§ 165. GULF STREAM, CLIMATES, AND COMMERCE. 57 



viewed in tliis ligbt, it becomes a most beautiful and interesting 

 subject for contemplation. 



165. To one who has never studied the mechanism of a watch, 

 Terrestrial adapta- ^^s maiu-spriug or the balancc-wheel is a mere piece 

 *^o°^- of metal. He may have looked at the face of the 



watch, and, while he admires the motion of its hands, and the 

 time it keeps, or the tune it plays, he may have wondered in idle 

 amazement as to the character of the machinery which is conceal- 

 ed within. Take it to pieces, and show him each part separately ; 

 he will recognize neither design, nor adaptation, nor relation be- 

 tween them ; but put them together, set them to work, point out 

 the offices of each spring, wheel, and cog, explain their move- 

 ments, and then show him the result ; now he perceives that it is 

 all one design ; that, notwithstanding the number of parts, their 

 diverse forms and various offices, and the agents concerned, the 

 whole piece is of one thought, the expression of one idea. He 

 now rightly concludes that when the main-spring was fashioned 

 and tempered, its relation to all the other parts must have been 

 considered ; that the cogs on this wheel are cut and regulated — 

 adapted — to the rachets on that, &c. ; and his final conclusion will 

 be, that such a piece of mechanism could not have been produced 

 by chance ; for the adaptation of the parts is such as to show it 

 to be according to design, and obedient to the will of one intelli- 

 gence. So, too, when one looks out upon the face of this beauti- 

 ful world, he may admire its lovely scenery, but his admiration 

 can never grow into adoration unless he will take the trouble to 

 look behind and study, in some of its details at least, the exquisite 

 system of machinery by which such beautiful results are brought 

 about. To him who does this, the sea, with its physical geogra- 

 phy, becomes as the main-spring of a watch; its waters, and its 

 currents, and its salts, and its inhabitants, with their adaptations, 

 as balance-wheels, cogs, and pinions, and jewels in the terrestrial 

 mechanism. Thus he perceives that they too are according to 

 design — parts of the physical machinery that are the expression of 

 One Thought, a unity with harmonies which One Intelligence, 

 and One Intelligence alone, could utter. And when he has ar- 

 rived at this point, then he feels that the study of the sea, in its 

 physical aspects, is truly sublime. It elevates the mind and en- 

 nobles the man. The Gulf Stream is now no longer, therefore, 



