Science, Nature,-o, I've Yearned To Open Some

I Remember An Answer Which When Quite Young I Was Prompted To Make A Valued Adviser Who Was Wont To Importune Me With The Dear Old Doctrines Of The Church. On My Saying, What Have I To Do With The Sacredness Of Traditions, If I Live Wholly From Within? My Friend Suggested, - "but These Impulses May Be From Below, Not From Above." I Replied, 'they Do Not Seem To Me To Be Such; But If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then From The Devil.'

Be As Beneficent As The Sun Or The Sea, But If Your Rights As A Rational Being Are Trenched On, Die On The First Inch Of Your Territory.

There Is No Den In The Wide World To Hide A Rogue. Commit A Crime, And The Earth Is Made Of Glass. Commit A Crime, And It Seems As If A Coat Of Snow Fell On The Ground, Such As Reveals In The Woods The Track Of Every Partridge And Fox And Squirrel And Mole.

It Is, In Both Cases, That A Spiritual Life Has Been Imparted To Nature; That The Solid Seeming Block Of Matter Has Been Pervadedand Dissolved By A Thought; That This Feeble Human Being Has Penetrated The Vast Masses Of Nature With An Informing Soul, And Recognised Itself In Their Harmony, That Is, Seized Their Law. In Physics, When This Is Attained, The Memory Disburthens Itself Of Its Cumbrous Catalogues Of Particulars, And Carries Centuries Of Observation In A Single Formula.

There Is Nothing Settled In Manners, But The Laws Of Behavior Yield To The Energy Of The Individual.