nceived plan implies.
Order everywhere the Artist will have observed. But order need not
mean woodenness and machinery. Order is simply the absolutely
essential prerequisite of any Freedom. And it is Freedom that the
Artist everywhere observes. Nature is not closed in by the designed
overarch of an eventually-to-be-completed plan. The zenith and
horizon are always open. There is always order, but there is scope
illimitable for Nature's workings.

So the sum impression the Artist will probably receive is that Nature
is in her essential character an Artist like himself--that she creates
and goes on creating, just as he creates and goes on creating. A
painter who is a true artist and not a mere copyist paints "out of his
head," as the saying goes, pictures which are true creations
--something new and unique, though founded on and related to the
pre-existing. And there is no limit to the pictures he might paint out
of his head. He is not tied down in advance by any preconceived
plan. According as he is roused and stirred by the complex life
around him, he could--if he were physically able--go on for ever
painting picture after picture, each a new creation. In the same way a
poet could go on writing poems. The poet does not turn out poems
like a machine turns out pins, each like the other. He is not tied
down to what he writes. He writes out of his own heart what he likes.
And he does not and _could_ not turn out two poems exactly the
same. Nor does he write according to plan as the bridge-builder
works according to the plan of the engineer. He works as he goes.
He works by spontaneous creativeness. He is utterly original--a true
creator. And even so will our Artist hold that Nature works.

The letters of Nature's alphabet which the Artist sees in the forest
are not in the places they are either through mere chance or
according to a definitely prepared plan. The letters form words, the
words form lines, and the lines form poems. The Artist reads
the words and understands the meaning of the poems, and so
understands the character of the Poet--the Poet whose name is
Nature. But the Artist knows that the words and lines and poems he
sees in the forest are there as spontaneous creations from the mind
of Nature as poems arise in his own mind. And he knows that
Nature could go on--and must go on--creating these poems, painting
these pictures, for ever and ever.

Nature will, indeed, work to an end as an Artist works to an end.