280 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 



to see the stars. It is easy to assert that with other 

 elements, with other properties, there might have 

 been other living creatures, very different from those 

 we know, yet just as well adapted and just as 

 marvelous and beautiful; but no one has substan- 

 tiated this assertion. The fact to stand firm on is 

 that the order of inanimate Nature has been such 

 that it facilitated the order and progress of animate 

 Nature. The " material nature " the stones and 

 mortar of the world must be admitted to have 

 had a character which made the preparation of a 

 home for life possible a potentiality to which we 

 do not seem to do anything like full justice unless 

 we call it purposive. But preparing a home for life 

 was not all, for far in the future there was the 

 rational mind of man, prying into the facts, puzzling 

 over them, in part understanding them; and if this 

 also evolved naturally, there is no way, even if we 

 wished, of escaping the conclusion that what we 

 call material is also spiritual, for there can be 

 nothing in the end which was not also present in 

 kind in the beginning. It looks, then, as if Nature 

 was Nature for a purpose. 



