Under whose definition? I am reminded of one of the first things that I ever read, that was written from a New Age perspective.

"The rabbit gives of his flesh, so that the fox might live ..."

Utter nonsense. The rabbit doesn't give the fox his flesh, he has it and his life torn from him violently, without his consent. The balance of nature isn't maintained through cooperation, it is maintained through struggle, a struggle that the unlucky rabbit who lies bleeding in the fox's jaws has lost. If any comfort is to be found in this scene, it is in the thought that the rabbit did all he could to live, and thus truly lived in the moments before he died.

If we are willing to put this concept, which is argued to be the meaning of "the bull of his mother here", in terms of scientific analogies, it may be explained more precisely. It is a force that drives each of the parties in a Darwinian struggle for survival to play his role with greater passion. (Whether the parties involved are real flesh-and-blood people, or abstractions such as nations, or personifications of natural forces, is immaterial).

Note that we referred to the struggles of life, not to the harmonious preservation of life. A competitive element is an intrinsic part of the "generalised virility" spoken of, earlier. Men, especially in a more patriarchal time and place than the one we inhabit, will compete to win the interest of a prospective mate; the lower animals, traditionally thought of as being closer to nature, will fight over this. As one king, fighting on behalf of his kingdom, wins, another loses. As the black land retakes lost territory at the end of a Nile flood, the desert retreats. In all of these cases, for every winner, there is a loser, creating a duality between life and death.

Such are the unhappy realities of the zero-sum game that is life, in a state of nature, where life is "Nasty, brutish and short". (Hobbes, "Leviathan") Contrary to the spirit of life? Without such struggles, that dying rabbit wouldn't have ever been born, because life on earth wouldn't have ever advanced beyond the single cell stage. This unhappy process is part of how life created itself. It may not be very moral on all occasions, but for better or worse, it is an expression of life in its most aggressive sense.

Nature was unusually cruel to the Near East, as I recall from my reading. Let's see how much of it I can recall correctly, before I can put my library in order, and start locating my references. Here is how I remember the circumstances being described :

A few thousand years ago, Arabia was a savannah and much of what is now the Sahara was habitable, arable land. What appears to be the remains of some of its towns may still be found by radar, beneath the shifting sands which buried them. As a matter of fashion, some will say that the last ice age ended over 10,000 years ago, but that is a half-truth. The last ice age has been ending since that time, the earth warming and the glaciers retreating over the millenia. With this has come a rise in sea level and a shifting of wind patterns that has turned once lush countries into wastelands. In the inland parts of the region, during the millenia preceding the rise of Pharaonic Egypt, the survivors were left to fight over the ever dwindling fertile lands that were left.

Those seeking an easier life by the sea would have fared little better. Sea level didn't stabilise until about 5,000 years ago, rising over 200 feet between the "end of the last ice age" and the ascension of Menes. A similar rise today would give Missouri a sea coast and drown most of Europe. Small wonder, then, the development of Lower Egypt would have lagged behind that of Upper Egypt, prior to the time of the unification of the two lands. As the sea rose, in previous centuries, the relatively flat delta would have retreated, its outlying parts vanishing beneath the sea that they had never risen very high above, its villages drowned before they ever had the chance to grow into cities, in most cases.

Over the millenia, as the delta worked its way inland, the sediments that renewed it being deposited into an ever higher sea, its inhabitants would have been forced into conflict with those whose lands they would be forced into by population pressure, ever intensified by the loss of the lands they held earlier. Thus, there could be no escape from the inevitable destiny of having to take new lands, just to survive. "The bull of his mother", in his least friendly aspect, would be the constant companion of those who wished to live. Such a reality can not be expected to bring out the kinder side of human nature.

Yes, even if I'm recalling this correctly, circumstances did eventually become settled for those peoples fortunate enough to have ended up being driven into Egypt, as Northern Africa became drier. The Nile Valley was stable in size, staying fertile to this very day. Laws were put in place by a strong central government that arose, that protected property rights. But, the bad old days that precede the rise of a civilization have a way of being remembered in its mythology. Perhaps such is the case, here?

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