LANDSCAPE 287 



ment of the Reformation ; last, but not least, although it 

 seems remote from things of mortal life the substitution of 

 the sun for the earth as the centre of our sidereal system. 



Pagan myths, reintroduced by humanism like a spectral 

 corps de ballet on the empty scene of nature, had never been 

 accepted by the modern mind as more than metaphorical. 

 The vacuum, the blank created by the downfall of paganism, 

 the void space out of which issued our sense of Infinity, 

 seemed as though it would become more forlorn and oppres- 

 sive than ever. Such, indeed, it was in the Protestant theology 

 of the last century, when any palpitating human heart took 

 heed of it. But science had already begun to occupy this 

 void with a hundred forms of knowledge with the new 

 astronomy, with chemistry, with electricity, with geology, 

 biology, and the clinching doctrine of the conservation of 

 energy. All tended to the conclusion that infinity and fact, 

 the dual constituents of our environment, form one coherent 

 being of which humanity is an important integer. 



The notion of a spirit immanent in Nature, sustaining sun, 

 and stars, and man, and beasts, and trees, was not new. It 

 had been held by many antique sages. Virgil expressed it in 

 his perfect literary way : l 



One Life through all the immense creation runs, 

 One Spirit is the moon's, the sea's, the sun's ; 

 All forms in the air that fly, on the earth that creep, 

 And the unknown nameless creatures of the deep 

 Each breathing thing obeys one Mind's control, 

 And in all substance is a single soul. 



Orphic poets, Stoics, and Neoplatonists uttered the same 

 idea with keener, more mystic ardour. Under the dominance 

 of Christianity this notion had no opportunity of moulding 

 thought. But it reappeared in the dawn of modern science, 

 at the moment when Copernicus revolutionised our theory of 

 the universe. Bruno maintained it with a burning rhetoric, a 

 passion of conviction, and a cogency of demonstration for the 



1 I borrow Mr. F. W. H. Myers' admirable version from ' Essays 

 Classical,' p. 173. 



