LESSONS FROM NATURE.
ByJEAN A. OWEN, Author of “Forest, Field and Fell,” etc.
ADAPTABILITY TO CIRCUMSTANCES.
Manypersons look upon plants as still life, forgetting, or ignorant of, the fact that their existence depends on the movement of the juices which are embodied in them. This is not even quiet in winter, when all about the plant would seem dead indeed. There is still motion being carried on, although it is necessarily of a very feeble or languid nature. There is perhaps only a very slight enlargement of the buds, but there it is nevertheless; the almost imperceptible development preparing for spring’s coming.
If a small part of the cuticle of theVallisneria, an aquatic plant, is placed under the microscope, there is visible in every one of its tiny cells a number of little globules coursing in order, round and round, faster or slower, in a varying degree of motion, until the portion under observation has exhausted its vitality. And by a wonderful instinct—as we say—the flowers of this species, male and female, which grow on different plants, are able to detach themselves at the right season. That is, the male flowers can leave the plant stems, and floating about on the stream, they join the female flowers, and so the reproduction is effected in them by a spontaneous action on their part which is brought about in many other cases by an outside agency, the action of bees, for instance.
When the waters of a stream rise, another aquatic plant, theKuppia Maritimais able to coil and uncoil its flower stalks, which are curled in a spiral fashion; and, as the depth of the water in which it grows changes, its blossoms are always kept on a level with the surface.
In plant as in animal life, there is this wonderful power of accommodation to circumstances which might otherwise prove entirely adverse to the continuation of that life. Instinct is the term applied to vegetable as well as animal life. We use it for want of a better, although it certainly does not cover all that is implied in innumerable instances.
A thoughtful writer says that instinct, which belongs to the physiological expression of life, has no other end or function than the maintenance of these forms, whence it never operates without manifesting effects in the organic mechanism. Reason, on the other hand, has no relation to the body, except as the soul’s body or instrument; it belongs to the soul purely, and may be exercised without giving the slightest external token.
“The life whose phenomena are the instincts impels us only to eat, to drink, to propagate, to preserve our fabric safe and sound; the spiritual life, the phenomena of which are forms of reason, gives power, not to do corporeal things, but to think and to rise emotionally towards the source of life. It is by reason of this supra-instinctive life that man stands as the universal master.”
The great naturalist Buffon also says, “Man thinks, hence he is master over creatures which do not think.” And an ancient author writes finely, “While other animals bend their looks downwards to earth, He gave to man a lofty countenance, commanded him to lift his face to heaven, and behold with upturned eyes the stars.”
This has been a digression into which the use of the term instinct led me. Instinct leads the carnivorous animal to feed on flesh; but if this is scarce—even if fruit is plentiful, and offers itself in profusion—the puma will devour wild gooseberries and raspberries; so will the coyote wolves in the Rocky Mountains. I stayed for some time in a mountain region in Colorado—the district in which I made my notes for “Candelaria,” a story some of you have perhaps read in the pages of this magazine—and there in the autumn the big bears would come in their heavy rolling gait down the mountain-sides to devour the wild fruits, “choke cherries” and the like.
The power of accommodation to the exigencies of circumstance is so great that, as scientists will tell you, species will often develop through these, in time, an extra member. And again, faculties and powers, by their non-use, will desert us in time. Our power of adaptability is in point of fact beyond calculation. “All things are possible to him that believeth” is a truth too little tested by most of us.
Could yon slender reed, which is swayed by the slightest breeze, stand the fierce onslaught of a tempest? No, but it bends gracefully before it and escapes unhurt where stouter stems have been snapped asunder.
And, to take a simile from the bird world, all the herons, the different species of theArdeidæ, which have ordinarily a slow and heavily flapping flight, when alarmed or pursued by their natural enemies, have a habit of easing themselves. They will disgorge the food which they have just swallowed in order to lighten themselves for more rapid flight.
This reminds me of a little incident in my own life. Some years ago I was in a collision at sea; the bow of a large steamer ran into the stern of the vessel in which I was, when both were going at top speed, and both vessels went down beneath the waters almost as soon as we passengers, most of us in our night clothing, had got free in the small boats. Over fifty lives, unfortunately, were lost that night, but only one woman out of very many others perished. That need not have been, but she was timid, and she would not risk the leap that other women had had to make down into the boat which waited for her ten feet below. As soon as the boat in which I was, arrived, a few hours later, alongside of a rescuing steamer, the women were most of them taken up into this by means of a rope and band fastened round the waist, but I climbed up a rope ladder which was overhung on the side of the ship. In order to grasp this firmly with both hands I had to lose my hold of a bag I had contrived to save, in which were some valuables very dear to me. I put it down on the boat seat, and of course I never saw it again. My precious things were lost, but my life was saved. A poor lady who was in the same wreck suffered a still greater loss, and she was one of those conservative sensitive natures who find it so hard to adapt themselves to changeful circumstances. She has never recovered her mental balance since that terrible night.
To preserve a trustful, cheerful frame of mind under adverse circumstances, to be able to adjust one’s resources, one’s capabilities to the exigencies of a life so liable to changes, is a gift for which the possessor cannot be too grateful to the Giver of all good gifts.
Science has been defined by someone as “the discovery of the changeless in the ever-changing.” I was sitting in a weak, fatigued state of mind once in a train at a great terminus. We were waiting for the moment of departure, and not being drawn up to the end of the platforms, trains moved constantly on either side of us. To my tired head—I had lately come off the sea, which had been a rough one—I did not seem able to make out whether it was our train or the other that was in motion when this occurred. Presently my eyes found a refuge in the contemplation of a massive column within sight. So long as they rested there, all was simple. I saw it was the others that were in motion, and we were quiet.
God is the changeless amid the ever-changing. If the eye of our soul is fixed on Him, all else adjusts itself. We have “an anchor sure and steadfast.”
The conies, says the wise man in the book of Proverbs, “are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks.” The conies belong to the same family as do our rabbits, but they have not paws suitable for burrowing, and their homes are in the clefts of the immovable rocks. Thither they flee to hide themselves when the enemy is in pursuit, or when the elements are adverse. They find tiny fastnesses, where, protected from all stress of weather, they can sleep in safety, and into which the great birds of prey cannot penetrate.
For some situations our powers of adaptability are all inadequate. The combat is too great for our forces, and the best course, the wisest, nay, often the only possible course lies in flight and in seeking a haven of refuge, until, as the Psalmist says, “the tyranny is overpast.” “I will flee to the Rock to hide me.” And as “that feeble folk, the conies” make their houses in the rocks, so we, like the wise man in the parable, build our house on the Rock, not on the shifting foundations of sand.
(To be continued.)