Thoughts on Art and Life Part 21

[Sidenote: Earth not the Center of Universe]

49.

The earth is not the centre of the orbit of the sun, nor the centre of the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements and united with them; and if any one were to stand on the moon when the moon and the sun are beneath us, our earth, with its element of water, would appear and shine for him just as the moon appears and shines for us.

50.

The earth, shining like the moon, has lost a great part of its ancient splendour by the decrease of the waters.

51.

Nothing is generated in a place where is no sentient vegetable and rational life; feathers grow on birds and change every year; coats grow on animals and are changed every year, with some {163} exceptions, like the lion's beard and the cat's fur, and such; gra.s.s grows in the fields and leaves on the trees; and every year they are renewed in great part.

Thus we can say that the spirit of growth is the soul of the earth, the soil its flesh, the ordered arrangement of rocks its bones, of which mountains are formed, the tufa its tendons; its blood the veins of water which surround its heart, which is the ocean; its breathing and increase and decrease of blood in the pulses the ebb and flood of the sea; and the heat of the spirit of the world is fire which pervades the earth, and the vital soul dwells in the fires which from various apertures of the earth issue in springs and sulphur minerals and volcanoes, as at Mount Etna in Sicily and in many other places.

52.

The ancients called man the world in miniature, and certainly the name is a happy one, because man being composed of earth, water, air and fire, the body of the earth resembles the body of man. As man has in him bones for the support and framework of his flesh, likewise in the world the rocks are the supports of the earth; as man has in him a pool of blood in which the lungs rise and fall in their breathing, so the body of the earth has its ocean which rises and falls every six hours as if the world breathed; as from the aforesaid pool of blood veins issue which {164} ramify throughout the human body, so does the ocean fill the body of the earth with innumerable veins of water. The body of the earth lacks sinews, which do not exist because sinews are made for movement, and the world being in perpetual stability no movement occurs, and there being no movement, sinews are not necessary; but in all other points they resemble each other greatly.

53.

Water is the driver of nature.

[Sidenote: Experience the Basis of Science]

54.

In explaining the action of water remember to cite experience first and then reason.

55.

Do not forget that you must put forward propositions adducing the above-mentioned facts as ill.u.s.trations, not as propositions,--that would be too simple.

56.

Water in itself has no stability and cannot move of its own accord, save to descend. Water of its own accord does not cease to move unless it is shut in.

57.

The body of the earth, like the body of animals, is intersected with ramifying veins, which are all {165} united and constructed for the nourishment and life of the earth and of its creatures.

[Sidenote: Water is the Blood of the World]

58.

The water which rises in the mountains is the blood which keeps the mountain alive, and through this conduit or vein, nature, the helper of her creatures, prompt in the desire to repair the loss of the moisture expended, proffers the desired aid abundantly; just as in a stricken spot in man you will see, owing to the aid which is brought, the blood abound under the skin in a swelling, so as to succour the spot which has been stricken; likewise, in the case of the vine, when it is cut at its extremity, nature causes its moisture to rise from the lowest root to the end of the extremity which has been cut, and when this moisture has been expended nature ceases not to supply it with vital moisture to the end of its life.

59.

Water is that which is given to supply vital moisture to this arid earth; and the cause which propels it through its ramifications against the natural course of weighty matter is the same which stirs the humours in every kind of animal body.

[Sidenote: Water on Mountains]

60.

Water, the vital moisture of the earthly machine, moves by reason of its natural heat.

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[Sidenote: On the Water of Rivers]

61.

Rivers, with their ruinous inundations, seem to me the most potent of all causes of terrestrial losses, and not fire, as some have maintained; because the violence of fire is exhausted where there is nothing forthcoming to feed it. The flowing of water, which is maintained by sloping valleys, ends and dies at the lowest depth of the valley; but fire is caused by fuel and the movement of water by incline. The fuel of fire is disunited, and its damage is disunited and isolated, and fire dies where there is no fuel. The incline of valleys is united, and damage caused by water is collective, along with the ruinous course of the river, until with its valley it winds into the sea, the universal base and sole haven of the wandering waters of rivers. But what voice or words shall I find to express the disastrous ravages, the incredible upheavals, the insatiable rapacity, caused by the headstrong rivers? What can I say? Certainly I do not feel myself equal to such a demonstration, yet by experience I will try to relate the process of ruin of the rivers which destroy their banks and against which no mortal bastion can prevail.

62.

The recesses of the bottom of the sea are perennial, the summits of mountains are transitory, whence it follows that the earth will become {167} spherical and covered with waters, and will be uninhabitable.

[Sidenote: Transformations in Past and Future]

63.

The sh.o.r.es of the sea continually increase in soil, towards the middle of the sea; the cliffs and promontories of the sea are continually being ruined and consumed; the mediterranean seas will dry up and all that will remain will be the channel of the greatest river which enters into them; this will flow to the ocean and pour out its waters together with that of all the rivers which are its tributaries.

[Sidenote: On the Earth's Vibration]

64.

The subterranean courses of water, like those which are made between the air and the earth, are those which continually consume and deepen the beds of their currents. The earth which is carried by rivers is discharged at the end of their course, that is to say, the earth carried from the highest part of the river's course is discharged at the lowest depth of its course. Where fresh water arises in the sea, the miracle of the creation of an island is manifest, which will be discovered sooner or later in proportion as the quant.i.ty of water is greater or less. And an island of this kind is formed by the deposit of earth and stones made by the subterranean current of water in the channels through which it pa.s.ses.