Space, time, society, labor1, climate, food, locomotion2, the animals, the mechanical forces, give us sincerest lessons, day by day, whose meaning is unlimited3. They educate both the Understanding and the Reason. Every property of matter is a school for the understanding, — its solidity or resistance, its inertia4, its extension, its figure, its divisibility. The understanding adds, divides, combines, measures, and finds nutriment and room for its activity in this worthy5 scene. Meantime, Reason transfers all these lessons into its own world of thought, by perceiving the analogy that marries Matter and Mind.
1. Nature is a discipline of the understanding in intellectual truths. Our dealing6 with sensible objects is a constant exercise in the necessary lessons of difference, of likeness7, of order, of being and seeming, of progressive arrangement; of ascent8 from particular to general; of combination to one end of manifold forces. Proportioned to the importance of the organ to be formed, is the extreme care with which its tuition is provided, — a care pretermitted in no single case. What tedious training, day after day, year after year, never ending, to form the common sense; what continual reproduction of annoyances9, inconveniences, dilemmas10; what rejoicing over us of little men; what disputing of prices, what reckonings of interest, — and all to form the Hand of the mind; — to instruct us that “good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed!”
The same good office is performed by Property and its filial systems of debt and credit. Debt, grinding debt, whose iron face the widow, the orphan11, and the sons of genius fear and hate; — debt, which consumes so much time, which so cripples and disheartens a great spirit with cares that seem so base, is a preceptor whose lessons cannot be forgone12, and is needed most by those who suffer from it most. Moreover, property, which has been well compared to snow, — “if it fall level to-day, it will be blown into drifts to-morrow,” — is the surface action of internal machinery13, like the index on the face of a clock. Whilst now it is the gymnastics of the understanding, it is hiving in the foresight14 of the spirit, experience in profounder laws.
The whole character and fortune of the individual are affected15 by the least inequalities in the culture of the understanding; for example, in the perception of differences. Therefore is Space, and therefore Time, that man may know that things are not huddled16 and lumped, but sundered17 and individual. A bell and a plough have each their use, and neither can do the office of the other. Water is good to drink, coal to burn, wool to wear; but wool cannot be drunk, nor water spun18, nor coal eaten. The wise man shows his wisdom in separation, in gradation, and his scale of creatures and of merits is as wide as nature. The foolish have no range in their scale, but suppose every man is as every other man. What is not good they call the worst, and what is not hateful, they call the best.
In like manner, what good heed19, nature forms in us! She pardons no mistakes. Her yea is yea, and her nay20, nay.
The first steps in Agriculture, Astronomy, Zoology21, (those first steps which the farmer, the hunter, and the sailor take,) teach that nature’s dice22 are always loaded; that in her heaps and rubbish are concealed23 sure and useful results.
How calmly and genially24 the mind apprehends25 one after another the laws of physics! What noble emotions dilate26 the mortal as he enters into the counsels of the creation, and feels by knowledge the privilege to BE! His insight refines him. The beauty of nature shines in his own breast. Man is greater that he can see this, and the universe less, because Time and Space relations vanish as laws are known.
Here again we are impressed and even daunted27 by the immense Universe to be explored. “What we know, is a point to what we do not know.” Open any recent journal of science, and weigh the problems suggested concerning Light, Heat, Electricity, Magnetism28, Physiology29, Geology, and judge whether the interest of natural science is likely to be soon exhausted30.
Passing by many particulars of the discipline of nature, we must not omit to specify32 two.
The exercise of the Will or the lesson of power is taught in every event. From the child’s successive possession of his several senses up to the hour when he saith, “Thy will be done!” he is learning the secret, that he can reduce under his will, not only particular events, but great classes, nay the whole series of events, and so conform all facts to his character. Nature is thoroughly33 mediate34. It is made to serve. It receives the dominion35 of man as meekly36 as the ass31 on which the Saviour37 rode. It offers all its kingdoms to man as the raw material which he may mould into what is useful. Man is never weary of working it up. He forges the subtile and delicate air into wise and melodious38 words, and gives them wing as angels of persuasion39 and command. One after another, his victorious40 thought comes up with and reduces all things, until the world becomes, at last, only a realized will, — the double of the man.
2. Sensible objects conform to the premonitions of Reason and reflect the conscience. All things are moral; and in their boundless41 changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature. Therefore is nature glorious with form, color, and motion, that every globe in the remotest heaven; every chemical change from the rudest crystal up to the laws of life; every change of vegetation from the first principle of growth in the eye of a leaf, to the tropical forest and antediluvian42 coal-mine; every animal function from the sponge up to Hercules, shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong, and echo the Ten Commandments. Therefore is nature ever the ally of Religion: lends all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment. Prophet and priest, David, Isaiah, Jesus, have drawn43 deeply from this source. This ethical44 character so penetrates45 the bone and marrow46 of nature, as to seem the end for which it was made. Whatever private purpose is answered by any member or part, this is its public and universal function, and is never omitted. Nothing in nature is exhausted in its first use. When a thing has served an end to the uttermost, it is wholly new for an ulterior service. In God, every end is converted into a new means. Thus the use of commodity, regarded by itself, is mean and squalid. But it is to the mind an education in the doctrine47 of Use, namely, that a thing is good only so far as it serves; that a conspiring48 of parts and efforts to the production of an end, is essential to any being. The first and gross manifestation49 of this truth, is our inevitable50 and hated training in values and wants, in corn and meat.
It has already been illustrated51, that every natural process is a version of a moral sentence. The moral law lies at the centre of nature and radiates to the circumference52. It is the pith and marrow of every substance, every relation, and every process. All things with which we deal, preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff53 and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight54, rain, insects, sun, — it is a sacred emblem55 from the first furrow56 of spring to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in the fields. But the sailor, the shepherd, the miner, the merchant, in their several resorts, have each an experience precisely57 parallel, and leading to the same conclusion: because all organizations are radically59 alike. Nor can it be doubted that this moral sentiment which thus scents60 the air, grows in the grain, and impregnates the waters of the world, is caught by man and sinks into his soul. The moral influence of nature upon every individual is that amount of truth which it illustrates61 to him. Who can estimate this? Who can guess how much firmness the sea-beaten rock has taught the fisherman? how much tranquillity62 has been reflected to man from the azure63 sky, over whose unspotted deeps the winds forevermore drive flocks of stormy clouds, and leave no wrinkle or stain? how much industry and providence64 and affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes65? What a searching preacher of self-command is the varying phenomenon of Health!
Herein is especially apprehended67 the unity68 of Nature, — the unity in variety, — which meets us everywhere. All the endless variety of things make an identical impression. Xenophanes complained in his old age, that, look where he would, all things hastened back to Unity. He was weary of seeing the same entity69 in the tedious variety of forms. The fable70 of Proteus has a cordial truth. A leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world.
Not only resemblances exist in things whose analogy is obvious, as when we detect the type of the human hand in the flipper71 of the fossil saurus, but also in objects wherein there is great superficial unlikeness. Thus architecture is called “frozen music,” by De Stael and Goethe. Vitruvius thought an architect should be a musician. “A Gothic church,” said Coleridge, “is a petrified72 religion.” Michael Angelo maintained, that, to an architect, a knowledge of anatomy73 is essential. In Haydn’s oratorios74, the notes present to the imagination not only motions, as, of the snake, the stag, and the elephant, but colors also; as the green grass. The law of harmonic sounds reappears in the harmonic colors. The granite75 is differenced in its laws only by the more or less of heat, from the river that wears it away. The river, as it flows, resembles the air that flows over it; the air resembles the light which traverses it with more subtile currents; the light resembles the heat which rides with it through Space. Each creature is only a modification76 of the other; the likeness in them is more than the difference, and their radical58 law is one and the same. A rule of one art, or a law of one organization, holds true throughout nature. So intimate is this Unity, that, it is easily seen, it lies under the undermost garment of nature, and betrays its source in Universal Spirit. For, it pervades77 Thought also. Every universal truth which we express in words, implies or supposes every other truth. Omne verum vero consonat. It is like a great circle on a sphere, comprising all possible circles; which, however, may be drawn, and comprise it, in like manner. Every such truth is the absolute Ens seen from one side. But it has innumerable sides.
The central Unity is still more conspicuous78 in actions. Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop, and impoverish79 it. An action is the perfection and publication of thought. A right action seems to fill the eye, and to be related to all nature. “The wise man, in doing one thing, does all; or, in the one thing he does rightly, he sees the likeness of all which is done rightly.”
Words and actions are not the attributes of brute66 nature. They introduce us to the human form, of which all other organizations appear to be degradations80. When this appears among so many that surround it, the spirit prefers it to all others. It says, ‘From such as this, have I drawn joy and knowledge; in such as this, have I found and beheld81 myself; I will speak to it; it can speak again; it can yield me thought already formed and alive.’ In fact, the eye, — the mind, — is always accompanied by these forms, male and female; and these are incomparably the richest informations of the power and order that lie at the heart of things. Unfortunately, every one of them bears the marks as of some injury; is marred82 and superficially defective83. Nevertheless, far different from the deaf and dumb nature around them, these all rest like fountain-pipes on the unfathomed sea of thought and virtue84 whereto they alone, of all organizations, are the entrances.
It were a pleasant inquiry85 to follow into detail their ministry86 to our education, but where would it stop? We are associated in adolescent and adult life with some friends, who, like skies and waters, are coextensive with our idea; who, answering each to a certain affection of the soul, satisfy our desire on that side; whom we lack power to put at such focal distance from us, that we can mend or even analyze87 them. We cannot choose but love them. When much intercourse88 with a friend has supplied us with a standard of excellence89, and has increased our respect for the resources of God who thus sends a real person to outgo our ideal; when he has, moreover, become an object of thought, and, whilst his character retains all its unconscious effect, is converted in the mind into solid and sweet wisdom, — it is a sign to us that his office is closing, and he is commonly withdrawn90 from our sight in a short time.
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1
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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locomotion
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| n.运动，移动 | |
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unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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annoyances
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| n.恼怒( annoyance的名词复数 )；烦恼；打扰；使人烦恼的事 | |
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dilemmas
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| n.左右为难( dilemma的名词复数 )；窘境，困境 | |
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orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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forgone
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| v.没有也行，放弃( forgo的过去分词 ) | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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sundered
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| v.隔开，分开( sunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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zoology
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| n.动物学，生态 | |
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dice
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| n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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apprehends
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的第三人称单数 )； 理解 | |
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dilate
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| vt.使膨胀，使扩大 | |
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daunted
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| 使（某人）气馁，威吓( daunt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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magnetism
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| n.磁性，吸引力，磁学 | |
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physiology
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| n.生理学，生理机能 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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specify
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| vt.指定，详细说明 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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mediate
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| vi.调解，斡旋；vt.经调解解决；经斡旋促成 | |
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dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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42
antediluvian
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| adj.史前的，陈旧的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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penetrates
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| v.穿过( penetrate的第三人称单数 )；刺入；了解；渗透 | |
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marrow
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| n.骨髓；精华；活力 | |
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47
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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48
conspiring
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| 密谋( conspire的现在分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
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49
manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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50
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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51
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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52
circumference
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| n.圆周，周长，圆周线 | |
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53
chaff
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| v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳 | |
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54
blight
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| n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残 | |
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55
emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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56
furrow
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| n.沟；垄沟；轨迹；车辙；皱纹 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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59
radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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60
scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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illustrates
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的第三人称单数 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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brutes
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| 兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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entity
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| n.实体，独立存在体，实际存在物 | |
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fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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71
flipper
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| n. 鳍状肢，潜水用橡皮制鳍状肢 | |
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72
petrified
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| adj.惊呆的；目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆，使惊呆；变僵硬；使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
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anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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oratorios
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| n.（以宗教为主题的）清唱剧，神剧( oratorio的名词复数 ) | |
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granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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modification
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| n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻 | |
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pervades
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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impoverish
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| vt.使穷困，使贫困 | |
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degradations
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| 堕落( degradation的名词复数 )； 下降； 陵削； 毁坏 | |
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81
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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82
marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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83
defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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84
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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85
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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86
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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87
analyze
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| vt.分析，解析 (=analyse) | |
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88
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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89
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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90
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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