236 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



to their intellectual selves by denying the facts that 

 reason and scientific inquiry reveal, or by closing 

 their eyes to them. 



The question, in briefest form, is this : * What 

 room does science leave for God ? ' 



To the savage, all is spirit. The meanest objects 

 are charged with influence, the commonest actions 

 fraught with spiritual possibilities, the operations of 

 nature one and all are brought about by spiritual 

 powers — ^but powers multifarious and conflicting, 

 ' Nature can have little unity for savages. It is a 

 Walpurgis-nacht procession, a checkered play of light 

 and shadow, a medley of impish, elfish, unfriendly, 

 and inimical powers ' ^ 



But with ordered civilization and dispassionate 

 observation a network of material cause and effect 

 invaded this spiritual domain. The mysterious influ- 

 ences, for example, believed to be inherent in springs 

 and running rivers became personified, and, anthropo- 

 morphized as nymphs or gods, were removed into a 

 seclusion more remote from practical and everyday 

 life than their unpersonified predecessors. Later, they 

 retreated still farther from actuality into a half-believed 

 mythology, and then passed away into the powerless- 

 ness of avowed fairy-story or literary symbolism, while 

 the rivers, perceived as the resultant of natural forces, 

 were more and more harnessed to man's use. So with 

 the wind and the rain, the growth of crops, the storms 

 ^ See W. James, '09, p. 21. 



