CHAPTER III 



RESPONSIBILITY IN RELATION TO NATURE 



Observation of life in any stage of organization will 

 show that the great priniciple upon which actual conduct is 

 based and in which its comprehension is to be sought is 

 Responsibility. Responsibility is the condition of liability 

 for the consequences of all action and inaction. Every event 

 or happening, whether of animate nature, or inanimate, 

 becomes a source or center from which successive events 

 arise, or from which these are influenced, by the primary 

 force; until, little by little, its effect ceases to be perceptible. 

 Even after that the impulse continues for a time, long or 

 short, or indefinite. For example, a boulder falling dis- 

 lodged by a storm, may block a stream and then may be- 

 come an obstruction or dam, and raise the stream's level 

 above it, so as to change the shores and even compel the 

 running water to take a new course around it, and this may 

 in turn cause erosion of a bank which will wash into the 

 water, and surcharge it with minerals; and from such a 

 change it may happen that soil of a certain kind is deposited 

 in a place where hitherto there has been only soil of other 

 kinds; and this deposit, being covered up, may become a 

 geological specimen to be preserved for ages by its burial. 

 It is evident that for some time to come this region would 



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