SOME WONDERS IN NATURE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3124, 21 January 1911, Page 9

SOME WONDERS IN NATURE.

MAN AS A FREE LANCE. Here are some extracts from an article by that wonderful student of nature. John Burroughes. Writing in the “Atlantic Monthly,” he says:— ‘•I look out of my window and see the tide in its endless quest, racing up and racing down the river; every day, ■every night, the year through, for a thousand, for a million years it goes on, and po one is the .wiser, yet the tides have played their part in the history of the globe. “But Nature’s cradle keeps rooking after her child has left it. Only the land benefits from the rain, and yet it rains upon the sea as upon land. r J he trees ripen their fruits and their nuts wlw-ther there is any creature to feed upon them, or any room to plant them or not. Nature’s purpose (more anthropomorphism) embraces them all, she covers the full circle, she does not need to discriminate and husband her resources as we do. THE ANIMAL MIND. “The animals are so wise in their own wav, such a success, without thought, yet so provocative of thought in us! They are rational without reason, and wise without understanding. They communicate without language, and subsist without forethought. They weave and spin and drill and bore without tools, they traverse zones without guide or compass, they are cunning without instruction, and prudent without precept. Animal behavior is much more like the behavior of natural forces than is that of man: the animal goes alon«- with Nature, borne along by her currents, while the mind of man crosses and confronts Nature, thwarts her, uses her, or turns her back upon herself.. ' During the vast eons while the earth was neopled by the lower orders alone. Nature went her way. But when this new animal, man, appeared, in due time Nature began to go bis way, to own him as master. Her steam and her currents did his work, her lightning carried his messages, her forces became his servants.

MAN'S MASTERY OYER NATURE. ■•Mean's mastery over Nature lias made him the victim of scores of diseases not known to the animals below him. The artificial conditions with which lie has surrounded himself, his material comforts, his extra-natural aids and shields, have one nod the way to the invasion of his kingdom by hosts of bacterial enemies from whose misohievious activities the lower orders are exempt. He has closed his door against wind and cold, and thereby to a ruthless and invisible horde. Nature endows him with reason, and then challenges it at every turn. She puts a weapon into his hand that she gives to no other animal, and then confronts him with foo.s such as no other animal knows. He pays for his privileges. He has entered the lists.as a free lance, and he must, and does take his chances. For the privileges of mastering certain of Nature’s activities he pays in a host of natural enemies. For the privilege, of five, he pavs in a hazard of fire; for the privilege of steam, he pays the risk of steam ; for knowing how to overcome and use gravity, he pavs in many a deadly surrender to gravity. He shakes out his sail to <the wind at the risk of the wind’s power and fury. So always does the new gift hrin.c now danger and new responsibilities. FROM! EDEN TO PARADISE. ‘‘Man is endowed and blessed above all other creatures, and above all other creatures is lie exposed to defeat and death. Rut the problem is not as broad as it is long. The price paid does not always, or oenvmonly, eat up all the profit. There has been a steady gain. Nature exacts her fee, but the service is more than worth it. Otherwise man would not he here. Unless'man had been driven out of Paradise, what would he have come to? The lower orders are still in the Garden of Edogi; they know not good from ovil; hut mail’s evolution has brought him out of the state of innocence and dependence, and he is supreme in the world.