The sacrifices which the irregular
violence of Nature draws from reason must at least weary, satisfy, and
reconcile that violence. The force which has caused injury by acting
without rule cannot be intended to do so in that way any longer, it
cannot be destined to renew itself; it must be used up, from this time
forth and forever, by that one outbreak. All those outbreaks of
rude force, before which human power vanishes into nothing--those
desolating hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, can be nothing else but
the final struggle of the wild mass against the lawfully progressive,
life-giving, systematic course to which it is compelled, contrary to
its own impulse. They can be nothing but the last concussive strokes
in the formation of our globe, now about to perfect itself. That
opposition must gradually become weaker and at last exhausted, since,
in the lawful course of things, there can be nothing that should renew
its power. That formation must at last be perfected, and our destined
abode complete. Nature must gradually come into a condition in which
we can count with certainty upon her equal step, and in which her
power shall keep unaltered a definite relation with that power which
is destined to govern it, that is, the human. So far as this relation
already exists and the systematic development of Nature has gained
firm footing, the workmanship of man, by its mere existence and its
effects, independent of any design on the part of the author, is
destined to react upon Nature and to represent in her a new and
life-giving principle.
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