ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



ited; but that does not prevent me from feeling that 

 they are my own; they are vital in me as they were 

 in him, and I feel responsible for my own acts 

 just as he did for his, though I could not act other- 

 wise. I could not, but I did not know it. I thought I 

 could act as I pleased. 



The world which philosophy reveals to us is 

 vastly different from the world practical life reveals. 

 We are sure that light and sound are real entities, 

 but philosophy tells us that one is the sensation 

 which vibrations in the ether, set going by the sun, 

 make upon the optic nerve, and that sound is the 

 sensation which vibrations in the air make upon the 

 auditory nerve. When we know this we do not 

 change our action in reference to them — they are 

 still just as real to our senses as ever they were. The 

 moral law is not discredited or overthrown when we 

 discover through the abstract reason that fate, or 

 necessity, rules our lives. We made the moral law 

 and we try to live up to it. We do not always suc- 

 ceed. All trees aim at the vertical position ; it is the 

 position which gravity imposes upon them ; but ow- 

 ing to various accidents and conditions the trees are 

 not all plumb. How free they seem to grow at al- 

 most any angle with the plane of the earth's surface ! 

 How they run out their branches horizontally in 

 defiance of the gravity that rules them and lift up 

 in their trunks and leaves tons of water and other 

 minerals against the pull of gravity ! How free they 



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