ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



rapine and cruelty; she has evolved the civic from 

 the domestic, the state from the tribe. She has 

 evolved the Briton and the Frenchman from rude 

 prehistoric man. She has not yet got rid of the Hud 

 in the German, but she is fast getting rid of the 

 German in her overseas Germanic stock. The 

 bleaching process goes on apace. 



Man sees where Nature is blind; he takes a 

 straight cut where she goes far around. In him she 

 has added reason to her impulse, conscience to her 

 blind forces, self-denial to her self-indulgence, the 

 power of choice to her iron necessity. How well she 

 has done by man, man alone knows. How much he 

 is dependent upon her, he alone knows; how com- 

 pletely he is a part of her, he alone knows. We may 

 call man an insurgent in her world, as an English 

 scientist does, but he is her insurgent; she inspires 

 him to insurrection, and she puts his weapons in his 

 hands. His cause is her cause, and his victories are 

 her victories. 



Only by personifying Nature in this way, and 

 standing apart from her and regarding her ob- 

 jectively, can we contrast her methods and her 

 spirit with our own. The mother she has been to us 

 becomes apparent. In spite of all her short-comings 

 and delays and roundabout methods, here we are, 

 and here we wish to remain. 



