TOUCHES OF NATURE 43 
but a tiresome and endless repetition of the old 
ones, —a world perpetually stocked with Newtons 
and Shakespeares ! 
We say Nature knows best, and has adapted this 
or that to our wants or to our constitution, — sound 
to the ear, light and color to the eye, etc. ; but she 
has not done any such thing, but has adapted man 
to these things. ~The physical cosmos is the mould, 
and man is the molten metal that is poured into 
it. The light fashioned the eye, the laws of sound 
made the ear; in fact man is the outcome of Nature 
and not the reverse. Creatures that live forever in 
the dark have no eyes; and would not any one of 
our senses perish and be shed, as it were, ina world 
where it could not be used ? 
II 
It is well to let down our metropolitan pride a 
little. Man thinks himself at the top, and that the 
immense display and prodigality of Nature are for 
him. But they are no more for him than they are 
for the birds and beasts, and he is no more at the 
top than they are. He appeared upon the stage 
when the play had advanced to a certain point, and 
he will disappear from the stage when the play has 
reached another point, and the great drama go on 
without him. The geological ages, the convulsions 
and parturition throes of the globe, were to bring 
him forth no more than the beetles. Is not all this 
wealth of the seasons, these solar and sidereal in- 
fluences, this depth and vitality and internal fire, 
