Question

from nature; addresses, and lectures
i. the first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. every day, the sun; and, after sunset, night and her stars. ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. every day, men and women, conversing, beholding and beholden. the scholar is he of all men whom this spectacle most engages. he must settle its value in his mind. what is nature to him? there is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of god, but always circular power returning into itself. therein it resembles his own spirit, whose beginning, whose ending, he never can find, — so entire, so boundless. far, too, as her splendors shine, system on system shooting like rays, upward, downward, without centre, without circumference, — in the mass and in the particle, nature hastens to render account of herself to the mind. classification begins. to the young mind, everything is individual, stands by itself. by and by, it finds how to join two things, and see in them one nature; then three, then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, discovering roots running under ground, whereby contrary and remote things cohere, and flower out from one stem. it presently learns, that, since the dawn of history, there has been a constant accumulation and classifying of facts. but what is classification but the perceiving that these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law which is also a law of the human mind? the astronomer discovers that geometry, a pure abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of planetary motion. the chemist finds proportions and intelligible method throughout matter; and science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in the most remote parts.
which statement best summarizes the main assertion made in this passage?

1. man takes control of nature through science.
2. man possesses an admiration for natures beauty.
3. man shows indifference to nature through his activities.
4. man desires to find the interrelation of elements in nature.

Explanation:

The passage discusses how the human mind, especially that of a scholar, tries to classify and find connections in nature. It mentions the process of unifying individual things, discovering roots and coherences among different elements, and how science is about finding analogies and identities in nature. It does not focus on man taking control, admiration for beauty, or showing indifference, but rather on the search for inter - relations.

Answer:

1. Man desires to find the interrelation of elements in nature.