ntinually, and makes the roots clench the ground
with their fibrous fingers as a purchase against the storm, and at
last holds aloft its tons of matter against the constant tug and
wrath of gravitation, and swings its Briarean arms in triumph, in
defiance of the gale. Were it not for this energetic essence that
crouches in the acorn and stretches its limbs every year, there
would be no oak; the matter that clothes it would enjoy its stupid
slumber; and when the forest monarch stands up in his sinewy,
lordliest pride, let the pervading life-power, and its vassal
forces that weigh nothing at all, be annihilated, and the whole
structure would wither in a second to inorganic dust. So every
gigantic fact in Nature is the index and vesture of a gigantic
force. Everything which we call organization that spots the
landscape of Nature is a revelation of secret force that has been
wedded to matter, and if the spiritual powers that have thus
domesticated themselves around us should be canceled, the whole
planet would be a huge Desert of Sahara--a bleak sand-ball, without
shrub, grass-blade or moss.

As we rise in the scale of forces towards greater subtility, the
forces become more important and efficient. Water is more
intimately concerned with life than rock, air higher in the rank of
service than water, electric and magnetic agencies more powerful
than air; and light, the most delicate, is the supreme magician of
all. Just think how much expenditure of mechanical strength is
necessary to water a city in the hot summer months. What pumping
and tugging and wearisome trudging of horses with the great
sprinklers over the tedious pavement! But see by what beautiful
and noiseless force Nature waters the world! The sun looks steadily
on the ocean, and its beams lift lakes of water into the air,
tossing it up thousands of feet with their delicate fingers, and
carefully picking every grain of salt from it before they let it
go. No granite reservoirs are needed to hold in the Cochituates and
Crotons of the atmosphere, but the soft outlines of the clouds hem
in the vast weight of the upper tides that are to cool the globe,
and the winds harness themselves as steeds to the silken caldrons
and hurry them along through space, while they disburse their
rivers of moi