f the word, a Being dwelling distant and aloof from us, and
with whom, from the mere fact of his being perfect, it is most
difficult for us to be on terms of homely intimacy and affection. But
for a Being who, like our country, is one of whom we ourselves
form part, we can have not only admiration and reverence but deep
affection. We can and do love our country, for we form part of her,
and have a voice and share in making and shaping her. We know
that she cares for us, will look after us in misfortune, and will
honour and love us if we serve her well and show her loyalty and
devotion. And we can and do love Nature for precisely the same
reasons. We feel ourselves part of her, and in intimate touch with
her all round and always. And we have that which is so satisfying to
us--the feeling that there is _reciprocity_ of love between us and her.
So our love is active, and it vehemently impels us to get to know her
better and better, to get ourselves in ever closer touch with her, to
discover the utmost fulness of her Beauty, and to communicate to
others all that we have come to know and all the Beauty we have
seen, so that others may share in our enjoyment and come to love
Nature more even than we love her ourselves--love Nature in all her
aspects, love physical Nature in the mountains, seas and deserts, the
clouds, sunsets and stars, love plant Nature and animal Nature and
human Nature; and, above all, love Divine Nature as best revealed in
supreme men in their supreme moments.

In some of her aspects Nature may be stern and exacting. But she is
never sheerly hard. She is compounded of mercy and compassion as
well as of rigid orderliness. And her essential character is Love--and
Love of no impassive and insipid kind, but of a power and activity
beyond all human conception.

The importance and significance of this conclusion, if we accept it,
is that we definitely abandon the repellent conception of Nature as
governed by chance, or as cold and mechanical, or as guided solely
by the principle of the survival of the fittest, and we accept instead
the humaner and diviner view that Nature is actuated by Love; and,
accepting that more winning conception, we can enter unreservedly
into the Spirit of Nature and see her Beauty. Unless we had been
assured in our minds, without any possibility of doubt whatever, that
we could _love_ Nature, we could never really have enjoyed her
_Beauty._

* * *

So Nature is not something stat