“The wind goes to the south and turns to the north, it whirls about continually and returns again according to his circuit,” without aim or end. Here is the river, the torrent rushing down a precipice, to which purpose or intent? “All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full, unto the place from whence the rivers came, thither they return again”; without aim or end. All things turn in a circuit without aim or end, purpose or intent. All is vanity and vexation of the spirit. “What happens to the fool, so it happens to the wise. There is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool forever. How dieth the wise man? As the fool. In the days to come shall all be forgotten” (ii, 15, 16). Then the preacher turned, in search for a definite purpose in life, to different philosophies of human conduct, he becomes in turn a work-worshipper, love-worshipper, pleasure-worshipper; and what did he find? “There is nothing good in the things God has created but for a man to rejoice” (iii, 12). Thus it appears to him that the philosophy of pleasure is the only purpose in life. But a little later he finds that also this philosophy is of no profit. “But a man has no preeminence above the beast; for all is vanity” (iii, 19). Then comes a passage which shows how pessimism blinds the keenest observer. “There is one alone, he has neither child nor brother, yet is there no end of all his labor, neither is his eye satisfied with riches, neither says he, for whom do I labor? This also is vanity” (iv, 8). Now, this fact of the lonely man working for the future without apparent purpose, ought to have given the philosopher a hint, that there must be something behind this will to labor without aim or end. “Arbores serit agricola quarum fructibus nunquam fruetur.” But pessimist as our philosopher is, he returns to his philosophy. “This also is vanity.” [DP] Jagadis Chandra Bose (The Modern Review, Calcutta, 1914) succeeded in establishing the perfect parallelism between animal and plant. He found that all plants are sensitive and that in certain of them are tissues which beat spontaneously like the heart-beat of the animal. Response to electric stimulus, too, is identical in the plant and in the animal. In short, the life of the plant is the life of the animal in almost all its incidents, only in less degree. [DQ] In nature the individual counts for nothing, the race for everything. Nature is pitiless in the destruction of individuals. Thousands of animal lives are consumed to feed one lion throughout its life, millions of plant lives to feed one ox. In nature the individual is as ruthlessly sacrificed as in war. In this respect war is more in harmony with the designs of nature than peace.