198 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



tion of his sense-organs and brain at their new 

 rhythm, into a direct perception of life as a whole, 

 an entity with a pressure on its environment, a single 

 slowly-evolving form, a motion and direction. 



He put the lever to its limit: the rhythm of the 

 cosmos altered again in relation to his own. He had 

 an extraordinary sense of being on the verge of a 

 revelation. The universe — that was the same; but 

 what he experienced of it was totally different. He 

 had immediate experience of the waxing and wan- 

 ing of suns, of the condensation of nebulae, the 

 slowing down and speeding up of evolutionary pro- 

 cesses. 



The curious, apparently telepathic sense which he 

 had had of the mental side of existence was intensi- 

 fied. Through it, the world began to be perceived 

 as a single Being, with all its parts in interaction. 

 The shadowy lineaments of this being were half seen 

 by his mental vision — vast, colossal, slowly chang- 

 ing; but they appeared only to disappear again, like 

 a picture in the fire. 



Strive as he might, he could not see its real like- 

 ness. Now it appeared benign; at its next dim reap- 

 pearance there would be a feeling of capricious irre- 

 sponsibility about it: at another instant it was cold, 

 remote; once or twice terrible, impending over and 

 filling everything with a black demoniacal power 

 which brought only horror with it. 



If he could but accelerate the machine! He 



