UNDER THE MAPLES 



knows not. If the runners of her strawberries do 

 not reach their goal, the trouble corrects itself; they 

 finally stop searching for it in that direction, and 

 the impulse of the plant goes out stronger and fuller 

 on other sides. 



If the rains were especially designed to replenish 

 our springs and supply our growing crops, the 

 clouds might reasonably be expected to limit their 

 benefactions, as do our sprinkling carts; but the 

 rains are older than are we and our crops, and it is 

 we who must adjust ourselves to them, not they 

 to us. 



The All-Seeing, then, has no need of our special- 

 ized vision. Does the blood need eyes to find its 

 way to the heart and lungs? Does the wind need 

 eyes to find the fertile spots upon which to drop 

 its winged seeds? It drops them upon all spots, and 

 each kind in due time finds its proper habitat, the 

 highly specialized, such as those of the marsh plants, 

 hitting their marks as surely as do others. 



Our two eyes serve us well because our footsteps 

 are numbered and must go in a particular direc- 

 tion, but the goal of all-seeing Nature is everywhere, 

 and she arrives before she starts. She has no 

 plan and no method, and she is not governed. 



These conceptions express too little, not too 

 much. Nature's movements are circular; her 

 definite ends are enclosed in universal ends. The 

 rains fall because the vapors rise. The rain is no 



214 



