In very beautiful language the poet Tennyson, after proposing the same riddle, replies to it thus:—

‘Are God and Nature then at strife

That Nature lends such evil dreams?

So careful of the type she seems,

So careless of the single life;


“So careful of the type”? but no.

From scarped cliff and quarried stone

She cries, A thousand types are gone:

I care for nothing: all shall go.