CHAPTER XII
NATURE'S MESSAGE OF BEAUTY
When we use the word "truth", we mean
a knowledge of the universe, in all its embodiments,
visible and invisible. These embodiments, when mirrored in our consciousness,
give rise to the sense of law.
But each law concerning the universe is
woven into its innermost texture. Because the
universe is what it is, the laws which our minds
formulate exist, whether we exist or not to discover them. Truth, in reality, is not the result
of the discoveries of the seekers of truth. Truth
is, because the universe is.
Now, this truth is ourselves. For man, who
is an infinitesimal part of the Whole, is nevertheless, in a mysterious way, himself that
Whole. Furthermore, in a way that seems
incredible, every truth which concerns the
Whole is to be found somewhere in every fraction of the Whole.
Therefore, the truths as to God, nature, and
man's ascent to Divinity exist in man himself.
- 287 -
The treasures of the wisdom, love and beauty
of the Whole exist in the innermost recesses of
man's soul. If a man will but seek rightly, he
can find all truth.
There are two possible modes of discovering
truth. One process is by using Manas, the
mind; the other is by using Buddhi, the intuition. At the present stage of evolution, the
process of discovering truth by Buddhi, unaided
by Manas, is possible only to a few; we may
therefore omit Buddhi in our consideration of
the means of arriving at truth. The mind,
however, has already been well developed by
the advanced Egos of our Humanity, and it
has served us well to discover truth. The
modes of discovery are mathematics, science
and philosophy.
But what mind has so far revealed is incomplete, because the mind has omitted to bring
into the problem one aspect of nature. This
aspect is that of nature as revealing Beauty.
Until nature is seen to reveal not only Law, but
also Beauty, our vision of truth remains only
partial.
We have seen in Chapter X, in our study of
the laws of the building of matter, how the
Divine Mind of the Logos constructs according
to certain fundamental principles. We not
...
- 288 -
only watch, as we study the chemical elements,
an enthralling wisdom, but we can also react
with a sense of wonder in admiration of a work
that is exquisite in symmetry and proportion.
When we shall have before our eyes the diagrams which give in detail the building of all
the chemical elements of the Periodic Law1,
this sense of wonder will be as powerful as
when we contemplate a perfect edifice like the
Parthenon or the Taj Mahal. For, as the
Logos builds, He builds in beauty, and all
nature is His handiwork.
Let us look at three leaves (Figs. 95, 96, 97).
Nature has worked throughout the ages to ...
|
|
One fact is clear, that, while the essential
attribute of nature is beauty, yet that beauty
has a framework of geometry. The old maxim
of the Stoics, "God geometrizes", is full of
truth, as science delves into nature's mysteries.
In the radiating whorl of spiral leaves in Alstroemeria (Fig. 100),
one of the commonest geometrical forms is revealed.
|
How the life-force
in the vegetable kingdom insists on building
geometrically appears in a fungus (Fig. 101), ...
|
The spiral volute in the Ionic pillar in
Greek architecture (Fig. 103) is developed from
this and other shells which reveal the logarithmic curve. The curve which is drawn, when a
string wound round a conical shell is unwound
...
|
An exquisite wonder is the building of the
sea-creature, Lichnaspis giltochii, one of the
acantharia (Fig. 105), whose spines radiate in so
precise a fashion that a law, formulated by
Muller, tells us that the spines are arranged in
groups which are designated respectively, north
polar, north tropical, equatorial, south tropical
and south polar spines.
|
We all know that nature builds geometrically
in all minerals. We know that ice is a crystal
but who would dream that water freezing to ice
could ever form the wonder revealed in Fig.
106? “But this exquisite design must have been
...
|
or the beauty of the curve of the
cat's back (Fig. 109)?
|
How could nature "mechanically", ever fashion a structure of
bone and muscle so that the cat's pose is beautiful, and equally too that of the playful kitten?
Watch any bird in flight (Fig. 110),
|
|
and there
nature reveals not merely her masterly artistic
hands, but also the poetry of motion.
It is when we come to coloring, as shown in
birds and fishes, that our sense of delight in
...
- 296 -
nature's artistic creations becomes profound.
No theory of a mechanical selection of the genes
within the chromosome, nor even that of a
geometrical structure inherent in nature, will
explain the rich fantasy of a master artist who
has colored the birds and the fishes. It is
only one who is himself an artist — that is, one
who has trained his eye and hand through
long years, and has developed his imagination
to sense that indescribable principle which is
"Art" — who knows that nature cannot be
mechanical, nor merely the fashioning by a
"pure geometrician". The life of nature
throbs with art, though geometry can also be
found if we seek for it.
Let anyone look at two among the dozens of
varieties of fishes to be found in the seas around
Hawaii, and shown in the aquarium at Honolulu; and he cannot help feeling (if he has the
...
- 297 -
root of art in him) that he is gazing at the creations of a master. Teuthis achilles, Pa kui kui
in Hawaiian, is pure black, the last imaginable
color for a fish; yet round the mouth, ear
and eye, and in the lower and upper fins, are
touches of color, blue and red; and in the
tail and the side-fins near the tail such a "laying on", as a painter would say, of red that
the observer, if he is artistic, knows and salutes
with joy the unseen artist.
|
|
Impossible to
describe in words is Zanclus canescens, Kihikihi
in Hawaiian, a fish strange in shape; once
again the color is "laid on" with a master's
hand. But more than its color is its shape,
which reveals the rich fantasy of the artist
who, in a playful mood and as if to rest from
serious labors, sends forth from his studio this
fish so strange in shape and yet beautiful.
|
Were one to describe the beauty of the birds,
the only way would be to gather together all
the birds, and say to the seeker of truth,
“Look; and if you do not understand, look
again”.
The next two illustrations, of a spider's web
(Fig. 111), and of the Periodic Law of the
chemical elements (Fig. 112), link in an undecipherable mystery a microcosm with the
Macrocosm. For in the center of the spider's
...
|
And what of the star fish (actual size)
picked up on Madras Beach by the writer
(Fig. 114)?
|
And when we look at the picture
of the Wave, by Hokusai of Japan (Fig. 114a),
and when we sense the Cosmic Will in the
wave and feel in it the beauty of nature's
rhythm, what may we do but be dumb? Yet
it is in that silence that we discover one aspect
of the Eternally True, which is also the Eternally Good and the Eternally Beautiful.
|
|
