THE EARTH SELF- ACTIVE 197 



together by some outside agency, and which roll 

 about the floor if someone outside gives them a push, 

 but which will otherwise remain immobile. They 

 congregate together of their own inner prompting. 

 They are like a swarm of midges or bees in which 

 each individual acts on its own impulsion, and, in 

 the case of bees, all together form themselves into 

 a definite organisation with a collective spirit of its 

 own. The Earth is indeed influenced by its parent 

 the Sun, and acts in accordance with the same laws 

 and is swayed by the same impulses as govern the 

 whole Universe, of which it is a minute though 

 highly important mite. But the point is that the 

 Earth is not something like a lump of clay which a 

 potter takes in his hands and moulds into a ball. 

 The Earth moulds itself from activities that it 

 contains within itself. 



Running through the whole mighty swarm of 

 electrons we call the Earth is a tendency to order, 

 organisation, and system. The myriad millions of 

 ultimate particles in their all-togetherness and from 

 their interaction upon one another become possessed 

 of an imperative urge towards excellence. The 

 electrons group themselves into atoms ; the atoms 

 clump themselves together into molecules ; the mole- 

 cules combine into chemical compounds, and these 

 into organisms of ever-increasing size and com- 

 plexity. So in the process of the ages there came 

 into being, from out of the very Earth itself, first, 

 lowly forms of plants and animals, then higher and 

 higher forms exhibiting higher and higher qualities, 

 till the flowers of the field, the animals, and man 

 himself came into existence. 



15 



