COMPULSION OF NATURE-ACTION 327 



fabric of cooperating services. Science surveys the 

 process, shows man the way to service, and provides the 

 ways and means to perform the service. 



In religion, there is a formal recognition of our 

 imperfections and a desire for perfection. Nature- 

 action is a conflict of imperfections. Science shows 

 that the conflict is aimed at, and moves toward, per- 

 fection. Both serve that end the more the better their 

 own services are organized. Each, in its own way, 

 through progressive adaptation of thought and act to 

 creative ends, reflects the universal ways of nature- 

 growth and evolution, the way nature herself moves 

 toward perfection. 



Science and religion, therefore, always have asked, 

 and doubtless always will ask the same fundamental 

 questions, and they must ever seek the answers to them 

 in constructive action. The answers, whatever they 

 may be, will come to them from the same source, in 

 the same way, and ultimately must be expressed by 

 them in essentially equivalent terms. And their pur- 

 pose in seeking these answers is to enable man, the 

 man in the streets of commerce, in the study, and in 

 the wilderness, the leader and the follower, rightly to 

 use the lessons of human experience in self-construc- 

 tive acts to ulterior creative ends ; and to mitigate the 

 inevitable tragedies of a life which has become con- 

 scious of its aspirations and its compulsions, and which 

 is valiantly seeking to satisfy their demands. 



But creative art is never wholly subject to es- 

 tablished laws and precedents. Nature's inexhaust- 

 ible secrecy, that defies all prophecy and rewards all 

 trials, is the source of man's undying hope and faith, 

 his abiding impulse to endeavor. 



