THE POND IN WINTER. 
311 
a short distance from the latter line, but still on the 
line of greatest length, as the deepest. The deepest 
part was found to be within one hundred feet of this, 
still farther in the direction to which I had inclined, and 
was only one foot deeper, namely, sixty feet. Of course, 
a stream running through, or an island in the pond, 
would make the problem much more complicated. 
If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need 
only one fact, or the description of one actual phenome¬ 
non, to infer all the particular results at that point. 
Now we know only a few laws, and our result is viti¬ 
ated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in 
Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the 
calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are com¬ 
monly confined to those instances which we detect; but 
the harmony which results from a far greater number 
of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, 
which we have not detected, is still more wonderful. 
The particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the 
traveller, a mountain outline varies with every step, and 
it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely 
but one form. Even when cleft or bored through it 
is not comprehended in its entireness. 
What I have observed of the pond is no less true in 
ethics. It is the law of average. Such a rule of the 
two diameters not only guides us toward the sun in the 
system and the heart in man, but draw lines through 
the length and breadth of the aggregate of a man’s par¬ 
ticular daily behaviors and waves of life into his coves 
and inlets, and where they intersect will be the height 
or depth of his character. Perhaps we need only to 
know how his shores trend and his adjacent coun¬ 
try or circumstances, to infer his depth and concealed 
