DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 597 



be seen in the life of a slave, to whom, on account of his 

 low estate, certain license is permitted. Hegel, to skip 

 about two millennia, compared Nature to a Bacchantic dance. 

 We regard both comparisons as infelicitous. Indeed, we are 

 not in the least inclined to accept the depreciatory views 

 of Animate Nature which have been put into circulation. 

 Many are obvious libels. There is some truth in Aristotle's 

 dignified caution that Nature is daemonic rather than divine, 

 — but we reject as ignorant and impious Luther's brusque 

 saying; ^^ The world is an odd fellow; may God soon make 

 an end of it." Is it unreasonable to suggest that those who 

 allow themselves to be oppressed by the discords and dis- 

 harmonies in the world without are in part themselves to 

 blame for the weight of their burden, by remaining, more or 

 less consciously, under the domination of the geocentric, 

 anthropocentric, and finalist pre-conceptions of the Middle 

 Ages, which regarded Man as the hub of the Universe? 



In reference to the misery of catastrophes, like the Cala- 

 brian earthquake or the ''Titanic" wreck, we venture ti« 

 note how the apologetic problem changes with our changing 

 outlook on Nature. Not many generations ago these calami- 

 ties were directly and literally referred to "the hand of 

 God " ; under the conception of the reign of law '' such 

 acts are now regarded as acts of divine permission rathrr 

 than of commission ". No ' sceptic ' would write of tin m 

 now as Voltaire did of the Lisbon earthquake. Moreover, 

 every one feels that it is not an orderly Universe if the laws 

 of the strength of materials or of oceanic currents can be 

 abrogated by mercy for individual lives. Without accepting 

 an exaggerated view of the Uniformity of Nature as ab- 

 solute, we know that within certain temporal and spatial 

 limits' we can trust to the regularity of frequently observed 



