They are drawn from all the elements of which the world is made up, even in its most opposed forms: and the various species of active things, whether men or animals or plants, select those actual ones proper for their nourishment, after their kind, and attract them through space and time, through all the multitude of encompassing forces, from solid matter, from vapours or from liquids, whatever their appearance and whatever their composition. The sequoia, for instance, drew to itself what was qualified to make rough its red bark, to harden the fibres of its stem, to make smooth the green composition of its needles; and drew them from the encircling air, from the blue rays of light, from the mist of waters, from every motion and scent about it. From the same vast whole, made up of thousands of dissimilar bodies, the birds draw their plumage, the tortoises their shells, the worms their rings, the flowers their petals, and humankind their complexions, their blood and flesh. We are fully aware that these substances are all carbon in divers forms; but that raises the fresh question, when we ponder it, whether the whole universe is not of a single sameness--a vision of mind-wracking infinity repeating itself in a perpetual changeless series? and that might lead us to stand in astonished awe before a nature which can make a bone, or pearl-shell, or a wing-case, or a claw, or an eyelash from the same elements whether they are of the air we breathe, of the light shining from our eyes, or of any other transformation of appearance or taste. However, even if the matter be the same, the forces which cause it to take shape are infinite. How many must be the sources of energy which together compose the complete eternal mirror-disk of life, in which from time to time we catch glimpses of vague forms, as it whirls on its mad course, bearing away worlds too big for our failing minds to comprehend, or too small for our blunted senses to distinguish? Above all, this dazzling multiple disk teaches us motion and harmony: that is to say, labour and love. The largest planet like the smallest atom exists by combination and by movement. Look upon the million needles of the sequoia pine, how they everlastingly breathed in and out, drawing gases and water from the air and returning others. The stomata never stopped work for an instant. Within the seeds the sap worked as unceasingly. Nothing ever dwells in absolute inertia for a moment anywhere. The atmosphere vibrates, light pierces, hearts beat, water flows, the molecules of crystals build themselves together, the stars revolve, the air stirs, the darkness is propitious to growth: through everything is spun the cord of love and labour.