EDITORIAL 367 



"A primrose by a river's brim, 

 A yellow primrose was to him, 

 And it was nothing more." 



Modern philosophy, on the other hand, is frankly idealistic and 

 spiritual. I am more sure of myself than I am of things. In fact, 

 things have no existence for me apart from myself. I know of 

 them only as they are presented to me in terms of personal con- 

 sciousness. Furthermore, I am aware of myself as a creator, as an 

 independent force that accomplishes results, that are not merely 

 the sum total of the physical forces applied but have beyond them 

 a spiritual element. History and society are not explicable as the 

 interplay of mechanical forces, but there is a further element, the 

 creative personality of man that must be added to make them 

 comprehensible. Then too, the universe that taxes the powers of 

 human understanding to their limits and more must be the expres- 

 sion of intellect else my intelligence could find no thought in it, 

 with which to busy itself. 



"Haply God's riddle it, so vague and yet so certain, 

 The soul for it, and all the visible universe for it, 

 And heaven at last for it." 



The difference of view point and of belief is no new difference. 

 The contrast drawn above is an old cleavage of thought as ancient 

 as philosophy. Each age has struggled anew with the problem; 

 it will not be settled. Apparently it is impossible to demonstrate 

 with the certainty of a mathematical proposition either that an 

 Infinite Mind is back of all nature or that man himself is a soul 

 rather than merely a perishable body. Such beliefs are still 

 matters of faith. 



Our faiths and attitudes to the world about us are largely forged 

 in childhood. Whether children shall see in the rolling suns, the 

 nodding flower, the blithe warble of the bird, merely an exhibition 

 of chance mechanical complexities or whether they shall see the 

 expressed personality of a kindly Creator will depend largely on the 

 teachers' and parents' attitude of indifference or of reverence to the 

 things of Nature, not as expressed in words, but as expressed in 

 personal adjustment to the universe and in the manner of life that 

 follows. The evaluation of life's opportunities and responsibilities 

 is markedly influenced by the way we regard the material things 

 about us. 



