Read Ebook: The Heart of Nature; or The Quest for Natural Beauty by Younghusband Francis Edward Sir

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 156 lines and 34071 words, and 4 pages

It was the working of this Spirit, with its self-improving ideal, that has produced Nature as we see her to-day. The distant ideal furnished the motive-power by which the whole is driven forward. And this ideal was itself built up by the unceasing interaction of the whole upon the parts and the parts upon the whole. What was in the parts responded to the stimulus of what was in the whole, and the whole was affected by the activity of the parts. What was immanent responded to what was transcendent. And the transcendence was affected by the immanence.

NATURE'S IDEAL

If we have been right so far, we have arrived at the position that Nature is a Personal Being in process of realising an ideal operating within herself. We have now to satisfy ourselves as to the character of that ideal. What is the full ideal working in the whole of Nature we cannot possibly know. We can only know so much of it as can be detected with our imperfect faculties on this minute atom of the Universe on which we dwell. We cannot be sure we have even discerned the highest levels of the ideal. For there may be higher beings than ourselves on the planets of the stars, and among those higher beings higher qualities than any we know of, or can conceive, may have emerged. Love is the highest quality we know. But love in any true sense of the word--love as a self-conscious activity--has only emerged with man, and man has only appeared within the last half-million of the Earth's four or five hundred million years of existence as the Earth. We cannot, therefore, presume to say what is the ideal in its highest development for the whole of Nature.

But from our experience here we can see what that ideal is up to a very high level, and we can make out what is apparently its fundamental characteristic. I obtained my best conception of it on the evening I left Lhasa at the conclusion of my Mission to Tibet in 1904, when I had an experience of such value for determining Nature's ideal, and, for me at any rate, so convincingly corroborative of the conclusions which others who have had similar experiences have drawn from them as to Nature's ideal, that I hope I may be excused for relating in some detail the circumstances in which it came to me.

These circumstances, though not the experience itself, were somewhat exceptional. I was at that particular moment at the highest pitch of existence--that is to say, of my own existence. I had had an unusually wide experience of the wild countries of that most interesting and varied of the continents--Asia, and for that reason had been specially selected for the charge of a Mission to Tibet. However ill-qualified I might be for other tasks, for this particular business of establishing neighbourly relations with a very secluded and seclusive Asiatic people, difficult of approach both on account of their natural disposition and of the mighty mountain barrier which stood between them and the rest of the world, I was esteemed to have peculiar qualifications. My comrades were also men selected for their special qualifications--one for his knowledge of the Tibetans, another for his knowledge of the Chinese, another for his knowledge of geology, and so on. The troops engaged were selected for their experience in frontier warfare, and each man had had to pass a medical test. We were at the top of our physical fitness and ripe in experience.

Besides British officers and a few British troops, there were among the soldiers Sikhs, Pathans, Gurkhas, a few Bengalis, a few Rajputs and Dogras; and among the followers were Bhutias and Lepchas from Sikkim, Baltis from Kashmir, Bhutanese from Bhutan. There were thus Christians, Mohammedans, Hindus, and Buddhists: men from an island in the Atlantic, and men from the remotest valleys of the Himalaya. And our destination had been a sacred city hidden two hundred miles behind the loftiest range of mountains in the world.

On our way we had had to battle with the elements of Nature in very nearly their extremest forms and in every variety. We started in the sweltering heat of the plains of India in the hottest season. We passed the lower outer ranges of the Himalaya in the midst of torrential rain, like the heaviest thunder-shower in England, continuing all day long and day after day with scarcely a break, and penetrating through a waterproof coat as if it were paper. Following this we had to cross the main axis of the Himalaya in January, to pass the winter at an altitude of 15,000 feet above sea-level, and face blizzards which cut through heavy fur coats and left us as if we were standing before it in our bare bones.

We had also had to battle with the Tibetans--not only in actual fighting, but in diplomacy as well. I had deliberately risked my life in order to effect a settlement by persuasion and without resort to arms. Officers and men at my request had done the same. Subsequently we had both attacked and been attacked. Five hundred of us had for two months to face the attacks of eight thousand Tibetans. Later, again, we had had a long, tough, diplomatic contest with the Tibetans.

Besides battling with the elements and with the Tibetans, I had also had to battle with my own people--as is always and inevitably the case on such occasions. Military and political considerations had to contend against each other. This local question between India and Tibet was part of the general international question of the relations of European nations, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, America, with China, for Tibet was under the suzerainty of China. Local considerations had therefore to contend with international considerations. Then from the local point of view the permanent settlement of this particular question was desirable, whereas those responsible for the international situation would not object to a temporary arrangement of this single question as long as the whole general situation could be favourably secured. The Tibetan question was part of the whole question of our relations with Russia. Our relations with Russia were connected with our relations with France. We were coming to an arrangement with France as regards Egypt and Morocco. If we did anything in Tibet which vexed Russia she might be troublesome as regards Egypt, and make it difficult to come to an arrangement with France and to bring off the Anglo-French Entente. Of all these international considerations I was kept aware by Government even in the heart of Tibet. But my position required that I should stand up for the political as against the military, the local as against the international, and the permanent settlement as against the temporary arrangement. It was my duty vigorously to battle for this--as it was equally the duty of the military and those responsible for international affairs to battle for their own point of view. And of course I had to submit, after contesting my standpoint, to the decision of those in authority; though I had to contend for the particular, it was the general which had to prevail.

In the end a settlement was reached, and in this remote city we had received congratulations from many different people in many different lands. The troops, my staff, and all about me were filled with delight at the success of our enterprise. Even the Tibetans themselves seemed pleased at the settlement; at any rate, they asked to be taken under our protection. On the morning we left Lhasa the Lama Regent, who in the absence of the Dalai Lama had conducted negotiations with us, paid us a farewell visit and gave us the impression of genuine goodwill towards us. We and the Tibetans had contended strongly against one another. But it seemed that a way had been found by which good relations between us could be maintained. We had discovered that fundamentally we were perfectly well-disposed towards each other, and means had been found for composing our differences. Throughout the Mission we had kept before us the supreme importance of securing this goodwill eventually. The Tibetan frontier runs with the Indian frontier for a thousand miles, and it would have been the height of folly to have stirred up in the Tibetans a lasting animosity. Far more important, then, than securing the actual treaty we regarded securing the permanent goodwill; and when I felt that through the exertion of my Staff and the good behaviour of the troops as well as through my own efforts the goodwill of the Tibetans really had been secured, my satisfaction was profound.

It was after enduring all these hardships, after running all these risks, and after battling in all these controversies, that this deep satisfaction came upon me. For though at times I felt, as every leader feels in like circumstances, that success must have been due to everyone else besides myself--to the backing and firm direction I had received from Government, to the sound advice and help of my Staff, to the bravery and endurance of the troops, without all or any one of which aids success would have been unattainable--yet I could not help also feeling that I had often on my own responsibility to make decisions and run risks, and to give advice to Government; and that if I had erred in my decisions or in the advice I gave or in taking the risks, success most assuredly would not have been achieved, however much support I received from elsewhere. I had, therefore, that satisfaction a man naturally feels when his special qualifications and training and the experience he has gained during the best part of his life have proved of acknowledged good to his country. And this was the frame of mind in which I rode out of Lhasa on our march homeward.

These were the circumstances in which I had the experience I now venture to describe. After arrival in camp I went off into the mountains alone. It was a heavenly evening. The sun was flooding the mountain slopes with slanting light. Calm and deep peace lay over the valley below me--the valley in which Lhasa lay. I seemed in tune with all the world and all the world seemed in tune with me. My experiences in many lands--in dear distant England; in India and China; in the forests of Manchuria, Kashmir, and Sikkim; in the desert of Gobi and the South African veldt; in the Himalaya mountains; and on many an ocean voyage; and experiences with such varied peoples as the Chinese and Boers, Tibetans and Mahrattas, Rajputs and Kirghiz--seemed all summed up in that moment. And yet here on the quiet mountain-side, filled as I was with the memories of many experiences that I had had in the high mountain solitudes and in the deserts of the world away from men, I seemed in touch with the wide Universe beyond this Earth as well.

After the high tension of the last fifteen months, I was free to let my soul relax. So I let it open itself out without restraint. And in its sensitive state it was receptive of the finest impressions and quickly responsive to every call. I seemed to be truly in harmony with the Heart of Nature. My vision seemed absolutely clear. I felt I was seeing deep into the true heart of things. With my soul's eye I seemed to see what was really in men's hearts, in the heart of mankind as a whole and in the Heart of Nature as a whole.

And my experience was this--and I try to describe it as accurately as I can. I had a curious sense of being literally in love with the world. There is no other way in which I can express what I then felt. I felt as if I could hardly contain myself for the love which was bursting within me. It seemed to me as if the world itself were nothing but love. We have all felt on some great occasion an ardent glow of patriotism. This was patriotism extended to the whole Universe. The country for which I was feeling this overwhelming intensity of love was the entire Universe. At the back and foundation of things I was certain was love--and not merely placid benevolence, but active, fervent, devoted love and nothing less. The whole world seemed in a blaze of love, and men's hearts were burning to be in touch with one another.

An additional ground I have for believing it to be true is that on that mountain-side near Lhasa I had a specially favourable opportunity of looking at the world from, as it were, a proper focal distance. And it is only from a proper focal distance that we can see what things really are. If we put ourselves right up against a picture in the National Gallery we cannot possibly see its beauty--see what the picture really is. No man is a hero to his own valet. And that is not because a man is not a hero, but because the valet is too close to see the real man. Cecil Rhodes at close quarters was peevish, irritable, and like a big spoilt child. Now at a distance we know him, with all his faults, to have been a great-souled man. Social reformers near at hand are often intolerable bores and religious fanatics frequently a pestilential nuisance. We have to get well away from a man to see him as he really is. And so it is with mankind as a whole.

So I become more and more certain that my vision was true. And the experience of the Great War strengthens my conviction. As we recede from it, what will stand out, we may be sure, are not the crimes and cruelties that have been committed and the suffering that has been caused, but the astounding heroism which was displayed, the self-sacrifice, the devotion and love of country that were shown--heroism and devotion such as have never before in the world's history been approached, and which was manifested by common everyday men and women in every branch of life and in every country.

The conclusion I reach from this experience is that I was, at the moment I had it, intimately in touch with the true Heart of Nature. In my exceptionally receptive mood I was directly experiencing the genius of Nature in the very act of inspiring and vitalising the whole. I was seeing the Divinity in the Heart streaming like light and heat through every part of Nature, and with the dominating forcefulness of love lifting each to its own high level.

THE HEART OF NATURE

What we find is that under the inspiration of the genius of Nature we are perpetually projecting in front of us a pattern or standard of what we think we ought to be, or should like to be, and of what we think our country and the world ought to be. We set up an ideal. It is generally very vague. But there is always at the back of our minds an idea of something more perfect. And this idea we bring out from time to time from its seclusion and set up before us as an end to aim at.

Sometimes we deliberately try to draw the outlines of this ideal more definitely. Each of us will picture a slightly different ideal to the rest. The ideal men will differ just as much as actual men, and the ideal countries as much as actual countries. No two will be exactly alike. And each of us will probably make his ideal man very different from himself--perhaps the exact opposite, for each will be peculiarly conscious of his own imperfections and shortcomings.

But if the ideal man which each sets up differs in small particulars from what others set up, the general outline of all will probably be very much the same, as men in general are much the same when compared with other animals. All will be based on the idea of fellowship. So aided by examples chosen from among our friends, we may here attempt to build up an ideal type of man. For the effort will help us to realise better both what Nature is aiming at and how she works.

Formerly we might have drawn this ideal man upright, straight, rigid, unbending. More recently we might have drawn him as a super-man, the fittest-to-survive kind of man, all muscular will, intent only on bending every other will to his and crashing relentlessly on through life like a bison in the forest. But nowadays we want a man with the same reliability as the upright type, but with grace and suppleness in place of rigidity; and with the same strength as the super-man, but with gentleness and consideration in proportion to the strength. We do not want a man of wood; and what we do want is not so much a super-man as a gentle-man--a man of courtesy and grace as well as strength.

He will be a man of the world in the sense of being accustomed to meet and mix with men in many different walks of life and of many different nationalities. And he will be a man of the home in the sense of being devoted to his own family circle. He will be at home in the town and at home in the country; adapted to the varied society, interests, and pursuits which town life can afford, but devoted also to the country, to the open air and elemental nature and animals and plants.

A fixed principle and firm determination with him will be to do his duty--to do his social duty, to do the right thing at whatever temporary cost to himself. The right thing for him will be that which produces most good. And he will deem that the most good which best promotes human fellowship, warms it with love, colours it with beauty, enlightens it with truth, and sweetens it with grace. Finally, and culminatingly, he will have that spirituality and fine sensitiveness of soul which will put him in touch with the true Heart of Nature and make him eagerly responsive to the subtlest promptings which spring therefrom; so he will be possessed of a profound conviction, rooted in the very depths of his being, that in doing the right thing, or in other words pursuing righteousness, he is carrying out the will and intention of that Divine Being whom we here call Nature but whom we might also call God.

This, or something like it, is the ideal of a man which most of us would form under the impress and impetus of the indwelling genius of Nature. But this ideal can only be reached by an individual when his country also has reached it. He will be driven, therefore, to make his country behave and act up to this ideal. And his country cannot so act till the general society of nations conducts itself on the same general lines. His country, therefore, will be driven to make the general society of nations behave in accordance with the principles of high fellowship.

We have made for ourselves the ideal of a man. It remains to show that the finest pitch of all is only reached in the union of man and woman. The man is not complete without the woman, nor the woman without the man. It is in their union, therefore, that the ideal in its greatest perfection will be seen. The flower which results from the working of the ideal in the Heart of Nature, as the flower of the rose results from the working of the rose-ideal in the heart of the rose-seed, we see in the love of man and woman at the supreme moment of their union. This is the very holiest thing in Nature. It is then that both the man and the woman are to the fullest extent themselves, both to be and to express all that is in them to be. They love then to their extreme capacity to love. They are gentle then to the utmost limit of tenderness. And they are strong then to the farthest stretch of their strength.

And while they thus reach the very acme of Nature's ideal so far as we men can discern it, they, at the same time and in so doing, touch the very foundations of Nature as well. Mathematicians have discovered that there is no such thing as a perfectly straight line, and that curvature is a fundamental property of the physical world. So also is it in the spiritual world. As we reach the topmost height of the ideal we find that it has curved round, and that we are at that moment at the very base and foundation. What is attracting us forward in the farthest distance in front is the very thing that is urging us forward from behind. Pinnacle and foundation, source and end, meet.

The love which attracted the man and woman together and which they keep striving to attain in higher and higher degree, is the same as the creative impulse which comes surging up from the very Heart of Nature. Direct and without ever a break it has come out of the remotest past and deepest deeps. Few seem aware of this, and yet it is an obvious fact--and a fact which vastly increases our sense of intimacy with Nature. It was due to the same impulse which has brought the man and woman together that they themselves were brought into being. Their parents had been attracted by the same vision of love and impelled by the same impulse. Their parents' parents had been similarly attracted and impelled, and so on back and back through the whole long line of ancestry, through half a million years to primitive men, back beyond them again through the long animal ancestry for scores of millions of years to the beginning of life. Even then there is no break. Direct from the very Fountain Source of Things this creative impulse has come bursting up into their hearts. At the moment of union they are straight along the direct line of the whole world-development, so far as this planet is concerned. The elemental in the natural impulse is the most ultimately elemental, for it derives itself straight from the pure Origin of Things. As they reach after the most Divine they are impelled by the most elemental. What, in fact, happens is that the elemental is inspired through and through with the Divine.

The union of man and woman is the flower of Nature. But, like the rose, it bears within it the seed from which some still more beautiful flower may result. No pair, however sublime their union, suppose that it is the best that could by any possibility at any time exist. An absolutely perfect union depends upon an absolutely perfect pair in absolutely perfect surroundings. And no one supposes that he himself is perfect or that the world around him is perfect. So there is in the pair a consciousness of imperfection, a vision of perfection, and a desperate yearning to be more perfect and to make the world more perfect. Deep and strong as the creative impulse itself is the impulse to improvement. It is due to this impulse that the mother reaches over her child with such loving care, strives to shield it from all harm, social as well as physical, and to give it a better chance than she herself enjoyed. It is due to this same impulse that the man works to leave his profession, his business, his science, his art, his country, better than he found it. It is due to this impulse also that men as a whole are driven to improve the whole Earth, to improve plants, flowers, trees, animals, men, and make the world a better place for their successors than it has ever been for them.

The pair--even the most splendid pair that has ever wedded --have deep within them this perhaps unrecognised impulse to improvement. They know that the rose can only bring forth roses, and that they can only bring forth men: they know that they cannot bring forth angels. But they know also that the rose, when wisely mated and its offspring provided with favourable surroundings of soil and air and sunshine, can give rise to blooms incomparably more perfect than itself. And they know that they themselves, if they have wisely mated, if they carefully tend their offspring and provide them with healthy, sunny, physical and social surroundings, can give rise, in generations to come, to unions of men and women incomparably more perfect than their own--as much more perfect as their union is than the unions of primitive men--richer in colour, more graceful in form, sweeter in fragrance, and of an altogether finer texture.

This, then, is the ideal in its completeness which we set up before us. But we have no sooner set it up than we find that the presence of this ideal within us makes us restless, unsatisfied, discontented, till we have set to work to bring things up to it; and that when we do start improving them we are forthwith involved in endless strife. Improvement means effort. It does not come by itself. It is only effected by strong, persistent, determined effort. It was no easy matter for the particles in the rose-seed to battle their way through the hard seed-case, strike down into the soil, send up shoots into the air, stand steadfastly to their ideal of the rose, and produce a seed capable of bringing forth a still more perfect flower. And it is no easy matter for us to burst through our own shells, strike our roots far down into the soil of common humanity and common animality, and there firmly rooted strike up skyward, stand faithfully to our ideal, and produce something which will have capacity for still further improvement. Immense and sustained effort is required of us for this to be accomplished.

Each man finds he has to battle with himself to make way for all the best in himself to come to the front. Each has to battle with the circumstances in which he is placed in order to find scope for the exercise of the best in himself. Each has to break his way through, as that wonder of Nature, poor primitive man, had to battle his way through the impediments of the tropical forests and the brute beasts by which he was surrounded. And just as primitive man was not the animal provided with the thickest hide like the rhinoceros, nor with sharpest claws like the lion, nor with the fiercest temper like the tiger, but was of all his fellows the one with the most sensitive nature, so are those nearest the ideal the most delicately sensitive of mankind.

The ideal is never approached, much less attained, except by men and women of the most highly-strung natures--natures peculiarly susceptible to pain. And with this extra susceptibility to pain they have to expose to the risk of wounds and bruises the most sensitive parts of their natures. Suffering is therefore inevitably their lot. It is the invariable attendant of progress however beneficent. Excruciating pain each expects to have to endure--as every expectant mother and every soldier anticipates on the physical plane.

Whether as captain of the eleven or as head of the house at school, as manager of an office or a business, as policeman or foreman, as corporal or Commander-in-Chief, as administrator or Prime Minister, whether as nurse, parent, or schoolmistress, a man or woman is in his position of authority directly or indirectly on the appointment or choice of those over whom he has to exercise authority. He is there to exercise authority for their benefit. They have placed him--as the public place the policeman--in authority for that purpose. And they have a right to expect that he will exercise his authority with decision, maintain discipline with firmness, and preserve order with even-handed justice. For only then can they themselves know where they are, get on with their own duties and affairs, and fulfil the law of their being. Ultimately those in authority are chosen by, and are responsible to, those over whom they exercise authority. And those who choose them expect and require them to exercise authority authoritatively.

Each in his own particular sphere, in that particular place and for the time being, has to exercise his authority with strictness. Otherwise the rest cannot fulfil their own duties. The policeman has to exercise his authority even over a Prince, as otherwise there might be chaos in the streets and no one would be able to get about his business with surety. The whole people have chosen each for his particular position of authority, and for their benefit expect him to exercise it strictly.

The people, again, spring from Nature as a whole. They are the representatives of Nature. Those in authority are therefore, in their particular province, for that particular purpose, and for the time being the representatives of Nature. They are accountable to Nature, and Nature expects them as her representatives to exercise authority with wisdom and discretion, but on the same basic principles of absolute fairness and perfect orderliness that she herself in her elemental aspects exercises her authority.

Nature may be working out her ideal on other stars through the agency of other kinds of beings more perfect than ourselves; and while the ideal in its main outlines may be the same there as the ideal which is working itself out on this planet, it may there have assumed a higher form and be more nearly attained. But on this planet the more definite formulation of the ideal and the measures for its attainment are in the hands of men. We can perfect the ideal for ourselves, and make laws and establish customs to ensure its attainment. We are not the slaves of a despotic ruler, or pawns in the hand of an external player. Within the limits of Nature's constitution, the laws we obey are laws of our own making; the authority we obey is the authority which we ourselves have set up; and both authority and laws we can change in accordance with the growing requirements of the ideal which we ourselves are perfecting.

We go forward, therefore, with inextinguishable faith in the value of what we are battling for, and in the worthwhileness of all our efforts and endurances. And though the ideal, with which Nature has inspired us makes us restless and discontented, provokes us to increasing effort, causes us endless pain and suffering, and exacts from us the sacrifice even of our lives, we nevertheless love to have the ideal, and love Nature for implanting it in us.

And now that we have seen what is the nature of Nature, what is the end she has before her, and how she works to accomplish her end, we feel that we have gone a long way towards knowing and understanding her. We have had a vision of the hidden Divinity by which she is inspired. And this mysterious Power we have not found reigning remote in the empty spaces of the heavens. We have found it dwelling in every minutest particle of which this Earth and all the world is built, and of which we ourselves also are made--dwelling in the earth, and in the air, and in the stars; and in every living thing, in beast and bird and insect, in flower, plant, and man--and dwelling in them all in their togetherness. We have found it to be both immanent and transcendent. It only exists--and can only exist--in these its single self-active representations. But in relation to each of them it is transcendent. Each star and flower, each beast and man, is its partial representation. But the whole together is that Power which while it transcends is yet resident in, and inspires, each single part which goes to its making. In the inmost heart of Nature, as the ground and source of Nature, yet permeating Nature to the uttermost confines, and reigning supreme over the whole, we find God; actuating the heart of God we find an ideal; and actuating the heart of the ideal we find an imperative urge towards perfection, an inborn necessity to perfect itself for ever--just as inside the rough exterior of Abraham Lincoln was the real Abraham Lincoln, at his heart was an ideal, and at the heart of the ideal an inner impulse towards perfection; or as within the exterior France is the real France, in the heart of France an ideal, and in the heart of the ideal the determination to perfect itself.

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.

So Nature is not something static, fixed, and immovable, determined once and for all like a rock is, at least to outward appearance. Nature is a Person, and a Person is a process. Nature flows. Nature is always moving on. As our thoughts are all connected with one another and passing into one another; as all events are connected with one another and are continually passing from one into another, and form one great all-inclusive event which is in continual process of happening; so is Nature always in process of passing from one state into another state, while the whole forms one great event for ever happening. And actuating the whole process, determining the whole great event, is an inner core of Activity which endures through all the changes. It is the "I" of Nature, which informs, directs, controls the whole from centre to utmost extremity through all space and all time. It is the Soul and Spirit, the Genius of Nature. It is what we should mean when we speak of God.

Actuated by this spirit, whose essential character is Love, the process glides smoothly, unbrokenly, and wellnigh imperceptibly forward. As we lift our eyes and look out upon Nature in its present actually existing state, what we see in that instant is the whole achievement of the past, and it contains within it here and now the promise of all the future. All the past is in the present, and in it also is the potency of the future. The achievement fills us with admiration. The promise thrills us with hope. To that Spirit which has achieved this result, which actuates the process and ourselves with it, which determines the great event, which ensures the uniformity and law and order which are the foundations of our freedom, and the essential condition of all progress, our hearts are drawn out and yearningly stretch themselves out in a love boundless as the process itself.

The more we find ourselves drawn to Nature and in harmony and love with her, the more Beauty do we see. In closest reciprocity Love of Nature inspires Natural Beauty and Natural Beauty promotes Love of Nature. And it is from the Heart of Nature that both Love and Beauty spring. Both also remain permanent and everlasting through all the changing processes of Nature--permanent but ever increasing in depth and height and volume. The promise of all the Love and Beauty of to-day was hidden in the womb of the past. In the womb of to-day is contained the promise of a Love and Beauty still more glorious. And ours it is to bring them into being.

PART II

NATURAL BEAUTY AND GEOGRAPHY

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, DELIVERED AT THE ANNIVERSARY MEETING, MAY 31, 1920

NATURAL BEAUTY AND GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE

I have something to say which to old-fashioned geographers may appear very revolutionary, and which you may hesitate to accept straight away. But it has come to me as the result of much and varied geographical work in the field; of listening to many lectures before this Society; and of composing this Address and five lectures for you, firstly, as far back as 1888, on my journey across Central Asia from Peking to India; secondly, on my journey to Hunza and the Pamirs; thirdly, on Chitral; fourthly, on my mission to Tibet; and fifthly, on the Himalaya. And I expect when you come to think over what I have now to say you will find that, after all, my conclusions are not anything desperately revolutionary but something quite obvious and natural.

I will state my case as clearly and briefly as I can. Geography is a science. Science is learning, knowing, understanding. The object of geographical learning, knowing, understanding is the Earth. We must first, then, have a true conception of what the Earth really is. And next we must be certain in our minds as to what is most worth knowing about it.

To begin with our conception of the Earth. At the dawn of Geography it was believed to be a flat disc. Later it was discovered to be a sphere. Then it was found to be not a hard solid sphere like a billiard-ball, but to be hard only on the surface, and within to be quick with fervent heat. Now it is coming to be regarded as spirit as well as body--as in its essential nature spiritual rather than material.

Running through the whole mighty swarm of electrons we call the Earth is a tendency to order, organisation, and system. The myriad millions of ultimate particles in their all-togetherness and from their interaction upon one another become possessed of an imperative urge towards excellence. The electrons group themselves into atoms; the atoms clump themselves together into molecules; the molecules combine into chemical compounds, and these into organisms of ever-increasing size and complexity. So in the process of the ages there came into being, from out of the very Earth itself, first, lowly forms of plants and animals, then higher and higher forms exhibiting higher and higher qualities, till the flowers of the field, the animals, and man himself came into existence.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet