NATURE'S REBEL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7946, 23 January 1906, Page 5

NATURE'S REBEL.

The methods of reproduction which we And workingin Nature, says the Saturday Rnview, oannot be said to favour the higher types. The oak during its centuries of exist enoe does not develop as many acorns as a fungus does spores in a single night. Did all survive, the off-spring of an aphis might, in a year, give rise to a quintillion, a number expressed in just 31 figures. Meanwhile, the lordly and sagacious elephant, whose brain, though quite small in proportion to its bulk, is yet about .three times as large as man's, produces young through 60 years of life, with long or indeed decennial intervals. But it is not so much through an exuberant fecundity, as by the preservation of the individuals of a species, that it contrives to keep its place and spread. The stormy petrel lays but a single egg and yet is one of the most numerous of birds. Man's position is unique, the other creatures just respond to their surroundings, while man, whom Professor Lankester has well termed Nature's rebel, contends against, and often modifies conditions, which would appear to be enforced upon him. For better or worse he makes „a world within the world, impelled and ruled by artificial laws. Thus those who draw analogies frum "Nature," and who contend that the survival of the Attest is a grim rule which must be left alone might recolleot that though rhere is a struggle, it never takes plaoe along "natural" lines. We thwart "Nature" as far as we can, we oheok and divert its pressure, we overlap its limitations, we break through its dicipline and we upset the balance everywhere. But man is first of all a spiritual being, and must remain so or he ceases to be human. We do not want the stud-farm form of marriage, we do not want mere medioorists of muscle: nothing is moved by the common-plaoo mind. And all along, the subtle spirit of power, has come upon the feeble and deformed; genius and great action have gone hand in band; often the stones which the Master Builder chooses are those which men would tread beneath their feet. Still, while the supremacy of the spiritual union is upheld, much may be done to obtain better births. The begetting of children is a personal responsibility, their bringing up must be a national concern. The war we rage against insanitation and disease is doubtless yet little more than begun. Some day the causing or the spreading of infection will be regarded as a very grave offence, and every squalid rookery and slum will be assailed as threatening the commonwealth.

CABLE NEWS.

Hy Telesrraph—Press Association—Copyright.