Hence the philosopher looking for the will of the Supreme Intelligence, will have to return to nature, and especially to human nature. For as Protagoras cogently once said: πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος, “man is the measure of all things.” Now, what does nature will? We find in organic nature excessive production and wholesale destruction. The abundance of the reproductive cells in plant and animal is simply amazing. Every ejaculation in man contains two or three hundred million spermatozoa, each one of them sufficient for impregnation. Each ovary of the new-born baby girl contains about thirty thousand ova, each potentially a human being. The first effort of growth is to set aside a part of the germ itself for future reproduction, so that the germ may be indefinitely multiplied and handed down to untold generations. The reproductive cells, the cells which have not lost the primary power of multiplication, are of the first consideration; the specialized cells, or the somatic cells which cannot reproduce any longer, are of secondary importance. Nature’s sole solicitation is the race. The supreme law of organic nature is the preservation of the kind. Her sole aim is the perpetuation of the species, hence the abundance of the germ-plasm in plant and animal. Nature takes no chances. She secures the continuance of the kind by the extravagant production of material and the ruthless destruction of all that is superfluous. Nature preserves the individual until it has brought forth its offspring, after the message is delivered, the messenger is discharged. Nature has no regard for the individual. The fly is destined as a prey to the spider, the spider to the swallow, the swallow to the hawk, the hawk to the eagle, and the eagle to the hunter. But what is the hunter’s destiny? Here nature is silent. The crown of creation seems to be here for no purpose. Man seems to have no value whatever. The individual does not count, it is created to be destroyed. Nature is careless of the single life. The individual may wither, the race is more and more.[DQ] Everything that serves to improve the race is in harmony with nature. But to what purpose is the race here? Cosmic nature owes us the answer. But when we return to a certain part of nature, the conscious part of nature, human nature, we find the hints for the reason of our existence. It is the experience of the divine urge of progress and the certainty that the crown of altruism is of the highest value in life. Both these qualities are transcendental, bestowed already upon the primordial cell by the creative power of the universe. Self-sacrifice resides in every cell. In every drop of pus millions of dead white corpuscles, or cells can be seen who, in the defence of the colony or the human body, sacrificed themselves in the struggle with the invading bacteria. This cellular self-sacrifice has developed in man into the impulse to serve others, the inner possession of every human heart.