4 Degeneration. CHAP. 



is true in virtue of laws of life and mind which 

 would be equally valid if there were no spiritual 

 world at all if " the spirit did but mean the 

 breath." 



The chapter on Degeneration is a good sermon 

 from the text of the Sluggard's Garden in Solomon's 

 Proverbs ; x but its scientific value is null, in view 

 of the fact that the weeds which overgrow such a 

 garden, and the wild types to which domesticated 

 races of plants and animals revert when neglected, 

 are not, from a biological point of view, degenerate 

 races at all. 



In the chapter on Environment, however, he 

 gets much nearer to spiritual realities. It is a 

 well -reasoned and eloquent plea, from the facts of 

 the world of nature, for that doctrine of our absolute 

 dependence on God which is fundamental in every 

 religion that deserves the name of a religion at all. 

 We have always known that we are dependent on 

 our physical environment on the world around us 

 for the food we eat and the air we breathe. 

 Science has now added to this, the proof that we 

 are equally dependent on it for our supply of force 

 that the will can no more create force, either 

 muscular or mental, than it can create matter. 

 And it is equally true that for our spiritual nourish- 

 ment and spiritual force we are altogether dependent 

 on our spiritual environment, which is God. It is 

 well to have on this subject a clearly -stated and 

 1 Proverbs xxiv. 30. 



