OF TEE SOIL OF TEE EARTH 423 



in every state of society holds to the belief, more or less crude in its 

 conception, that at the dissolution of the body the individual ego, soul, 

 elusive psyche, will burst through the barrier of the material and pass 

 into the limitless realm of the unknown. 



Through the medium of his sense organs a man perceives the 

 material portion of his environment, at least that part of it that can 

 affect these nervous structures. The mind, however, reaches out 

 beyond the frontiers of sense and has divined the existence of those 

 supreme elemental forces that mold and shape the material universe. 

 But not a hint comes from these efforts of mind and sense as to the 

 great underlying question of the unknown. On this question, I take it, 

 the primitive pagan is as enlightened as the most accomplished 

 philosopher. 



Touching the fact that a man's recognition of the unknown comes 

 through the amplitude of his being, it becomes a matter of no small 

 moment that this being is a state of living within the domain of a 

 material environment. Whatever is discerned of the unknown environ- 

 ment can not come else than through natural means, for man is not 

 greater than nature. Moreover the unknown is not a supernatural 

 realm, nor is what man calls the soul a supernatural portion of his 

 being. Both alike are indeterminable elements within the sphere of 

 natural law and are supernatural only so far as they are indeterminable 

 and represent an unknown quantity in our comprehension of the uni- 

 verse. Seeing that knowledge can not accomplish this end of knowing 

 the unknowable, it remains for a man to know himself as a part of 

 nature, which, so far as may be discerned, is working toward some vast 

 purpose. It is surely no part of the scheme for him to blind himself 

 with false ideas and vain imaginings about a hereafter. His work is 

 to live the life of the great animal type into which he has developed, 

 uplifted by all that comes to him through his exalted brain structure. 



Eesearch into the nature of things, which characterizes the modern 

 scientific attitude of mind, is unquestionably a means toward a fuller 

 appreciation of the conditions of existence. This does not necessarily 

 imply, however, that the pagan's philosophy of life is altogether a 

 failure. There is a warmth and vitality in the pagan view of nature 

 which the scientific mind has never attained. The poet comes nearer 

 to this, since the poet and the pagan alike personify the forces of 

 nature and idealize the facts of life and environment. And it is on this 

 idealization of the facts that men build their joy in life. This man of 

 the Brandywine knew nothing of molecules or of the ultra-violet ray, 

 yet he surely knew the joy of the opening spring. He was not versed 

 in the geological history of his locality, but the hills and the stream 

 were part of his very life and he read their story in his own way. 

 The voices of the forest spoke to him in a language unknown to men 



