This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1904. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... IV Man and Nature 'T DEGREESHE material of culture is as wide and various as life itself; and to the man who puts himself in right relations with his fellows and the world nothing is devoid of educational quality. It is one of the characteristics of true culture that it not only adds steadily to one's knowledge, but as steadily develops the capacity for acquiring knowledge, and the instinct for discovering in every person, relation, event, and experience something of permanent value as a means of enrichment. And this process goes on until the great stream of life, as it sweeps past and eddies about the individual mind, becomes a true Pactolian river, bringing its wealth from a thousand sources and draining a world-wide experience for the enlargement of each open soul. When a man has established such a relation with the order which surrounds him that every contact with that order disciplines, informs, and broadens him, he has come into harmony with the purpose which that order is working out, and has raised himself above the changes of external fortune and the happenings of the material life. Among the most important of these ministers to culture -- religion, art, literature, science, human relations, activity, and experience -- Nature holds a first place. For Nature antedates all the arts and sciences, and was involved in those earliest experiences which attended the maintenance of the individual life before any social relations were possible. The intimacy between man and Nature began with the birth of man on the earth, and becomes each century more intelligent and far-reaching. To Nature, therefore, we turn as to the oldest and most influential teacher of our race; from one point of view once our task-master, now our servant; from another point of view, our constant f...