NATURE AND MAN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 10 December 1938, Page 15

NATURE AND MAN

MYSTERIES OF LIFE A FEW THOUGHTS (By Leo Fanning .l j The dense hard passage is blind am stifled That crawls by a h ack none turn t< climb To the strait waste place that the year: have rifled Of all but the thorns that are touchec not of time The thorns he spares when the rose i. taken; The rocks are left when he wastes tin plain. j The wind that wanders. the weed: wind-shaken, These remain. —From Swinburne's "Foisakei Garden.” What a wild welter of creation am destruction Nature is! Nature is eve: i in a ferment to turn dust into life anc I life into dust. Her organising and dis ! organising forces are sometimes si | clashing that they seem like farces, j Often Nature seems to be more con ! cerncd with the propagation and pro j tection and perpetuation of nuisance: j than of good things. "Survival of th» J fittest,” the Dawinian says, but t're i by the survival of the unfit than the lit j Civilisation is getting an increasin; j burden of degenerates, who are ap parenlly as hardy as they are useless ! Many of them are constantly in am | out of gaol, in and out of hospital. The; live in vice, they have diseases of bod: and mind —but do they die before thei time? Life clings to them as if i ; liked them. They increase and multiply j and load their slimy weight upon so | ciety. Many of them pass four scor | years, and in all that time they hav : been a grievous nuisance to the work 1 I sometimes think of old Time passin i them by in disgust, loth to soil hi ! scythe on them. . j Let us go back to the roses. G fiber Chesterton once wrote about the savag j ery of loses, but what docs their anna , menl avail against the aphis, the slug ! gish green-fly which preys upon thei tender shoots? What use is the aphi : in the scheme of things? If the functio , of the aphis was to wage war upon rag I wort, biddy-bid and fennel, one coul j admire the marvellous powers < i multiplication given by Nature to thi ! plague, but this insect is not interests j in rough or tough pasture. Its choic ,is the rose. The world is not threatene< j with an over-running by roses, am I yet the rose has an enemy which multi plies in myriads within a day or two. No doubt ants have a different viev of the green-fly, lor they farm tin aphis. These insects are the dairy | herds of some species of ants. Son* ! genius among the ants long ages ag< saw a use in the aphis, which was in duced to yield a sweet juice for it, captors. Tiie ants muster the green-fly run them into folds, get pastures fo: j them and “milk” them. The "milking' ! ,s a gentle massage by the ants’ feeler: along the body of the aphis, an opera lion which quickens and increases th< | exuding of the nectar. Perhaps the ' ant mind imagines that the incalculable j multiplication of the aphis is for the ' special benefit of ants. Nature is kind to weeds. She give.' them strength for their rooting am i spreading and the most cunning arts ! for their seeding. Consider the black- : berry, how it grows and grows ark ! g r °tvs! This pest increases from under- ! ground suckers; it grows in iron: joints of its arms; it produces myriads • of seeds, and is fiercely armed against interference. If the blackberry was the i most precious thing on earth. Nature i could not be more concerned with its propagation and preservation.

The biddy-bid is another of Nature's j favourite children. Like the blackberry, j it is a rapid coloniser, even without the J help of its burry seeds, which attach themselves to sheep and other animals for widespread distribution. Think also of the flying seeds of thistle and the j ability of other noxious weeds to ( cumber the earth. The more man tries to educate a plant j to serve him for food or other needs. 1 the more Nature tries to foil him. She j seems to be ever jealous of man’s ef-, forts to improve on her ways or to: hasten her own rates of evolution. Her; Mediterranean fly is not turned to 1 the prickly-pear but is reserved for the , best oranges in some countries. Fire- i blight does not bother the blackberry, but lays waste the best apple orchards, j Always there is a blight or a bug in readiness to destroy man’s best productions of flowers or fruit. “Man's methods weaken the constitution of; plants,” someone says, but why should i they? Why should not the carefully-j tended well-nourished plants flourish ! better than weeds which should choke , one another to death? Science has an eye on these things,! of course, and is hoping some day man may gain a complete mastery of Nature and set her forking as meekly j and as obediently for him as the mildest slave of an eastern potentate—but. alas, man has a very long way to go in that field. After ail there is something in the matter of the world that the chemists cannot find. They can break matter up into its basic elements, and indeed get so far as believing that there is only one kind of matter, which is not really matter at all but a whirling and swirling energy, a fussy pother of ions and electrons. Think of the intangible unfindable germ of the common cold in terms of ions and electrons! Well, it all comes back to this simple truth that man will never be able to fathom the infinity of the Deity. The brilliant Fitzgerald hints at the problem in his version of Khayyam thus: A Hair perhaps divides the False and True; Yes: and a single Alif were the clue — Could you but find it—to the treasurehouse. And peradventure to the Master too. Whose secret Prescence through CreaRunning quicksilver-like eludes your pains; Taking all shapes from Mali to Mahi; and They change and perish all—but He A moment guess'd—then back behind the fold Iminerst of darkness round the drama roll'd. Which, for the pastime of eternity, He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold. Even if man gains an ultimate mastery of insects, blights, germs and weeds ar d makes matter and force his faithful servants, with never a fear of eccentricities, Old Nature may still laugli at him. A little tilt of the earth's axis would make a sad wreck of all laboratories. An occasional earthquake is a reminder that man is not yet captain of the cosmos.