ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



is, make them more serviceable to us — by means 

 of the hold we have upon her methods. We add 

 nothing; we utilize what she has placed within our 

 reach. All of which means that we are Nature's, 

 and that our knowing it and thinking of it cannot 

 make the slightest difference. Our fate is inevitable. 

 There is no escape. Whose else could we be? We 

 cannot get off the sphere; if we could, we should 

 still be a part of the All. Our elaborate schemes to 

 appropriate or propitiate the Eternal, to stand well 

 with Him, to gain heaven and avoid hell, are de- 

 vices of cunning Nature to spur us on the road of 

 development. (How easily one falls into the lan- 

 guage of extreme anthropomorphism!) The beau- 

 tiful myth of the Garden of Eden and the fall of 

 man is full of meaning. Surely it was a good devil 

 that put man in the way of knowing good from evil, 

 and led to his expulsion from a state of innocent 

 impotence. 



Nature's dealings with man and with the other 

 forms of life are on the same plan as her dealings 

 with the earth as a whole. The drainage system of 

 the globe is by no means perfect; there are marshes 

 and stagnant waters in every country, but how small 

 comparatively the area they cover! The rains and 

 snows give birth to pure springs in all lands, which 

 unite to form the creeks, which, again, unite to form 

 the rivers, which flow into the lakes and seas, giving 

 back to the great bodies of water what the sun and 



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