74 THE DIVINE SOIL 



of evolution, instead of to the far away, the un 

 known, or the supernatural. 



How the organic came to bud and grow from the 

 inorganic, who knows? Yet it must have done so. 

 We seem compelled to think of an ascending series 

 from nebular matter up to the spirituality of man, 

 each stage in the series resting upon or growing 

 out of the one beneath it. Creation or develop 

 ment must be continuous. There are and can be 

 no breaks. The inorganic is already endowed with 

 chemical and molecular life. The whole universe 

 is alive, and vibrates with impulses too fine for 

 our dull senses; but in chemical affinity, in crys 

 tallization, in the persistence of force, in electri 

 city, we catch glimpses of a kind of vitality that 

 is preliminary to all other. I never see fire burn, 

 or water flow, or the frost-mark on the pane, 

 that I am not reminded of something as myste 

 rious as life. How alive the flame seems, how 

 alive the water, how marvelous the arborescent etch 

 ings of the frost! Is there a principle of fire? 

 Is there a principle of crystallization? Just as 

 much as there is a principle of life. The mind, 

 in each case, seems to require something to lay 

 hold of as a cause. Why these wonderful star 

 forms of the snowflake? Why these exact geo 

 metric forms of quartz crystals ? The gulf between 

 disorganized matter and the crystal seems to me 

 as great as that between the organic and the inor- 



