 
overpast. The “ immeasurable laughter of the waves ” | will 
go on as cheerily as ever ! 
“ 0 quam contemta res est homo, nisi supra humana se erexit ! ” 
Linnaeus ( IntroUus ). 
* i'Q Meen, u form ; hence species, kind, sort ; comp. Greek iS'ect ." — 
Ges. Lex. in loco. 
t Oracles of Zoroaster. Cory’s Ancient Fragments, pp. 100 — 106. 
I ZEschyl. Prom., 89. 
irovriiov re Kv/xanov 
dvi)gt9fj.ov ■y'eXaciJ.a. 
