42 THE INTERNAL 



Nature offers a direct contrast to this. Accustomed, 

 from our youth upward, to see her works outspread before 

 us in eternally renewing riches, we commonly pass them 

 coldly by. The contemplative mind is attracted by her, 

 and begins to divine, with a kind of softened terror, the 

 mysterious powers in action round us. With what wondrous 

 means, we think, must not this great artist be provided ! 

 What wondrous chains of powers, yet unknown, must 

 there not yet lie hidden in her bosom ! Science seeks 

 the solution of this enigma, and in trembling assumes its 

 task, fearful lest perhaps human intelligence be unequal 

 to comprehend and grasp a complexity so marvellously 

 interwoven, and the farther we penetrate, the greater waxes 

 our amazement. Every step brings us to a simple solution 

 of an entangled question ; every compound phenomenon 

 directs us back to simpler causes and forces, and our 

 astonishment becomes at last converted into devout 

 adoration, when we behold with what small means Nature 

 attains the most stupendous results. By the simple 

 relation, that bodies in motion have a mutual attraction, 

 Nature arches over us the whole starry heavens and 

 prescribes to the sun and its planets their undeviating 

 courses. But we need not ascend to the stars, to 

 recognize how little Nature requires to the unfolding of 

 wonders. 



Let us tarry a moment with the vegetable world. From 

 the slender palm, waving its elegant crown in the refreshing 

 breezes, high aloft over the hot vapours of the Brazilian 

 forests, to the delicate moss, barely an inch in length, 

 which clothes our damp grottos with its phosphorescent 

 verdure, from the splendid flower of Victoria Regina with 

 its rosy leaves cradled in the silent floods of the lakes of 

 Guiana, to the inconspicuous yellow blossom of the 



