Nature has purposiveness as an Artist has purposiveness. But that
end is something which Nature, like the Artist, is always revising,
re-creating, improving, perfecting. An Artist has the general end of
creating Beauty, but he is always striving to enrich and intensify it,
to create it in greater and greater perfection. And even so does
Nature work.

* * *

As the Artist puts himself in touch with the Heart of Nature, the
dominant impression he receives is of Nature ever straining after
higher, perfection, ever striving to achieve a greater excellence, and
create beings with higher and higher, modes of life. He sees her
straining upward in the mountain, in the trees, in the climbers on the
trees, in every blade of grass. He sees the whole of life, straining to
achieve higher and higher forms, more perfect flowers, more
intelligent animals, more spiritual men. He sees the life of the seas
stretching up out of the seas on to the land. He sees the life of the
land striving to reach the highest points on the land. And he sees it
also soaring up into the air and making itself at home there, too.
Everywhere he sees evidence of aspiration and upward effort.

But he notes also that with this upward effort there goes a downward
pull. The mountain strives upward, but it is drawn down by the
forces of gravitation. The eagle soars up in the sky, but has to come
down to earth to rest and feed. The poet aspires to heaven, but has to
stop on earth and earn his daily bread.

Nature, like himself, the Artist finds, is engaged in a constant
struggle between an impulse to excentration and the necessity for
concentration. She wants to fly off to the zenith and to the horizon,
but is continually being drawn into the centre. She wants to let
herself go, but has to keep herself in. And all this is to the good. For
the necessity for concentration only serves to strengthen and refine
her aspiration. And the net result is higher and higher perfection.
She cannot rise any higher in a mountain, so she rises in a higher
form in a tree. She cannot rise any higher in a tree, so she rises in
higher form in an orchid. She cannot rise any higher in an orchid, so
she rises in higher form in a man. She cannot rise any higher in man
as an intelligent animal, so she rises in higher form in man as a
spiritual being, capable of spiritual appreciation and of spiritual
communion with her.

The gravitation to a centre--the necessity for concentration--do