MEN AND TREES 



lost its value, or in the height of our powers, or in 

 the decrepitude of old age: which shall it be? 



The naturist sees all life as a whole. Man is not an 

 exception, but part of the total scheme. The life 

 principle is the same in him as in all else below him 

 — the principle that organizes matter into count- 

 less new forms; that crosses and uses the mechanical 

 and chemical forces, and begets numberless new 

 compounds; that develops organs and functions, 

 and separates the living world so sharply from the 

 non-living. In the weed, the tree, and in man, the 

 principle is the same. What has set up this organiz- 

 ing power and so impressed it that it goes on from 

 lower to higher forms, and unfolds the whole drama 

 of evolution through the geologic ages, is the mys- 

 tery of mysteries. To solve this mystery, mankind 

 invented God and acts of creation. But a God apart 

 from Nature is to me unthinkable, and science finds 

 no beginning of anything. It finds change, trans- 

 formation, only. When or where did man begin? 

 Where does the circle begin? Self-beginning — who 

 can think of that? Can we think of a stick with only 

 one end? We can think of a motion as beginning and 

 ending, but not of substance as beginning and end- 

 ing. When the metabolism of the body ceases, death 

 comes. Do we think of life, or the organizing princi- 

 ple, as then leaving the body? It ceases, but does it 

 leave the body in any other sense than that the 

 flame leaves the candle when it is blown out? And is 



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