THE 



STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



OMNIPRESENCE OF LIFE 

 GEORGE HENRY LEWES 



COME with me, and lovingly study Nature, as 

 she breathes, palpitates, and works under 

 myriad forms of Life forms unseen, unsuspected, 

 or unheeded by the mass of ordinary men. Our 

 course may be through park and meadow, garden 

 and lane, over the swelling hills and spacious heaths, 

 beside the running and sequestered streams along the 

 tawny coast, out on the dark and dangerous reefs, or 

 under dripping caves and slippery edges. It mat- 

 ters little where we go: everywhere in the air 

 above, the earth beneath, and waters under the earth 

 we are surrounded with Life. Avert your eyes 

 a while from our human world, with its ceaseless 

 anxieties, its noble sorrow, poignant, yet sublime, of 

 conscious imperfection aspiring to higher states, and 

 contemplate the calmer activities of that other world 

 with which we are so mysteriously related. I hear 

 you exclaim, 



"The proper study of mankind is man;" 



nor will I pretend, as some enthusiastic students 

 seem to think, that 



"The proper study of mankind is cells /" 



(1285) 



