SHALL WE ACCEPT THE UNIVERSE? 



each and all played their part in developing and 

 hardening man and giving him the heroic fiber. The 

 good would have no tang, no edge, no cutting 

 quality without evil to oppose it. Life would be 

 tasteless or insipid, without pain and struggle and 

 disappointment. Behold what the fiery furnace 

 does for the metals — welding or blending or sep- 

 arating or purifying them, and behold the hell of 

 contending and destructive forces out of which the 

 earth came, and again behold the grinding and 

 eroding forces, the storms and earthquakes and 

 eruptions and disintegrations that have made it 

 the green inhabitable world that now sustains us! 

 No, the universal processes do not need disinfect- 

 ing; the laws of the winds, the rains, the sunlight do 

 not need rectifying. "I do not want the constella- 

 tions any nearer," says Whitman. I do not want the 

 natural Providence any more attentive. The celes- 

 tial laws are here underfoot and our treading upon 

 them does not obliterate or vulgarize them. Chemis- 

 try is incorruptible and immortal, it is the hand- 

 maid of God; the yeast works in the elements of our 

 bread of life while we sleep; the stars send their in- 

 fluences, the earth renews itself, the brooding heaven 

 gathers us under its wings, and all is well with us if 

 we have the heroic hearts to see it. 



In the curve of the moon's or of the planets' 

 disks, all broken or irregular lines of the surface are 

 lost to the eye — the wholeness of the sphere form 



13 



