NATURE LIKENED TO A VAST MACHINE' 191 

 natural appliance, man, thenceforth, was able 

 to steer a true course. 



The Mariner's Compass supplied the one 

 thing needful when lost on a trackless waste — 

 a knowledge of direction. 



As I have said, nature is like a vast machine, 

 all of whose parts are connected and shade 

 imperceptibly one into another, the whole 

 actuated by a mainspring — ^All-Mind. Thus, 

 the Force-of-Life flows continuously through 

 the entire system ; but, as this machine is one 

 — ^the only one — of perpetual motion, it is 

 clear there can be no loss of power or waste of 

 any kind. As surely as the life-force circu- 

 lates, keeping the wheels in motion, so surely 

 must it come round, eventually, to the source 

 of emanation, as arterial Ufe-blood returns to 

 the heart ; otherwise the machine would not 

 be one of perpetual motion, which the fact of 

 eternity proves that it is. 



O is the emblem of eternity, and rightly, 

 for it has no beginning and no end. Now we 

 observe in nature that all her works are carried 

 on by a system of circles. From every point 

 of view there appear globes, spheres, orbits 

 and cycles. As an instance of nature's cycles : 

 Vapour rises from the sea, condenses, falls on 

 the mountains, is gathered into streams, whose 

 waters find their way back to the ocean ; the 

 o 



