ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



Road to Everywhere " — vague as Nature herself. 

 All her roads are roads to everywhere. They may 

 lead you to your own garden, or to the North Pole, 

 or to the fixed stars, or may end where they began. 



Nature is a great traveler, but she never gets 

 away from home; she takes all her possessions along 

 with her, and her course is without direction, and 

 without beginning or end. The most startling con- 

 tradiction you can make expresses her best. She is 

 the sum of all opposites, the success of all failures, 

 the good of all evil. 



When we think we have cut out Nature, we have 

 only substituted another phase; when our balloon 

 mounts in spite of gravity, it is still gravity that 

 makes it mount; when we clear the soil of its nat- 

 ural growth and plant our own crop, Nature is still 

 our gardener; we have only placed other seeds of 

 her own in her hands. When we have improved 

 upon her, we have only prevailed upon her to second 

 our efforts; we get ahead of her by following out the 

 hints she gives us; when we trump her trick, it is 

 with her own cards. When we fancy we assist Na- 

 ture, as we say that we do with our drugs, it is she 

 who gives the efficiency to the drugs. We may 

 fancy that the sun is in the heavens solely to give 

 light and warmth to the planets, which it surely 

 does, but behold, what a mere fraction of the light 

 and heat of the sun is intercepted by the slender 

 girdle of worlds that surround it! The rays go out 



C4 



