ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



tain that a wavelet in a lake can be lost if the lake is 

 large enough. It soon dies out. It becomes dissi- 

 pated. Energy cannot be destroyed, but it can be 

 scattered or turned into heat or light or electricity, 

 and the waves that break and die upon the beach, no 

 matter how cold they are, give up their energy as 

 heat. They must raise the temperature some frac- 

 tion of a degree. 



XIII. IS NATURE SUICIDAL ? 



Emerson never committed himself to a belief in im- 

 mortality as usually understood — continued exist- 

 ence in another world; but he was always on the 

 lookout for hints and suggestions to spur his lagging 

 faith on the subject. He read Martial and praised 

 his literary faculty. He is the true writer, he said, a 

 chemical and not a mechanical mixture: "Martial 

 suggests again, as every purely literary book does, 

 the immortality. We see we are wiser than we were: 

 we are older. Can Nature afford to lose such im- 

 provements? Is Nature a suicide?" The same ques- 

 tions I have heard Whitman ask, questions asked 

 probably by thoughtful men in all ages. 



But are not such questions prompted by our own 

 petty economies? We must save what we have 

 gained. Not so Nature. Gain and loss with her are 

 one. All is hers. She has infinite time, and infinite 

 abundance. How can she afford so many dead worlds 

 and burnt-out suns scattered throughout sidereal 



242 



