160 THE NATURE OF NATURE 



It was the working of this Spirit, with its self- 

 improving ideal, that has produced Nature as we 

 see her to-day. The distant ideal furnished the 

 motive-power by which the whole is driven forward. 

 And this ideal was itself built up by the unceasing 

 interaction of the whole upon the parts and the 

 parts upon the whole. What was in the parts 

 responded to the stimulus of what was in the whole, 

 and the whole was affected by the activity of the 

 parts. What was immanent responded to what 

 was transcendent. And the transcendence was 

 affected by the immanence. 



