She rewards
each organism according to its works; and if anything grows too weak
or stupid to take care of itself, she gives it its due deserts by
letting it die and disappear. So, you plant or you animal, are you
among the strong, the successful, the multiplying, the colonising?
Or are you among the weak, the failing, the dwindling, the doomed?
These questions may seem somewhat rude: but you may comfort
yourself by the thought that plants and animals, though they deserve
all kindness, all admiration, deserve no courtesy--at least in this
respect. For they are, one and all, wherever you find them,
vagrants and landlopers, intruders and conquerors, who have got
where they happen to be simply by the law of the strongest--
generally not without a little robbery and murder. They have no
right save that of possession; the same by which the puffin turns
out the old rabbits, eats the young ones, and then lays her eggs in
the rabbit-burrow--simply because she can.
Now, you will see at once that such a course of questioning will
call out a great many curious and interesting answers, if you can
only get the things to tell you their story; as you always may if
you will cross-examine them long enough; and will lead you into many
subjects beside mere botany or entomology. So various, indeed, are
the subjects which you will thus start, that I can only hint at them
now in the most cursory fashion.
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