“Nature is the mother of all things, but a mother that devours them all.”Giacomo Leopardi · Zibaldone · 1832 · p. 4135
Nature loves the species, not the individual, which is merely material to be reused.
The image of the devouring mother joins nature's two faces: the apparent generosity of birth and the real cruelty of its workings. Leopardi sees no contradiction, only a single movement: nature loves the species, not the individual, and the individual is merely material to be reused. A spider eating its own offspring in times of scarcity shows that the bond between mother and young is not sacred to nature, only useful when it works.
If nature cares about the species and not the individual, then our personal suffering is not a glitch in the system but part of how it works. Leopardi draws an uncomfortable conclusion here: there is no plan protecting each of us. When we fall ill or lose someone, that is not an exception to the order of things but the order of things itself. Think of the leaves on a tree: the tree produces them in abundance precisely because it expects many to wither. The beauty of abundance rests on waste. The natural next question is: if the individual means nothing to nature, why does it still matter so much to us?
Why it matters Mother-nature language is everywhere in advertising and spirituality; the sentence helps us take it less literally.