THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE 43 



which process and its ultimate aim, if any, one can only say with 

 Goethe that Nature alone knows what she wants. This much, 

 however, of eminent importance to our own lives we can gather 

 from the working of this cosmic process, namely, that the more 

 perfect the system of elevating inorganic matter by means of 

 v Q vmbiosis, the higher are the results in organic civilisation and 

 the greater the health, vigour, and dominance of the respective 

 plants and animals. Whilst attending to our own best interests, 

 we may thus at the same time be furthering the remoter ends, 

 if any, of the cosmic process. Qui sibi amicus est, scito hunc 

 amicum omnibus esse. So far as concerns the inorganic world's 

 share in Evolution, it seems partly to consist, on the " physical " 

 side, in supporting, in Atlas-fashion, the vast superstructure of 

 the organic world , and, on the " chemical " side, to furnish the 

 latter with appropriate primal stimulations and to guide their 

 application. The earth is like a great store-keeper of energies, 

 and when we see how essential even to the highest forms of 

 organic life is the constant replenishment of their energy in one 

 forn or another from the earth's store of primal energies, we are 

 reminded, on the ethical side, of the wonderful inspiration of 

 the Book of Job : " Thou shalt be in league with the stones of 

 the field," and, on the cosmological side, of the mythological 

 figure of Antaeus, the giant of Libj^a, the son of Poseidon and Gaea, 

 who, when thrown in combat, derived fresh strength from each 

 successive contact with his mother earth, thus symbolising the 

 law of Concord as between earth and man. We are perhaps 

 also reminded of the " Erdgeist " and of Fechner's famous passage, 

 viewing the earth as the grand matrix of all organic life and reality, 

 which so fascinated the lateProf. William James : 



We rise upon the earth as wavelets rise upon the ocean. We grow 

 out of her soil as leaves grow from a tree. The wavelets catch the sun- 

 beams separately, the leaves stir when the branches do not move. They 

 realise their own events apart, just as in our own consciousness when any- 

 thing becomes emphatic, the background fades from our observation. 

 Yet the event works back upon the background as the wavelet works 

 upon the waves, or as the leaf's movements work back upon the sap inside 

 the branch. The whole sea and the whole tree are registers of what has 

 happened and are different for the wave's and the leaf's action having 

 occurred. 



There is thus a double concord : between man and the earth, 



