426 Life as a Fine Art. 



And again the Spirit of this high philosophy saith, Love 

 Nature She is our bountiful mother. But do not view 

 her too much at close quarters. Seek for the right perspect- 

 ive. Cultivate that form of observation that sees more in 

 the object looked at than its mere outlines and limitations, 

 or the details of its structural imperfections. Apprehend 

 the halo of the infinite which crowns and transfigures every 

 finite object. The perception of beauty in Nature is an 

 acquired faculty. Primitive man had it not. There is little 

 note of it in the earlier literatures. Many even of our own 

 time have but a vague appreciation of it. It deepens in the 

 individual soul with the growing life. It takes the hue and 

 color of our thought. What we see in Nature is not her- 

 self alone, but herself plus our own awakened sensibilities, 

 moral and spiritual no less than physical and intellectual. 

 The Persian aphorism is hardly less true of man than of 

 Deity : " God maketh of every atom of the universe a mir- 

 ror, and fronteth each with his perfect face." If the un- 

 yielding laws of Nature the savagery and struggle of the 

 past her harshness and severity, oppress us ; if we incline 

 to pronounce her not only unmoral but immoral ; if we see 

 in her no promise for man, the fault is probably in our own 

 mental deficiencies. "When the archer fails to hit the 

 mark," says Confucius, " he turns around and looks for the 

 cause of his failure in himself." Nature, viewed rightly, 

 holds up a mirror to the soul. All the imaginary pictures- 

 of the New Jerusalem, from that of the Apocalypse to those 

 of Swedenborg or the modern spiritualist, how mechanical, 

 how wooden they are ! How infinitely inferior in beauty and 

 attractiveness to our own abused and despised little world ! 



Finally the Art-Spirit counseleth us, Love life. Drink 

 deep from its crystal spring. Do not fear to prize life too 

 highly. What it lacks for you now, put into it by your own 

 wise activities. Life has much for you by nature by in- 

 heritance. It may be much more to you under the influence 

 of the art-spirit. Here, if anywhere, in our perception of 

 the infinite value of life of human life as the final product 

 on this earth of the long travail of Nature we must find the 

 rational basis of an immortal hope. That which is the su- 

 preme product of Nature's long evolutionary travail the 

 self-conscious individuality of a moral being she may find 

 means to continue beyond the boundaries of our present ex- 

 istence. Boundless are the possibilities of the Kosmos, 



