From some distance, somewhere deep under the ground, a trickle of water sent it refreshing vibrations, like a call. How did our plant discover the presence of this distant and friendly liquid? Did it experience that familiar feeling of cool freshness which we men have near water, which we would have felt in its place? Yet the plant had no skin like ours, nor nerves, nor sense of smell. It is a mystery how it should have known things, and how it guessed where lay the foodstuffs it needed, and by what resources beyond our knowledge it perceived their existence. It never missed its aim, though it had to reach out, twist, even ramify, to get at these food-elements, and absorb them. In nature there are hundreds of such instincts, and senses, and faculties, besides the feelings, or nerves, or other appurtenances of the flesh of which we are made. In life there are thousands of unknown energies, of secret perceptions, of indescribable vibrations, which we never feel, and shall never know while we are what we are.... Yes, outside it was spring-time. Its light and heat bathed all the surface of the ground, instilling into the under-soil a whole range of influences to affect some of the thousands of embryos which there come to life, by stages which we cannot follow, and of most of which we never become aware. Creation is so leisurely and so retiring that it makes little impression on us. It is destruction which is the striking thing, because it is quick and clear and violent. An instant destroys a thing which we have long seen living and developing. A tree many hundreds of years old is crashed down in a minute by lightning; in a few days a forest fire will destroy a forest which has existed for thousands of years; and this wanton annihilation instils in us a great terror, together with an unintelligent belief in the goddess of destruction, that savage and formidable power which seems to rule the world, and fills us with devout awe: she seems so mighty and so bold and ruthless that we think her the sole goddess of life.