Pansies (Lawrence)/Self-Protection

​

SELF-PROTECTION
When science starts to be interpretiveit is more unscientific even than mysticism.To make self-preservation and self-protection the first law of existence ​is about as scientific as making suicide the first law of existence,and amounts to very much the same thing.
A nightingale singing at the top of his voiceis neither hiding himself nor preserving himself nor propagating his species;he is giving himself away in every sense of the word;and obviously, it is the culminating point of his existence.
A tiger is striped and golden for his own glory.He would certainly be much more invisible if he were grey-green.
And I don't suppose the ichthyosaurus sparkled like the humming-bird,no doubt he was khaki-coloured with muddy protective coloration,so why didn't he survive?
As a matter of fact, the only creatures that seem to surviveare those that give themselves away in flash and sparkle ​and gay flicker of joyful life;those that go glittering abroadwith a bit of splendour.
Even mice play quite beautifully at shadows,and some of them are brilliantly piebald.
I expect the dodo looked like a clod,a drab and dingy bird.

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.