The persistence of life: From evolutionary giants to the secret wisdom of the small

“ Strange fishes, lizards, birds, and uncouth beasts,
Worlds of strange life, but all in ordered grades,
World over world, each tombed in its own age
Or merging into the next with subtle changes,
Delicate modulations of one form,
(Urged by what force? Impelled by what dark power?)
Progressing upward, into subtler forms
Through all the buried strata, till there came
Forms that still live, still fight for life on earth,
Tiger and wolf and ape; and, last of all,
The form of man; the child of yesterday. ”

“ We perceive that man, and all the world of men, is no more than the present phase of a development so great and splendid that beside this vision epics jingle like nursery rhymes, and all the exploits of humanity shrivel to the proportion of castles in the sand. We look back through countless millions of years and see the will to live struggling out of the intertidal slime, struggling from shape to shape and from power to power, crawling and then walking confidently upon the land, struggling generation after generation to master the air, creeping down into the darkness of the deep ”

“ Something is always snapping or giving way in its interior, and producing trembling fits that sometimes can be felt hundreds of miles away, and sometimes can be felt all over the earth. There are on the average at least twenty earthquakes a year which make the whole of this round globe tremble.
It would seem, therefore, that either these shocks or -24- breakages in the earth's crust, or the earth's interior, must be very great indeed, or else that the earth must be composed of rather shaky materials. ”

“ The comparison of the earth to a jelly—a very stiff jelly—is on the whole a useful one.
If a very tall jelly is allowed to stand for some time, or if the table on which it stands is shaken a good deal, then, as we know, rifts will sometimes appear in the jelly. The reason for these breakdowns in the jelly's composition -25- is that owing to the distribution of its weight it is always in what we call a state of strain; and it is sometimes not strong enough to support this strain, and, almost without apparent cause, will sometimes give way. Much more solid bodies than jelly act in the same way. ”

“ And the Earth-Current then to begin to fail; and though they laboured through many thousands of years, they came to no better resource. And so it was they ceased to have communication with the Great Redoubt; for the current had a lack of power to work the instruments; and the recording instruments ceased to be sensible of our messages.
And thereafter came a million years, maybe, of silence; with ever the birthing and marrying and dying of those lonesome humans. And they grew less; and some put this to the lack of the Earth-Current, which dwindled slowly through the centuries of that Eternity. ”

“ But yet Hardly at all during those many suns Appeared a fowl, nor from the woods went forth The sullen generations of wild beasts— They languished with disease and died and died. In chief, the faithful dogs, in all the streets Outstretched, would yield their breath distressfully For so that Influence of bane would twist Life from their members. Nor was found one sure And universal principle of cure: For what to one had given the power to take The vital winds of air into his mouth, And to gaze upward at the vaults of sky, The same to others was their death and doom. ”

“ In the meanwhile, the nomadic life with its predatory instinct of exploitation has developed into a great civilisation. It is immensely proud and strong, killing leisure and pursuing opportunities. It minimises the claims of personal relationship and is jealously careful of its unhampered freedom for acquiring wealth and asserting its will upon others. Its burden is the burden of things, which grows heavier and more complex every day, disregarding the human and the spiritual. Its powerful pressure from all sides narrows the limits of home, the personal region of the human world. ”

“ With the growth of nationalism, man has become the greatest menace to man. Therefore the continual presence of panic goads that very nationalism into ever-increasing menace.
Crowd psychology is a blind force. Like steam and other physical forces, it can be utilised for creating a tremendous amount of power. And therefore rulers of men, who, out of greed and fear, are bent upon turning their peoples into machines of power, try to train this crowd psychology for their special purposes. ”

“ We are now going to speak of the last class in that great group—the Mammalia, so called because they feed their young, not as birds do, with insects or grain, but with milk. They are chiefly "four-footed beasts of the earth," and are covered with hair or fur. In this class extremes meet; we find the great elephant and the playful little squirrel, the kingly lion and the timid mouse which is said to have set him free when snared in the hunter's net. ”

“ Where stronger beasts oppress the weak by might,
And all in prey and purple feasts delight.
O impious use! to Nature's laws opposed,
Where bowels are in other bowels closed;
Where, fattened by their fellows' fat, they thrive;
Maintained by murder, and by death they live.
'Tis then for nought that mother earth provides
The stores of all she shows, and all she hides,
If men with fleshly morsels must be fed,
And chew with bloody teeth the breathing bread. ”

“ Here are wolves from the Northern Isles far beyond the Pillars of Hercules; there are monkeys from Northern Africa; tigers from India; river-horses from the far south; and this—I marvel not that your Mightiness is astonished; but have no fear, they harm neither man nor beast!—here is the camelopard, tallest known of beasts. The neck of this specimen measures seven cubits! Those are the bird-houses, and these are ponds and tanks containing all manner of fish. And here are innumerable pheasants, bred for the philosophers’ table. ”

“ For even these, the giants scatter life Into the maws of death. That towering tree That for these hundred years has leafed itself, And through its leaves out of the magic air Drawn nutriment for annual girths, took root Out of an acorn which good chance preserved, While all its brother acorns cast to earth, To make trees, by a parent tree now gone, Were crushed, devoured, or strangled as they sprouted Amid thick jealous growth wherein they fell. ”

“ For unmeasured and immeasurable centuries man lived on earth a creature so little removed from "the beasts that die," so little superior to them, that he has left no clearer record than they of his presence here. ”

“ A time will come, wherein the soul shall be From all superfluous matter wholly free; When the light body, agile as a fawn's, Shall sport with grace along the velvet lawns. Nature's most delicate and final birth, Mankind perfected shall possess the earth. But ah, not yet! For still the Giants' race, Huge, though diminish'd, tramps the Earth's fair face; Gross and repulsive, yet perversely proud, Men of their imperfections boast aloud. ”

“ Many interesting small mammals are nocturnal or lead such obscure and hidden lives that they are rarely observed except by naturalists. Of these are the numerous species of shrews, which include the smallest mammals in the world. These tiny beasts all live among the vegetation and debris on the surface of the ground or in little burrows below. With the moles they are members of the order Insectivora and depend mainly on insects and meat for food. ”

“ But listen (it may be once more and after many times) to this well-known story, the story of the Sitaris, if you want to see what life can do in a fashion for which the intellectual work of man offers in his experience no parallel. This tiny beetle lays its eggs in the doorway of the underground passages dug by a certain bee, the Anthophora. When an egg is hatched the grub awaits an opportunity to spring upon the male bee as it comes out. You may deceive it with a substitute, and no doubt it often is deceived without your help. ”

“ The instinct of prevision against the season of winter scarcity appears to be developed in them, as one in captivity buried beechnuts in the earth, and they are known to store living snails in small piles and to gather disabled beetles in store-rooms in their tunnels.
The courage and blind ferocity of the short-tailed shrews when they are placed near captive mice far larger than themselves, is amazing to all who witness their encounters. They attack instantly, spreading their front feet to gain a firmer footing and moving forward in little rushes. ”

“ Then it leaps again, this time upon an egg which serves it at first as a raft on the honey. By degrees it eats up the egg; then uses as its raft the empty shell. It changes, undergoes a metamorphosis, and becomes able both to float and feed on honey, where it remains until it changes for the last time into the perfect insect, a Sitaris ready in its turn to set going this amazing cycle of life. It is a life that seems to involve knowledge of things which, by any knowing such as our intellectual experience provides, could not be known. ”

“ Now when there is a depression in the barometer that means that the weight of air above the barometer is less than it was before, though it is not so great a difference that human beings could tell it, unless it were accompanied by other signs. But the earth can tell it, and the mere fall of the barometer, owing to changes of the air, will make the earth tremble or quiver slightly, as if it were a jelly. We cannot perceive it; but the delicate seismometers can; and when a storm is coming to Japan or to California from the Pacific, the instruments show that the earth feels the passage of it. ”

“ Little by little great weights are taken from one place on the earth's surface to another, as we might shift the weights in balanced scale-pans grain by grain, till at last the heavier scale-pan goes down quickly, or it may be with a crash, and the "fault" occurs, while the earthquake follows.
There remains another question, however, to be answered, and it is, How were the mountains formed? Mountains are very closely connected with earthquakes, for nearly all the regions of the earth where the great disturbances take place are in the neighbourhood of great mountain ranges ”

“ No stone on earth, however thick its layers, could withstand such a pressure; nay, under it the water would go through the hardest metals, and sink down deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth. Thus subterranean steam would arise beneath the crust and accumulate till relief was afforded by a shaking of the earth.
Thus we see how immensely important the same causes that give rise to earthquakes may be in moulding the outlines and contours of the rocks and the "everlasting hills." ”

“ Another period of mountain formation was when the Himalayas and the Alps were slowly but intermittently -168- brought into existence. In both these periods volcanic activity was pronounced, and beds of coal were formed. When the crust of the earth was crumbling, mountains grew spasmodically— (they sprang up, as it were, from out of the giant forces which we have described earlier in this book) —'faults' gave rise to earthquakes, volcanic forces found their vents, and conditions existed which gave rise to the accumulation of materials to form coal. ”

“ Those who recollect what we have said about the enormous weight of the rocks one above the other will not have to search far for the cause of weight sufficient to bend or buckle the rock strata of the earth. And those who have followed carefully all that has been -169- written about the shifting of materials from the land to the sea by the processes of denudation and erosion set up by rain and wind and carried out by streams and rivers, will easily discover where and how the shifting of great weights of the earth's surface goes on. ”

“ People find themselves suddenly thrown to the earth, the ground swept from under their feet. Sometimes the rolling waves of earth are absent, and the movement is a rude quiver, rapidly vibrating in every direction—twisting, contorting, wrenching the ground as if in a determined effort to shake it into dust. Sometimes the most pronounced motion is up and down, as if the earth beneath were being hammered with giant strokes. ”

“ Thus pass away the generations of men!—thus perish the records of the glory of nations! Yet when every emanation of the human mind has faded—when in the storms of time the monuments of man’s creative art are scattered to the dust—an ever new life springs from the bosom of the earth. Unceasingly prolific nature unfolds her germs,—regardless though sinful man, ever at war with himself, tramples beneath his foot the ripening fruit! ”

“ And, first, I've taught above That seeds there be of many things to us Life-giving, and that, contrariwise, there must Fly many round bringing disease and death. When these have, haply, chanced to collect And to derange the atmosphere of earth, The air becometh baneful. And, lo, all That Influence of bane, that pestilence, Or from Beyond down through our atmosphere, Like clouds and mists, descends, or else collects From earth herself and rises, when, a-soak And beat by rains unseasonable and suns, Our earth hath then contracted stench and rot. ”

“ In earth are atoms of things of every sort; And know, these all thus rise from out the earth— Many life-giving which be good for food, And many which can generate disease And hasten death, O many primal seeds Of many things in many modes—since earth Contains them mingled and gives forth discrete. And we have shown before that certain things Be unto certain creatures suited more For ends of life, by virtue of a nature, A texture, and primordial shapes, unlike For kinds alike. ”

“ For bodies all, from out all regions, are Divided by blows, each to its proper thing, And all retire to their own proper kinds: The moist to moist retires; earth gets increase From earthy body; and fires, as on a forge, Beat out new fire; and ether forges ether; Till nature, author and ender of the world, Hath led all things to extreme bound of growth: As haps when that which hath been poured inside The vital veins of life is now no more Than that which ebbs within them and runs off. This is the point where life for each thing ends ”

“ The earth would groan with rank and excessive vegetation, and its surface become a tangled wilderness. In like manner, the works of genius and learning decline and make way for subsequent productions. Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished their allotted time; otherwise the creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature. ”

“ Humanity, for ages, has been busy with the one great creation of spiritual life. Its best wisdom, its discipline, its literature and art, all the teachings and self-sacrifice of its noblest teachers, have been for this. But the harmony [66] of contrary forces, which give their rhythm to all creation, has not yet been perfected by man in his civilisation, and the Creator in him is baffled over and over again. He comes back to his work, however, and makes himself busy, building his world in the midst of desolation and ruins. ”

“ It is political and commercial egoism which is the evil harbinger of war. By different combinations it changes its shape and dimensions, but not its nature. This egoism is still held sacred, and made a religion; and such a religion, by a mere change of temple, and by new committees of priests, will never save mankind. [130] We must know that, as, through science and commerce, the realisation of the unity of the material world gives us power, so the realisation of the great spiritual Unity of Man alone can give us peace. ”

“ The present civilisation of India has the constraining power of the mould. It squeezes living man in the grip of rigid regulations, and its repression of individual freedom makes it only too easy for men to be forced into submission of all kinds and degrees. In both of these traditions life is offered up to something which is not life; it is a sacrifice, which has no God for its worship, and is therefore utterly in vain. The West is continually producing mechanical power in excess of its spiritual control, and India has produced a system of mechanical control in excess of its vitality. ”

“ Habituated to deal with the world as a machine, man is multiplying his materials, banishing away his happiness and sacrificing love to comfort, which is an illusion. At last the present age has sent its cry to woman, asking her to come out from her segregation in order to restore the spiritual supremacy of all that is human in the world of humanity. She has been aroused to remember that womanliness is not chiefly decorative. It is like that vital health, which not only imparts the bloom of beauty to the body, but joy to the mind and perfection to life. ”

“ An unscrupulous system of propaganda paves the way for widespread misrepresentation. It works up the crowd psychology through regulated hypnotic doses at repeated intervals, administered in bottles with moral labels upon them of soothing colours. In fact, man has been able to make his pursuit of power easier to-day by his art of mitigating the obstructive forces that come from the higher region of his humanity. With his cult of power and his idolatry of money he has, in a great measure, reverted to his primitive barbarism, a barbarism whose path is lit up by the lurid light of intellect. ”

“ It kept the big jar in the drawing-room going with dahlias and sunflowers, but the day came all too soon when even these gave out, and then I fell back on Dame Nature and plundered her hedgerows. Such leaves, such yellows and reds, and berries, black, red and green, never was a bunch more beautiful than that provided by the country lanes; and if only a garden would go wild in such a fashion I should leave it to itself. But that is the trouble. When once civilisation has laid her hand on flower or savage there is no going back ”

“ In the sunlight—in the daytime, when Nature is alive and busy all around us, we like the open hill-sides and the deep woods well enough: but in the night, when our Mother Earth has gone to sleep, and left us waking, oh! the world seems so lonesome, and we get frightened, like children in a silent house. Then we sit and sob, and long for the gas-lit streets, and the sound of human voices, and the answering throb of human life. We feel so helpless and so little in the great stillness, when the dark trees rustle in the night-wind. ”

“ But in the present age, with its facility of communication, geographical barriers have almost lost their reality, and the great federation of men, which is waiting either to find its true scope or to break asunder in a final catastrophe, is not a meeting of individuals, but of various human races. Now the problem before us is of one single country, which is this earth, where the races as individuals must find both their freedom of self-expression and their bond of federation. Mankind must realise a unity, wider in range, deeper in sentiment, stronger in power than ever before. ”

“ The soil of the planet is wet with blood and tears, and a great part of this inhuman rain might be arrested. Much has been done: it is just that which stings. You cannot look back on the darkness from which the race has issued without perceiving that man has the power to transform the face of the earth: without entertaining a reasoned and coldly intellectual conviction that a day will yet dawn on this planet when laughter, as of children on May morning, will ring from pole to pole, and life, for all its work, will be a holiday. ”