ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



— in the sum total of human progress of the ages. 

 Such a view is a slap in the face of our egotism 

 which demands instant returns, and which makes 

 the individual supreme. 



With Nature, as I have so often said, our stand- 

 ards of good and evil apply to us alone, and they 

 change with the changing years. The naturalist 

 sees that pain and delay and defeat are the price 

 of development; that the world is imperfect, and 

 man is imperfect, because growth and develop- 

 ment are the law of nature; that there is always 

 a higher level, and always will be, which we realize 

 only when we look back. A perfect world, as we use 

 the term, would mean the end of all development. 



VI. THE ETERNAL 



How much is in a name! When we call the power 

 back of all God, it smells of creeds and systems, of 

 superstition, intolerance, persecution; but when we 

 call it Nature, it smells of spring and summer, of 

 green fields and blooming groves, of birds and flow- 

 ers and sky and stars. I admit that it smells of tor- 

 nadoes and earthquakes, of jungles and wildernesses, 

 of disease and death, too, but these things make it 

 all the more real to us. 



The word "God" has so long stood for the con- 

 ception of a being who sits apart from Nature, who 

 shapes and rules it as its maker and governor. It is 

 part of the conception of a dual or plural universe, 



270 



