s fall because the vapors rise. The rain is no more an end than is
the rising vapor. Each is a part of the great circuit of beneficent and
malevolent forces upon which our life (and all life) depends, upon which
the making of the soil of the earth and the shaping of the landscape
depend; all vegetable and animal life, all the bloom and perfume of the
world, all the glory of cloud and sky, all the hazards of flood and
storm, all the terror of torrents and inundations, are in this circuit
of the waters from the sea to the sky, and back again through the rivers
to the sea. In our geologic time there is, in this circuit of the
waters, more that favors life than hinders it, else, as I so often say,
we should not be here. The enormous destruction of human life, of all
life, which has taken place and will continue to take place, in this
beneficent circuit, is only an incident in the history of the globe; the
physical forces are neither for nor against it; they are neutral; life
to be here at all has to run these risks; has to run the gantlet of
these forces, and to get many a lash and gash in the running. Against
the suffering and death incident thereto there is no insurance save in
the wit of man himself. All this wit has been developed and sharpened by
much waste and suffering. We learn to deal with difficulties through the
discipline of the difficulties themselves. If man were finally to learn
to control the rains and the floods, it would be through the experience
which they themselves bring him. The demons that destroy him are on his
side when he strikes with the strength which they give him. Gravity,
which so often crushes and overthrows him, is yet the source of all his
might. The fire that consumes his towns and cities is yet the same fire
that warms him and drives his engines across the continent.

There is no god that pities us or weeps over our sufferings, save the
god in our own breasts. We have life on heroic terms. Nature does not
baby us nor withhold from us the bitter cup. We take our chances with
all other forms of life. Our special good fortune is that we are capable
of a higher development, capable of profiting to a greater extent by
experience, than are the lower forms of life. And here is the mystery
that has no solution: we came out of the burning nebulae just as our
horse and dog, but why we are men and they are still horse and dog we
owe to some Power, or, shall I say, to the chance working of a multitude