, has stimulated to its cycles of evolutionary
change.

Individuality of type, and difference from other beings of its type,
is another mark of rank. The earth differs from every other planet,
and as a class planetary beings are extraordinarily distinct from
other beings.

Long ago the earth was called an animal; but a planet is a higher
class of being than either man or animal; not only quantitatively
greater, like a vaster and more awkward whale or elephant, but a being
whose enormous size requires an altogether different plan of life. Our
animal organization comes from our inferiority. Our need of moving to
and fro, of stretching our limbs and bending our bodies, shows only
our defect. What are our legs but crutches, by means of which, with
restless efforts, we go hunting after the things we have not inside
of ourselves. But the earth is no such cripple; why should she who
already possesses within herself the things we so painfully pursue,
have limbs analogous to ours? Shall she mimic a small part of herself?
What need has she of arms, with nothing to reach for? of a neck, with
no head to carry? of eyes or nose when she finds her way through space
without either, and has the millions of eyes of all her animals to
guide their movements on her surface, and all their noses to smell the
flowers that grow? For, as we are ourselves a part of the earth, so
our organs are her organs. She is, as it were, eye and ear over her
whole extent--all that we see and hear in separation she sees and
hears at once. She brings forth living beings of countless kinds upon
her surface, and their multitudinous conscious relations with each
other she takes up into her higher and more general conscious life.

Most of us, considering the theory that the whole terrestrial mass is
animated as our bodies are, make the mistake of working the analogy
too literally, and allowing for no differences. If the earth be a
sentient organism, we say, where are her brain and nerves? What
corresponds to her heart and lungs? In other words, we expect
functions which she already performs through us, to be performed
outside of us again, and in just the same way. But we see perfectly
well how the earth performs some of these functions in a way unlike
our way. If you speak of circulation, what need has she of a heart
when the sun keeps all the showers of rain that fall upon her and all
the springs and brooks and rivers that irrigate her, going? What need
has sh