r ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



it is the same solar energy that the engine dissipates, 

 and it does it in the same mechanical way; and it is 

 constantly replenished from without through the 

 food consumed. But the human or living engine 

 stokes itself. It is a clock that winds itself up, a 

 gun that loads and points itself. Because the living 

 body in its final analysis turns out to be a machine 

 as absolutely dependent upon mechanical and 

 chemical principles as any other machine, there are 

 those who see no radical difference between the 

 mechanical and the vital. 



I conclude that it is equally up-grade from the 

 vital or physiological to the psychical. How the two 

 connect we can never know, but that the think- 

 ing man dissipates energy there is no doubt. The 

 body and the soul are one in a way past our finding 

 out. When we discuss these things in terms of meta- 

 physics, we launch upon a boundless sea and reach 

 no real port. 



When we project ourselves into Nature out of 

 which we came, or when we see ourselves there 

 objectively, — our virtues, our aspirations, our 

 vices, and our wickedness, — we sow the seeds of 

 our religion. We grow a crop of gods and of devils, 

 and heaven and hell become fixed realities to us. So 

 do we make the world in which we live, and it in 

 turn makes us. So does the divine in us keep pace 

 with the divine we see in Nature. So does the 

 beauty of our own characters grow as we see 



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