THE BREATH OF LIFE 



reality, however fluid, under the form of the sharply 

 defined solid. We are at ease only in the discontin- 

 uous, in the immobile, in the dead. Perceiving in an 

 organism only parts external to parts, the under- 

 standing has the choice between two systems of 

 explanation only: either to regard the infinitely 

 complex (and thereby infinitely well contrived) or- 

 ganization as a fortuitous concatenation of atoms, 

 or to relate it to the incomprehensible influence 

 of an external force that has grouped its elements 

 together." 



"Everything is obscure in the idea of creation, if 

 we think of things which are created and a thing 

 which creates." If we follow the lead of our logical, 

 scientific faculties, then, we shall all be mechanists 

 and materialists. Science can make no other solu- 

 tion of the problem because it sees from the outside. 

 But if we look from the inside, with the spirit or 

 "with that faculty of seeing which is immanent in 

 the faculty of acting," we shall escape from the 

 bondage of the mechanistic view into the freedom of 

 the larger truth of the ceaseless creative view; we 

 shall see the unity of the creative impulse which is 

 immanent in life and which, "passing through gen- 

 erations, links individuals with individuals, species 

 with species, and makes of the whole series of the 

 living one single immense wave flowing over 

 matter." 



I recall that Tyndall, who was as much poet as 

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