TIME AND CHANGE 



of mind the farthest possible removed from the 

 myth-making, the vision-seeing, the voice-hearing 

 habit and temper. In all matters relating to the vis- 

 ible, concrete universe it substitutes broad daylight 

 for twilight; it supplants fear with curiosity; it over- 

 throws superstition with fact; it blights credulity 

 with the frost of skepticism, I say frost of skepti- 

 cism advisedly. Skepticism is a much more health- 

 ful and robust habit of mind than the limp, pale- 

 blooded, non-resisting habit that we call credulity. 

 In intercourse with Nature you are dealing with 

 things at first hand, and you get a rule, a standard, 

 that serves you through life. You are dealing with 

 primal sanities, primal honesties, primal attraction; 

 you are touching at least the hem of the garment 

 with which the infinite is clothed, and virtue goes 

 out from it to you. It must be added that you are 

 dealing with primal cruelty, primal blindness, pri- 

 mal wastefulness, also. Nature works with refer- 

 ence to no measure of time, no bounds of space, and 

 no limits of material. Her economies are not our 

 economies. She is prodigal, she is careless, she is 

 indifferent; yet nothing is lost. What she lavishes 

 with one hand, she gathers in with the other. She 

 is blind, yet she hits the mark because she shoots in 

 all directions. Her germs fill the air; the winds and 

 the tides are her couriers. When you think you have 

 defeated her, your triumph is hers; it is still by her 

 laws that you reach your end. 



264 



