THE VITAL ORDER 



divest her mechanisms of the rigidity and angularity 

 that pertain to the works of our own hands. Her 

 hooks and hinges and springs and sails and coils 

 and aeroplanes, all involve mechanical contrivances, 

 but how differently they impress us from our own 

 application of the same principles! Even in inert 

 matter — in the dews, the rains, the winds, the 

 tides, the snows, the streams, — her mechanics 

 and her chemistry and her hydrostatics and pneu- 

 matics, seem much nearer akin to life than our 

 own. We must remember that Nature's machines 

 are not human machines. When we place our ma- 

 chine so that it is driven by the great universal 

 currents, — the wheel in the stream, the sail on the 

 water, — the result is much more pleasing and po- 

 etic than when propelled by artificial power. The 

 more machinery we get between ourselves and Na- 

 ture, the farther off Nature seems. The marvels 

 of crystallization, the beautiful vegetable forms 

 which the frost etches upon the stone flagging of the 

 sidewalk, and upon the window-pane, delight us and 

 we do not reason why. A natural bridge pleases 

 more than one which is the work of an engineer, yet 

 the natural bridge can only stand when it is based 

 upon good engineering principles. I found at the 

 great Colorado Canon, that the more the monu- 

 ments of erosion were suggestive of human struc- 

 tures, or engineering and architectural works, the 

 more I was impressed by them. We are pleased 



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