RUMINATIONS 



apply to human things, and not to universal nature. 

 We do not interpret the stars when we form the 

 constellations. The grouping of the stars in the 

 heavens is accidental — the chair, the dipper, the 

 harp, the huntsman, are our fabrications. Does 

 Shelley interpret the skylark, or Wordsworth the 

 cuckoo, or Bryant the bobolink, or Whitman the 

 mockingbird and the thrush? Each interprets 

 his own heart. Each poet's mind is the die or seal 

 that gives the impression to this wax. 



All the so-called laws of Nature are of our own 

 creation. Out of an unfailing sequence of events 

 we frame laws — the law of gravity, of chemical 

 affinity, of magnetism, of electricity — and refer to 

 them as if they had an objective reality, when they 

 are only concepts in our own minds. Nature has 

 no statute books and no legislators, though we 

 habitually think of her processes under these sym- 

 bols. Human laws can be annulled, but Nature's 

 laws cannot. Her ways are irrevocable, though 

 theology revokes or suspends them in its own 

 behalf. It was Joshua's mind that stopped while 

 he conquered his enemies, and not the sun. 



The winds and the tides do not heed our prayers; 

 fire and flood, famine and pestilence, are deaf to our 

 appeals. One of the cardinal doctrines of Emerson 

 was that all true prayers are self-answered — the 

 spirit which the act of prayer begets in the sup- 

 pliant is the answer. A heartfelt prayer for faith 



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