TIME AND CHANGE 
of mind the farthest possible removed from the 
myth-making, the vision-seeing, the voice-hearing 
habit and temper. In all matters relating to the vis- 
ible, concrete universe it substitutes broad daylight 
for twilight; it supplants fear with curiosity; it over- 
throws superstition with fact; it blights credulity 
with the frost of skepticism. I say frost of skepti- 
cism advisedly. Skepticism is a much more health- 
ful and robust habit of mind than the limp, pale- 
blooded, non-resisting habit that we call credulity. 
In intercourse with Nature you are dealing with 
things at first hand, and you get a rule, a standard, 
that serves you through life. You are dealing with 
primal sanities, primal honesties, primal attraction; 
you are touching at least the hem of the garment 
with which the infinite is clothed, and virtue goes 
out from it to you. It must be added that you are 
dealing with primal cruelty, primal blindness, pri- 
mal wastefulness, also. Nature works with refer- 
ence to no measure of time, no bounds of space, and 
no limits of material. Her economies are not our 
economies. She is prodigal, she is careless, she is 
indifferent; yet nothing is lost. What she lavishes 
with one hand, she gathers in with the other. She 
is blind, yet she hits the mark because she shoots in 
all directions. Her germs fill the air; the winds and 
the tides are her couriers. When you think you have 
defeated her, your triumph is hers; it is still by her 
laws that you reach your end. 
264 
