SOUNDINGS 



what stands for the compositor and printer? We can 

 only call the compositor the organizing impulse; but 

 whence this impulse, and whose idea is it trying to 

 express? The redistribution of the elements of the 

 body is done through the activity of other forms of 

 life — the micro-organisms — those minute forms 

 reduce the body to its original elements. As we thus 

 have life at the end of the life of an organism, do we 

 also have life at the beginning of the organism? An- 

 cestral life certainly, or the primordial germ; but is 

 there a living principle back of and before all? Does 

 the logic of the situation force us to the belief in an 

 original Creator? The human mind is so constituted 

 that in some form or under definite concepts, we 

 have to postulate a first or primal Cause; we have to 

 think of a beginning; but is there any beginning to 

 a circle, or any center to the surface of a sphere? 

 There may be no beginning or no limit in time or 

 space to the cosmos. This is unthinkable to us in our 

 present state. Yet in making that statement I am 

 thinking of the unthinkable. We can deal only with 

 parts of Nature; as a whole it is beyond our power 

 to grasp. All bodies on the earth's surface unsup- 

 ported fall; this is our universal experience. All 

 moving bodies come to a standstill unless power 

 from without is constantly supplied. Perpetual mo- 

 tion is impossible, but the earth and the other plan- 

 ets are unsupported, and their motion is perpetual. 

 Or we may say that they fall forever toward the sun 



289 



