MANIFOLD NATURE 



the interaction of man upon man, through culture, 

 books, religion, meditation. 



" The ruin or the blank that we see when we look 

 at Nature," he says, "is in our own eye." Is it not 

 equally true that the harmony and perfection that 

 we see are in our own eye also? In fact, are not all 

 the qualities and attributes which we ascribe to Na- 

 ture equally the creation of our own minds? The 

 beauty, the sublimity, the power of Nature are ex- 

 periences of the beholder. The drudge in the fields 

 does not experience them, but the poet, the thinker, 

 the seer, does. Nature becomes very real to us when 

 we come to deal with her practically, when we seek 

 her for specific ends, when we go to her to get our 

 living. But when we go to her in the spirit of disin- 

 terested science, the desert, the volcano, the path 

 of the cyclone, are full of the same old meanings, 

 the playground of the same old elements and forces. 

 Nature is what we make her. In his Journal Emer- 

 son for a moment sees Nature as she is: "Nature is 

 a swamp, on whose purlieus we see prismatic dew- 

 drops, but her interiors are terrific." 



Man is the only creature that turns upon Nature 

 and judges her; he turns upon his own body and 

 mind and judges them; he judges the work of his 

 own hands; he is critical toward all things that sur- 

 round him; he brings this faculty of judgment into 

 the world. 



Emerson refers to " the great Nature in which we 



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