The world which philosophy reveals to us is vastly different from the world practical life reveals. We are sure that light and sound are real entities, but philosophy tells us that one is the sensation which vibrations in the ether, set going by the sun, make upon the optic nerve, and that sound is the sensation which vibrations in the air make upon the auditory nerve. When we know this we do not change our action in reference to them--they are still just as real to our senses as ever they were. The moral law is not discredited or overthrown when we discover through the abstract reason that fate, or necessity, rules our lives. We made the moral law and we try to live up to it. We do not always succeed. All trees aim at the vertical position; it is the position which gravity imposes upon them; but owing to various accidents and conditions the trees are not all plumb. How free they seem to grow at almost any angle with the plane of the earth’s surface! How they run out their branches horizontally in defiance of the gravity that rules them and lift up in their trunks and leaves tons of water and other minerals against the pull of gravity! How free they seem, how they bend to the wind that would overthrow them, how various they are in form and habit of growth, in the shape of their leaves, the kinds of their fruits, the character of their roots! Yet science shows us how the unalterable physical laws rule them. They lean toward the light and the free air in obedience to physical and chemical laws. And yet, no doubt, if the trees were conscious of themselves, as we are, every oak-tree would say, “I feel free to be an oak,” and every pine-tree and beech and willow and maple would feel a like freedom. The Irishman feels no compulsion or necessity in being an Irishman, nor the Frenchman in being a Frenchman. All life is held in the leash of physical and chemical laws, and yet knows it not. We feel that there is beauty in nature; when we reflect, we know that the feeling for beauty is an emotion of our own minds, and not a quality of outward things. Scenes radically different awaken the emotion in us, or may awaken it in one and not in another (see Emerson’s ecstasy on a bare moor). The world is what we make it, and duty is what we make it, and the ugly is what we make it. Putrefaction, repulsive to us, is to science a beautiful chemical process. Odors that are offensive to us are evidently agreeable to the dog. Sounds which please us seem to disturb him. The absolute is outside of life. If the orbs of the heavens were conscious, they would doubtless feel free to go where they do go; it would be their choice; it would pain them to do otherwise. The comet rushes toward the sun with joy; the music of the spheres is the expression of their freedom and contentment. Can you help winking when the flashlight goes off, or when a missile passes near your eyes? Our voluntary actions are equally based upon physical laws.