NATURE AND NATURAL HISTORY 



contradiction? Because in man appears something 

 that appears nowhere else in Nature — the gift of 

 reason, or the soul. This turns upon Nature and 

 judges her, and does with her forces what they can- 

 not do with one another. 



Man makes new combinations, he links together 

 that which Nature has sundered, and he sunders 

 what Nature has linked together, and gets power 

 through each process. He adds nothing; he has 

 nothing to add; his wit is the new factor. It brings 

 about new situations, it redistributes the natural 

 forces and elements. It uses Nature's mechanics to 

 new ends, it uses Nature's chemistry to make new 

 compounds, it ties them together so delicately that 

 a spark or a blow releases tremendous energy. If 

 Nature did this herself as man does, the sphere 

 would have been blown to atoms long ago. Man 

 controls. He gives the upper hand to one force over 

 another. Nature lets her dogs fight it out, lets the 

 fire rage, lets the floods roar, lets the winds destroy. 

 She has no special end as man has. In the inorganic 

 world her forces seek a deadlock, or a stalemate, but 

 her complex of forces is so vast that an equilibrium 

 is never reached, or is constantly broken up. The 

 waters seek the sea, but cannot stay there. The laws 

 of heat tend to reduce all to a uniform temperature 

 with the death of all life, but this never really comes 

 about. 



305 



