other, as a ripple is an Atlantic wave in little; both have their
advantages and disadvantages, so that most organisms will take
the one course for one set of things and the other for another.
They will deal promptly with things which they can get at easily,
and which lie more upon the surface; those, however, which are
more troublesome to reach, and lie deeper, will be handled upon
more cataclysmic principles, being allowed longer periods of
repose followed by short periods of greater activity.

Animals breathe and circulate their blood by a little action many
times a minute; but they feed, some of them, only two or three
times a day, and breed for the most part not more than once a
year, their breeding season being much their busiest time. It is
on the first principle that the modification of animal forms has
proceeded mainly; but it may be questioned whether what is called
a sport is not the organic expression of discontent which has
been long felt, but which has not been attended to, nor been met
step by step by as much small remedial modification as was found
practicable: so that when a change does come it comes by way of
revolution. Or, again (only that it comes to much the same
thing), a sport may be compared to one of those happy thoughts
which sometimes come to us unbidden after we have been thinking
for a long time what to do, or how to arrange our ideas, and have
yet been unable to arrive at any conclusion.

So with politics, the smaller the matter the prompter, as a
general rule, the settlement; on the other hand, the more
sweeping the change that is felt to be necessary, the longer it
will be deferred.