92 The Universe and Life 



broadened to include the life of other individuals; 

 mates, children, companions, fellow countrymen; 

 humanity as a whole ; all living things ; their life, too, 

 is of value and is to be promoted. Still further, living 

 things come to realize that the present is but a part 

 of Hf e ; that life may be advanced in the future ; that 

 living may go far beyond present conditions; and 

 that to help bring this about is worthy of effort. 

 There is no break anywhere in the development of 

 the management of life; it is all "natural" in the 

 same sense that the original urge to live is natural. 

 Throughout it is life, it is living creatures — such 

 living creatures as we see around us — ^that are the 

 objects of affection and devotion and effort. 



Other objects of devotion and effort are such either 

 for the sake of their relation to life, as in the devotion 

 to material wealth and to the arts and sciences; or 

 they are Active reflections of life, unreal substitutes 

 for the actual living; aberrations of devotion from 

 the real to the imaginary or from the concrete to the 

 abstract. Fairies and imps, spirits and demons, di- 

 vinities and gods, all are reflections of the reality that 

 is in living things ; they are beings imagined through 

 the freedom of fancy, by distorting, exaggerating 

 and recombining what we find actual in the repre- 

 sentatives of life. Serpents, scorpions, bats, foxes, 

 carnivorous beasts, maleficent men — these supply the 

 characteristics that are recombined by fancy into 

 demons and devils. Butterflies, beetles, elves, and 

 birds supply the models for imps and fairies. God- 

 desses are constructed from the qualities that we find 



