ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



solve our riddles by invoking the supernatural that 

 the habit has become ingrained. We can only do as 

 Carlyle did, feed our minds with words and fall back 

 upon the natural-supernatural. 



Our attitudes toward Nature differ as widely as 

 do our occupations, our characters, and our tem- 

 peraments. There is the direct, practical attitude of 

 the farmer, the miner, the engineer, the sailor, the 

 sportsman, the traveler, and the explorer; there is 

 the gay and holiday attitude of the camper-out and 

 the picnicker; there is the sympathetic and appre- 

 ciative attitude of the nature-lover; there is the 

 imaginative and creative attitude of the artist and 

 the poet; there is the more or less rapt and mystical 

 attitude of the religious enthusiast; there is the in- 

 quisitive and experimental attitude of the man of 

 science; and there is the meditative and speculative 

 attitude of the philosopher. 



We almost invariably personify Nature and read 

 our own traits and limitations into her. We say she 

 is wise or she is foolish; she is cruel or she is kind; 

 she fails or she succeeds. The early philosophers 

 said that Nature abhorred a vacuum. Darwin says 

 that she " tells us in the most emphatic manner that 

 she abhors perpetual self-fertilization." There are 

 times when the most rigid man of science humanizes 

 Nature in this way. We look upon ourselves as tak- 

 ing liberties with her; we discipline her and train her 

 in the ways she should go for our good; we pit her 



234 



