NATURE AND ANIMAL LIFE 



purpose as is the storing-up of fat in our bodies an 

 unconscious process. Life in all its forms adapts it- 

 self to its conditions; else it would not be life; it 

 would cease. Only in man is this adaptation ever a 

 matter of thought and calculation, and in him only 

 in a minor degree. The climate, the geography, the 

 geology, the race, the age, all play a part in mould- 

 ing and making him. 



Over all and under all and through all is the uni- 

 versal intelligence, the cosmic mind. It is that which 

 determines and shapes, humanly speaking, all the 

 myriad forms of the universe, organic and inorganic. 

 Only in the higher forms of animal life is the cosmic 

 mind supplemented by conscious, individual intelli- 

 gence. There are occasional gleams of this intelli- 

 gence in the lives of the lower animals, but not till 

 we reach man does the spark become a flame. Man's 

 wit differs from the wit of universal Nature in that 

 it plays inside the latter and has a certain mastery 

 over it and works to partial and personal ends. We 

 call the cosmic mind blind; it is rather impersonal 

 and indirect. All ends and all means are its, and it 

 fails of no end because it aims at none. How can a 

 circle have an end? It returns forever into itself. 

 Suns and systems and races and men are but the 

 accidents, so to speak, of its universal activity. 

 Man sees the end of his efforts because they are 

 limited to his personal wants and aspirations. But 

 Nature's purpose embraces all. Her clock is not 

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