198 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



the repeated pullulations of living things fused into 

 something perceived as organic achievement : and 

 the infinite variety of organisms, their conflicts and 

 interactions, resolved itself, through the mediation 

 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 waning 

 of suns, of the condensation of nebulae, the slowing 

 down and speeding up of evolutionary processes. 



The curious, apparently telepathic sense which he 

 had had of the mental side of existence was intensified. 

 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 changing ; 

 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 

 reappearance there would be a feeling of capricious 

 irresponsibility about it : at another instant it was cold, 

 remote ; once or twice terrible, impending over and 



