ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



The sands of the shore do not struggle with the 

 waves, nor the waves with the sands; the buffeting 

 ends where it began. But trees struggle with the 

 wind, fish struggle with the flood, man struggles 

 with his environment; all draw energy from the 

 forces that oppose them. Life gains as it spends; its 

 waste is an investment. Not so with purely material 

 bodies. They are like the clock, they must be per- 

 petually wound from without. A living body is a 

 clock, perpetually self-wound from within. 



The faith and composure of the naturalist or 

 naturist are proof against the worst that Nature can 

 do. He sees the cosmic forces only; he sees nothing 

 directly mindful of man, but man himself; he sees 

 the intelligence and beneficence of the universe flow- 

 ering in man; he sees life as a mysterious issue of the 

 warring element; he sees human consciousness and 

 our sense of right and wrong, of truth and justice, 

 as arising in the evolutionary sequence, and turning 

 and sitting in judgment upon all things; he sees that 

 there can be no life without pain and death; that 

 there can be no harmony without discord; that op- 

 posites go hand in hand; that good and evil are in- 

 extricably mingled; that the sun and blue sky are 

 still there behind the clouds, unmindful of them; 

 that all is right with the world if we extend our 

 vision deep enough ; that the ways of Nature are the 

 ways of God if we do not make God in our own 

 image, and make our comfort and well-being the 



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