MAN AND NATURE 



revelled; and man must slave day in and day out to 

 prepare food to meet the requirements of their pam- 

 pered appetites. 



He must struggle, too, to protect them from disease, 

 and must care for them in time of illness as sedulously 

 as he cares for his own kith and kin. Truly the ox 

 is keeper of the man, and the seeming conquest that 

 man has wrought has cost him dear. 



But of course the story has another side. After all, 

 Nature is not so malevolent as at first glance she seems. 

 She has opposed man at every stage of his attempted 

 progress; yet at the same time she has supplied him 

 all his weapons for waging war upon her. Her great 

 power of gravitation opposes every effort he makes; 

 yet without that same power he could do nothing he 

 could not walk or stay upon the earth even; and no 

 structure that he builds would hold in place for an 

 instant. 



So, too, the wind that smites him and tears at his 

 handiwork, may be made to serve the purposes of turn- 

 ing his windmills and supplying him with power. 



The water will serve a like purpose in turning his 

 mills; and, changed to steam with the aid of Nature's 

 store of coal, will make his steam engines and dynamos 

 possible. Even the lightning he will harness and make 

 subject to his will in the telegraphic currents and 

 dynamos. 



And in the fields, the grains which man struggles so 

 arduously to produce are after all no thing of his creating. 

 They are only adopted products of Nature, which he 

 has striven to make serve his purpose by growing them 



[5] 



