24 Education through Nature 



Brahmin so far to emancipate himself from nature 

 as even to torture his own body, in order that he may 

 be released from it, and be merged into an eternal 

 unconsciousness, called Nirvana. Modern science 

 has no attractions for him. The Hindoo is a fair 

 sample of what a failure to return to nature means. 

 Nirvana is a state outside the realm of natural law. 



The western mind, notwithstanding the renaissance, 

 did not become so thoroughly artificial. The great 

 variety of natural features, such as climate, relief, 

 coast line, and water communication, which con- 

 tributed so considerably to the development of Greek 

 and Roman civilization by their interactions, was 

 felt throughout all Europe, and gave rise to that com- 

 merce and intercommunication between different 

 races which has always tended to develop the prac- 

 tical side of man's powers. 



The return to nature was, therefore, not a return 

 to barbarism, but rather the application of the mind 

 to nature, after that mind had won its freedom and 

 mastered the arts of culture. // meant an appeal to 

 nature for standards wherewith to guide the liberated 

 mind; for the mind, being not wholly a law unto itself, 

 but necessarily related to things outside itself, must 

 conform to that which it would understand and master. 

 Men thus learned to know nature in the light of free- 

 dom. Democracy became possible when this freedom 

 of the mind enabled it to grasp the ethical idea which 

 nature teaches in its interdependence, and which is, 

 at bottom, in accord with the ethics of Christianity. 

 In such society of freemen, made stable by the recog- 

 nition of ethical laws, the development of modern 

 science became possible. 



Science and Culture. 



Science is often spoken of as a social product. In 

 the first place, no single individual is able to master 



