Let us leave the old stones, and the old bones, and the old shells, the wrecks of ancient worlds which have gone down into the kingdom of death, to teach us their grand lessons some other day; and let us look now at the world of light and life and beauty, which begins here at the open door, and stretches away over the hay-fields, over the woods, over the southern moors, over sunny France, and sunnier Spain, and over the tropic seas, down to the equator, and the palm-groves of the eternal summer.

If we cannot find something, even at starting from the open door, to teach us about Why and How, we must be very short-sighted, or very shallow-hearted.
There is the old cock starling screeching in the eaves, because he wants to frighten us away, and take a worm to his children, without our finding out whereabouts his hole is.

How does he know that we might hurt him?
and how again does he not know that we shall not hurt him?
we, who for five-and-twenty years have let him and his ancestors build under those eaves in peace?
How did he get that quantity of half-wit, that sort of stupid cunning, into his little brain, and yet get no more?
And why (for this is a question of Why, and not of How) does he labour all day long, hunting for worms and insects for his children, while his wife nurses them in the nest?
Why, too, did he help her to build that nest with toil and care this spring, for the sake of a set of nestlings who can be of no gain or use to him, but only take the food out of his mouth?
Simply out of--what shall I call it, my child ?--Love; that same sense of love and duty, coming surely from that one Fountain of all duty and all love, which makes your father work for you.

That the mother should take care of her young, is wonderful enough; but that (at least among many birds) the father should help likewise, is (as you will find out as you grow older) more wonderful far.

So there already the old starling has set us two fresh puzzles about How and Why, neither of which we shall get answered, at least on this side of the grave.
Come on, up the field, under the great generous sun, who quarrels with no one, grudges no one, but shines alike upon the evil and the good.