TEE WOULD VERSUS MATTER 271 



THE WOKLD VEESUS MATTER 



By WM. E. RITTER 



LA JOLLA, CALIF. 



JUDGING from what one hears and reads, there is a great variety of 

 opinion as to what sort of a thing the world in which we live 

 really is. Indeed, so diverse are these opinions that one can hardly help 

 wondering if we all do actually live in the same world. 



A correspondent, unknown to me personally, writes that after hav- 

 ing lived eighty years, he finds with every passing year and day the 

 world becoming to him more marvelous and interesting; and this as 

 the culmination of a career which seems to have been particularly well 

 filled with affairs at arms, in business and of the intellect. 



An artist friend is so laid hold upon by the glories of color and 

 form that abound in each spot, new or old, in which she finds herself, 

 that nothing could convince her that the essential frame and substance 

 of the world is not beauty. Shift the motive of this type of person 

 slightly, from that of delineative art to that of the discursive interpre- 

 tation of nature, and you have the Jefferies, the Muirs and the Bur- 

 roughs — the emotional naturalists. 



Through many centuries and lands there has been the religious 

 humanist who has taken to his soul the words " Behold, I have given you 

 every herb-yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and 

 every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed," and has re- 

 joiced as he has repeated "And God saw everything that he had made, 

 and behold, it was very good." 



But alongside the radiant-faced religious humanist there has stood 

 the sour-visaged religious ascetic, muttering: 



Hence lying world, with all thy care, 

 With all thy show of good and fair, 



Of beautiful or great! 

 Stand with thy slighted charms aloof, 

 Nor dare invade my peaceful roof, 



Nor trouble my retreat. 



And there has been, too, the sweet- voiced religious ascetic, saying: 



Ah, love, let us be true 

 To each other! for the world which seems 



