FIELD AND STUDY 



upon our bodies with a weight of many tons and 

 running by its weight our machinery of life, yet as 

 unfelt as any feather. Our relation to it is so deli- 

 cate, so constant, so harmonious, so all-embracing, 

 that we are unconscious of it till "we turn about and 

 cross-question it. All our major relations to nature 

 are of a similar kind. We do have to take thought 

 about our food and shelter and clothing, but not 

 about breathing or gravity, or the rain, or the sun- 

 light. Through the air, through gravity, through 

 light, through climate, through geology, through 

 astronomy, nature constantly acts upon us. A child 

 in its mother's womb is no closer linked to its 

 mother than we are all our lives to what we call na- 

 ture. The source of all our strength, namely, gravity, 

 we are all unconscious of, unless we cross it or 

 defy it. Mother Nature carries us* in her womb and 

 we know it not till we meet with the new birth of 

 reason. Then we know our mother and see and feel 

 our kinship and sonship towards her. Science opens 

 our eyes to the truth of the facts that the poets and 

 prophets have sung in all ages. We see with our 

 reason what men in all ages have felt in their hearts. 



§ 

 How contrary to Nature man seems! How he 

 crosses her and forces her and masters her, and im- 

 proves upon her, and makes her his slave, and yet he 

 is also a part of Nature. She is his*banker; from her 

 vaults come all his funds. Whence this apparent 

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