SOUNDINGS 



seem, how they bend to the wind that would over- 

 throw them, how various they are in form and habit 

 of growth, in the shape of their leaves, the kinds of 

 their fruits, the character of their roots! Yet science 

 shows us how the unalterable physical laws rule 

 them. They lean toward the light and the free air in 

 obedience to physical and chemical laws. And yet, 

 no doubt, if the trees were conscious of themselves, 

 as we are, every oak-tree would say, " I feel free to 

 be an oak," and every pine-tree and beech and wil- 

 low and maple would feel a like freedom. The Irish- 

 man feels no compulsion or necessity in being an 

 Irishman, nor the Frenchman in being a French- 

 man. All life is held in the leash of physical and 

 chemical laws, and yet knows it not. 



We feel that there is beauty in nature; when we 

 reflect, we know that the feeling for beauty is an 

 emotion of our own minds, and not a quality of out- 

 ward things. Scenes radically different awaken the 

 emotion in us, or may awaken it in one and not in 

 another (see Emerson's ecstasy on a bare moor). 

 The world is what we make it, and duty is what we 

 make it, and the ugly is what we make it. Putrefac- 

 tion, repulsive to us, is to science a beautiful chemi- 

 cal process. Odors that are offensive to us are evi- 

 dently agreeable to the dog. Sounds which please us 

 seem to disturb him. The absolute is outside of life. 

 If the orbs of the heavens were conscious, they 

 would doubtless feel free to go where they do go; it 



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