Throughout the great republic of the organic world the motto of the majority is, and always has been as far back as we can see, what it is, and always has been, with the majority of human beings:  “Everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.”  Overreaching tyranny; the temper which fawns, and clings, and plays the parasite as long as it is down, and when it has risen, fattens on its patron’s blood and life—­these, and the other works of the flesh, are the works of average plants and animals, as far as they can practise them.  At least, so says at first sight the science of bio-geology; till the naturalist, if he be also human and humane, is glad to escape from the confusion and darkness of the universal battle-field of selfishness into the order and light of Christmas-tide.

For then there comes to him the thought—­And are these all the facts?  And is this all which the facts mean?  That mutual competition is one law of Nature, we see too plainly.  But is there not, besides that law, a law of mutual help?  True it is, as the wise man has said, that the very hyssop on the wall grows there because all the forces of the universe could not prevent its growing.  All honour to the hyssop.  A brave plant, it has fought a brave fight, and has its just deserts—­as everything in Nature has—­ and so has won.  But did all the powers of the universe combine to prevent it growing?  Is not that a one-sided statement of facts?  Did not all the powers of the universe also combine to make it grow, if only it had valour and worth wherewith to grow?  Did not the rains feed it, the very mortar in the wall give lime to its roots?  Were not electricity, gravitation, and I know not what of chemical and mechanical forces, busy about the little plant, and every cell of it, kindly and patiently ready to help it if it would only help itself?  Surely this is true; true of every organic thing, animal and vegetable, and mineral too, for aught I know:  and so we must soften our sadness at the sight of the universal mutual war by the sight of an equally universal mutual help.

But more.  It is true—­too true if you will—­that all things live on each other.  But is it not, therefore, equally true that all things live for each other?—­that self-sacrifice, and not selfishness, is at the bottom the law of Nature, as it is the law of Grace; and the law of bio-geology, as it is the law of all religion and virtue worthy of the name?  Is it not true that everything has to help something else to live, whether it knows it or not?—­that not a plant or an animal can turn again to its dust without giving food and existence to other plants, other animals?—­that the very tiger, seemingly the most useless tyrant of all tyrants, is still of use, when, after sending out of the world suddenly, and all but painlessly, many an animal which would without him have starved in misery through a diseased old age, he himself dies, and, in dying, gives, by his own carcase, the means of life and of enjoyment to a thousandfold more living creatures than ever his paws destroyed?