THE CALL OF NATURAL BEAUTY.

Forest and Bird, Issue 30, 1 August 1933, Page 2

THE CALL OF NATURAL BEAUTY.

“ As the centuries pass the mystery of the Universe deepens. The thoughts of civilised man accumulate like snowflakes on the summit of Everest, or the leaves of many years in winter woods, burying one past system after another, one fashion after another, in religion, science, poetry and art. Knowing that so much lies buried beneath, which but now was so hot and certain, it becomes ever more difficult to trust so implicity as of old whatever still for the moment lies on the surface of human thought, the still surviving dogma, or the latest fashion in opinion. At least it becomes difficult to trust either to dogma or to thought alone. Man looks round for some other encouragement, some other source of spiritual emotion that will not be either a dogma or a fashion, something ‘ That will be for ever ‘ That was from of old.’ And then he sees the sunset, or the mountains, the flowing river, the grass and trees and birds on its banks. In the reality of these he cannot fail to believe, and in these he finds, at moments, the comfort that his heart seeks. By the side of religion, by the side of science, by the side of poetry and art, stands Natural Beauty, not as a rival to these, but as the common inspirer and nourisher of them all, and with a secret of her own beside. “ The appeal of natural beauty is more commonly or at least more consciously felt to-day than ever before, just because it is no new argument, no new dogma, no doctrine, no change of fashion, but something far older yet far more fresh, fresh as when the shepherd on the plains of Shinar first noted the stern beauty of the patient stars. Through the loveliness of nature, through the touch of sun or rain, or the sight of the shining restlessness of the sea, we feel ‘ Unworded things and old to our pained heart appeal.' “ And to the young who have no pain, who have not yet kept watch on man’s mortality, nature is a joy responding to their own, haunting them like a passion. “ This flag of beauty, hung out by the mysterious Universe, to claim the worship of the heart of man, what is it, and what does its signal mean to us? There is no clear interpretation. But that does not lessen its value. Like the Universe like life, natural beauty is also a mystery. But whatever ir may be, whether casual in its origin as some hold who love it well, or whether as others hold, such splendour can be nothing less than the purposeful message of God —whatever its interpretation may be, natural beauty is the ultimate spiritual appeal of the Universe, of nature, or of the God of nature, to their nursling man. It and it

alone makes a common appeal to the sectaries of all our religious and scientific creeds, to the lovers of all our different schools of poetry and art, ancient and modern, and to many more beside these. It is the highest common denominator in the spiritual life of to-day. “ Yet now that it is most consciously valued, it is being most rapidly destroyed upon this planet. ... In old days it needed no conservation. Man was camped in the midst of it and could not get outside it, still less destroy it. Indeed, until the end of the eighteenth century the works of man only added to the beauty of nature. But science and machinery have now armed him with

weapons that will be his own making or undoing, as he chooses to use them; at present he is destroying natural beauty apace in the ordinary course of business and economy. Therefore, unless he now will be at pains to make rules for the preservation of natural beauty, unless he consciously protects it at the partial expense of some of his other greedy activities, he will cut off his own spiritual supplies, and leave his descendants a helpless prey forever to the base materialism of mean and vulgar sights. ‘‘This matter has become a public question of the first magnitude. The value of natural beauty is admitted in words by our public men, but when it

comes to deeds the doctrine is too new to bear much fruit. It has for centuries been held sacrilege to destroy a church, so churches are guarded from destruction and even exempted from taxation. But a place of natural beauty may be destroyed, and is now actually to be taxed by the State in order that it may the sooner be sold to the jerry-builder. Meanwhile, the State itself pours forth the money of ratepayer and taxpayer for the perpetration of outrages on the beauty of the country. Those who mourn over the destruction of abbeys long

ago, should look also at the beam in our own eye, and hasten to save from destruction or disfigurement parks, woodlands, and valley heads. “This is a civic duty that cannot any longer be neglected without dire consequences. Destruction walks by noonday. Unless the State reverses the engines and instead of speeding up destruction, plans the development of the country so that the minimum of harm can be done to beauty, the future of our race, whatever its social, economic and political structure may be, will be brutish and shorn of spiritual value.” [Extracted from “The Call and Claims of Natural Beauty” by Prof. O. M. Trevelyan, University College and University College Hospital Medical School, at London, England, October 26. 1931.