because

"Time and space relations vanish as laws are known."--"The moral
law lies at the centre of Nature and radiates to the
circumference."--"All things with which we deal preach to us.
What is a farm but a mute gospel?"--"From the child's successive
possession of his several senses up to the hour when he sayeth, 'Thy
will be done!' he is learning the secret that he can reduce under
his will, not only particular events, but great classes, nay, the
whole series of events, and so conform all facts to his character."

The unity in variety which meets us everywhere is again referred to.
He alludes to the ministry of our friendships to our education. When a
friend has done for our education in the way of filling our minds with
sweet and solid wisdom "it is a sign to us that his office is closing,
and he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time." This
thought was probably suggested by the death of his brother Charles,
which occurred a few months before "Nature" was published. He had
already spoken in the first chapter of this little book as if from some
recent experience of his own, doubtless the same bereavement. "To a man
laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it.
Then there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has
just lost by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand as it shuts down
over less worth in the population." This was the first effect of the
loss; but after a time he recognizes a superintending power which orders
events for us in wisdom which we could not see at first.

The chapter on _Idealism_ must be read by all who believe themselves
capable of abstract thought, if they would not fall under the judgment
of Turgot, which Emerson quotes: "He that has never doubted the