Cosmos, Vol. 4

I.

What all languages designate with the term Nature—albeit through etymologically diverse and symbolizing forms—and what they call terrestrial nature, since man first relates everything to his native dwelling place, is the result of the silent cooperation of a system of driving forces. We recognize the existence of these forces only through what they move, mix, and unmix; indeed, in part, through what they develop into organic tissues that reproduce themselves in like kind (living organisms). For a receptive soul, the feeling of nature is the dim, stimulating, and uplifting impression of this prevailing of forces. First, our curiosity is captivated by the spatial proportions of our planet, a small heap of concentrated matter in the immeasurable universe. A system of cooperating, unifying, or (polarly) separating activities establishes the dependence of every part of the natural whole upon the other, both in elementary processes the formation of inorganic forms as well as in the summoning and