“Such being the consummation of the clay, we give similar permission of quiet to the sand. It also becomes first a white earth; then proceeds to grow clear and hard, and at last arranges itself in mysterious, infinitely fine, parallel lines, which have the power of reflecting not only the blue rays, but the blue, green, purple, and red rays in the greatest beauty in which they can be seen through any material whatever. We call it then an opal.
“In next order the soot sets to work. It cannot make itself white at first, but it comes out clear at last, and the hardest thing in the world, and for the blackness that it contained obtains in exchange the power of reflecting all the rays of the sun at once, in the vividest rays that any solid thing can shoot. We call it then a diamond.
“Last of all, the water purifies itself, contented enough if it only reach the form of a dew-drop’ but, if we insist on its proceeding to a more perfect consistence, it crystallizes into the shape of a star. And for the ounce of slime which we had by the political economy of competition we have, by political economy of co-operation, a sapphire, an opal, and a diamond, set in the midst of a star of snow.”.
In this wonderful description we have seen the earth elements struggling in the mire of discord, until the law of unity came to work and created, out of apparently hopeless confusion, the most transcendent harmony and beauty.
You have noticed that all they require-these earth elements- that they may begin the work which is to lead them to the utmost perfection, is only that they shall be allowed absolute freedom of action, that no one should interfere with any other, and then they may work out their own salvation, each in his own way, not like any of the others, but each its best, and though separating itself, and accepting only what its own special developments require, still following the law of unity, and proving that not in concentration alone, but co-operation, there is strength.
When we speak of law in nature, we mean the formulated result of close observation of the working of nature.
Nature is behind and higher than law, or in other words, law that right interpretation of nature. It is worth our while, therefore to study nature and to observe how similarly she works in great things and small, so that beyond question the formulated result of our observation, that is, the law, which controls atoms, is the law which must govern all rightly directed life of man.
The value of the widest collection of facts, the greatest achievement of mechanical skill, the deepest insight into the source and operation of distinctive, forces and its prevention, lies in the perfect application of such special knowledge to the needs of humanity, to its best physical development.
“What matters it,” says Longfellow,”whether you or I or another did such a deed or wrote such a book, so that the deed and book were well done?” When something more of this high spirit shall permeate every branch of our medical practice, shall have become the highest directing force through which every man works, then will have dawned a new day in which the value of our work will be beyond all power of computation.
