RUMINATIONS 



for her creatures, she lessens the number of mouths 

 to be fed. A surplus of food, on the other hand, 

 tends to multiply the mouths. 



Man often introduces an element of disorder into 

 Nature. His work in deforesting the land brings 

 on floods and the opposite conditions of drought. 

 He destroys the natural checks and compensations. 



VI. COSMIC RHYTHMS 



The swells that beat upon the shores of the ocean 

 are not merely the result of a local agitation of the 

 waters. The pulse of the earth is in them. The 

 pulse of the sun and the moon is in them. They 

 are more cosmic than terrestrial. The earth wears 

 her seas like a loose garment which the sun and 

 moon constantly pluck at and shift from side to 

 side. Only the ocean feels the tidal impulse, the 

 heavenly influences. The great inland bodies of 

 water are unresponsive to them — they are too small 

 for the meshes of the solar and lunar net. Is it not 

 equally true that only great souls are moved by the 

 great fundamental questions of life? What a 

 puzzle the tides must have been to early man! 

 What proof they afford of the cosmic forces that 

 play upon us at all times and hold us in their net! 

 Without the proof they afford, we should not know 

 how we are tied to the solar system. The lazy, 

 reluctant waters — how they follow the sun and 

 moon, "with fluid step," as Whitman says, **round 



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