"Emerson, Ralph W. - The Method of Nature" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Ralph Waldo)

In treating a subject so large, in which we must necessarily
appeal to the intuition, and aim much more to suggest, than to
describe, I know it is not easy to speak with the precision
attainable on topics of less scope. I do not wish in attempting to
paint a man, to describe an air-fed, unimpassioned, impossible ghost.
My eyes and ears are revolted by any neglect of the physical facts,
the limitations of man. And yet one who conceives the true order of
nature, and beholds the visible as proceeding from the invisible,
cannot state his thought, without seeming to those who study the
physical laws, to do them some injustice. There is an intrinsic
defect in the organ. Language overstates. Statements of the
infinite are usually felt to be unjust to the finite, and
blasphemous. Empedocles undoubtedly spoke a truth of thought, when
he said, "I am God;" but the moment it was out of his mouth, it
became a lie to the ear; and the world revenged itself for the
seeming arrogance, by the good story about his shoe. How can I hope
for better hap in my attempts to enunciate spiritual facts? Yet let
us hope, that as far as we receive the truth, so far shall we be felt
by every true person to say what is just.

The method of nature: who could ever analyze it? That rushing
stream will not stop to be observed. We can never surprise nature in
a corner; never find the end of a thread; never tell where to set the
first stone. The bird hastens to lay her egg: the egg hastens to be
a bird. The wholeness we admire in the order of the world, is the
result of infinite distribution. Its smoothness is the smoothness of
the pitch of the cataract. Its permanence is a perpetual inchoation.
Every natural fact is an emanation, and that from which it emanates
is an emanation also, and from every emanation is a new emanation.
If anything could stand still, it would be crushed and dissipated by
the torrent it resisted, and if it were a mind, would be crazed; as
insane persons are those who hold fast to one thought, and do not
flow with the course of nature. Not the cause, but an ever novel
effect, nature descends always from above. It is unbroken obedience.
The beauty of these fair objects is imported into them from a
metaphysical and eternal spring. In all animal and vegetable forms,
the physiologist concedes that no chemistry, no mechanics, can
account for the facts, but a mysterious principle of life must be
assumed, which not only inhabits the organ, but makes the organ.

How silent, how spacious, what room for all, yet without place
to insert an atom, -- in graceful succession, in equal fulness, in
balanced beauty, the dance of the hours goes forward still. Like an
odor of incense, like a strain of music, like a sleep, it is inexact
and boundless. It will not be dissected, nor unravelled, nor shown.
Away profane philosopher! seekest thou in nature the cause? This
refers to that, and that to the next, and the next to the third, and
everything refers. Thou must ask in another mood, thou must feel it
and love it, thou must behold it in a spirit as grand as that by