Nature and the Supernatural 29 



in imitation of them, should have always been 

 regarded as accessories necessary in divine worship. 



The all-pervasiveness of the spiritual has always 

 been instinctively recognized by man. While it is 

 an atmosphere, it is also a component part of fixed 

 organisms. As there is no clear line of division in 

 the range of life, none between the organic and 

 inorganic, none between the vegetable and animal 

 kingdoms, and none between the simpler and more 

 complex, the lower and the higher forms of life, as 

 the ascending gradations are formed by added com- 

 plexities of function and action, so also there is no 

 sharp separation between the material and the 

 spiritual. Trees have souls; into their organiza- 

 tion the spiritual enters, as it does in all other 

 forms of life, with differing and ascending degrees 

 of capacity and endowment. 



On the shore of the lake a graceful little hen- 

 snipe fluttered out and pretended to be badly hurt. 

 I knew she was lying to me — telling me a justifiable 

 white lie, and besides that was casting reflections 

 upon my character — saying that she thought I was 

 both cruel and mean enough to destroy the lives 

 of her innocent children. I saw one of the chicks, 

 saw exactly where it stopped under the side of a 

 decaying log, and went to pick it up. I knelt 

 down close and looked a good while. At last I saw 

 one bright eye, and then the whole form of the 

 before invisible chick, which was open to plain view 

 not two feet from my nose all the time, was seen. 



