42 Walks in New England 



Instead of a question of life, it comes to this, 

 that there is nothing but life. The infinite Spirit 

 fills all Nature, our souls no more truly, though 

 so much more greatly, than the earth on which 

 we live. That life is not potential, but actual, in 

 every atom, and it never ceases, but still advances 

 toward an unimaginable unity with the &quot; master 

 light, the secret truth of things, which is the 

 body of the infinite God,&quot; as Arthur Hallam 

 says. Science grows and discovers, and no 

 man can say that it has a pause ; but before 

 sciences, before theologies, there was always the 

 intuition of the spirit, and it is the one evi 

 dence which deserves credence, for it has never 

 failed. Spontaneous it seems in its expression, 

 but it is the indrawn breath of a diviner life 

 than ours on earth that makes the poet so ab 

 solute. Emerson did not wait for Darwin and 

 Wallace to read evolution in the record of earth. 

 When he said : 



Ever fresh the broad creation, 



A divine improvisation, 



From the heart of God proceeds, 



A single will, a million deeds. 



Once slept the world an egg of stone, 



And pulse and sound and light was none ; 



And God said &quot; Throb ! &quot; and there was motion, 



And the vast mass became vast ocean, 



