634 VIS MEDICATRIX NATURAE 



it is also to be deplored that he is often equally unfamiliar 

 with the book of Nature. 



Man needs to sojourn with Nature in order to get certain 

 fundamental impressions without which he is impoverished, 

 the impressions from the starry sky, the pathless sea, the 

 mountain-top, the dense forest, the apple-blossom, the ant- 

 hill, the swallows flying south in autumn. Man cannot safely 

 dispense with the fundamental impressions of power, of large- 

 ness, of pervading order, of omnipresent beauty, of universal 

 flux, of intricacy, of growth, of the web of life, of adaptive- 

 ness, of evolution. Some minds weary of theories ; let them 

 by sympathetic observation hug the facts close, for thus also 

 may deeper visions of reality be gained. Let them by ob- 

 servation draw water from what an expert naturalist has 

 called " the bottomless well of surprises " (Chalmers 

 Mitchell, Finite Life and Individuality, p. 60). . ;i 



Another healing virtue in Nature is to be found in its 

 perennial problem-setting interest. It arouses our attention ; 

 it intrigues the curious spirit; it leads us on and on like 

 the tales of the Thousand and One Nights. As some one 

 said, it is like a serial story. Its study is a brain-stretching 

 exercise, and while it rewards the discoverer with both light 

 and power, it subjects him to a discipline which engenders 

 humility. For is not all our science rounded with mystery 

 mystery as to essences, mystery as to origins, mystery as 

 to mutations. What we are surest of is the fundamental 

 mysteriousness of Nature. 



3. Correspondence in Animate Nature to our Ideals of 

 the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. 



There is a legitimate scientific sense in which it may be 

 said that Man is not only a part, but a product of the system 



