SOUNDINGS 



God and Nature. This offends my sense of the one- 

 ness of creation. It seems to me that there is no 

 other adequate solution of the total problem of life 

 and Nature than what is called "pantheism," which 

 identifies mind and matter, finite and Infinite, and 

 sees in all these diverse manifestations one absolute 

 being. As Emerson truly says, pantheism does not 

 belittle God, it magnifies him. God become s the one 

 flTTr^only nltimntP fart thit fiU° +*»> universe and 

 from whirh we ran no more be estranged than we 

 ranjv Psh-anflftfl from gravitation. 



The moment we seek to interpret the Eternal in 

 terms of our own psychology, we get into trouble. 

 We cannot measure the Infinite by the standards 

 of the finite. Our economies, our methods, our aims 

 are not those of Nature. God, in the sense in which 

 I use the term, does not plan and design and adapt 

 means to ends as does man. God is no more the 

 maker than He is the thing made. How natural for 

 us to think that the air was made for us to breathe, 

 the water for us to drink, the light for us to see, and 

 the earth for us to inhabit! But these things are 

 older than we are. I have seen a pumpkin growing 

 in the fence and fitting exactly into the niche amid 

 the rails, but was not the fence there before it was? 



There is design in Nature, but not in the sense 

 that there is design in human affairs and contriv- 

 ances. There is no designer. There are living ma- 

 chines, but no machinist. Things grow. Evolution 



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