So it is, but so it cannot surely have been intended always to remain.  No work which bears the impress of reason, and which was undertaken for the purpose of extending the dominion of reason, can be utterly lost in the progress of the times.  The sacrifices which the irregular violence of Nature draws from reason must at least weary, satisfy, and reconcile that violence.  The force which has caused injury by acting without rule cannot be intended to do so in that way any longer, it cannot be destined to renew itself; it must be used up, from this time forth and forever, by that one outbreak.  All those outbreaks of rude force, before which human power vanishes into nothing—­those desolating hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, can be nothing else but the final struggle of the wild mass against the lawfully progressive, life-giving, systematic course to which it is compelled, contrary to its own impulse.  They can be nothing but the last concussive strokes in the formation of our globe, now about to perfect itself.  That opposition must gradually become weaker and at last exhausted, since, in the lawful course of things, there can be nothing that should renew its power.  That formation must at last be perfected, and our destined abode complete.  Nature must gradually come into a condition in which we can count with certainty upon her equal step, and in which her power shall keep unaltered a definite relation with that power which is destined to govern it, that is, the human.  So far as this relation already exists and the systematic development of Nature has gained firm footing, the workmanship of man, by its mere existence and its effects, independent of any design on the part of the author, is destined to react upon Nature and to represent in her a new and life-giving principle.  Cultivated lands are to quicken and mitigate the sluggish, hostile atmosphere of the eternal forests, wildernesses, and morasses.  Well-ordered and diversified culture is to diffuse through the air a new principle of life and fructification, and the sun to send forth its most animating beams into that atmosphere which is breathed by a healthy, industrious, and ingenious people.  Science, awakened, at first, by the pressure of necessity, shall hereafter penetrate deliberately and calmly into the unchangeable laws of Nature, overlook her whole power, and learn to calculate her possible developments—­shall form for itself a new Nature in idea, attach itself closely to the living and active, and follow hard upon her footsteps.  And all knowledge which reason has wrung from Nature shall be preserved in the course of the times and become the foundation of further knowledge, for the common understanding of our race.  Thus shall Nature become ever more transparent and penetrable to human perception, even to its innermost secrets.  And human power, enlightened and fortified with its inventions, shall rule her with ease and peacefully maintain the conquest once effected.  By degrees, there shall be needed no greater outlay of mechanical labor than the human body requires for its development, cultivation and health.  And this labor shall cease to be a burden; for the rational being is not destined to be a bearer of burdens.