UNDER THE MAPLES 



and during the summer seasons the parts of New 

 England and New York with which I am ac- 

 quainted have had very wet seasons — floods in 

 midsummer, and full springs and wells at all times. 

 The droughts have been temporary and local. 



We say, **As fickle as the weather," but the 

 meteorological laws are pretty well defined. All 

 signs fail in a drought, and all signs fail in a wet 

 season. At one time the south wind brings no 

 rain, at another time the north and northwest 

 winds do bring rain. The complex of conditions 

 over a continental area of rivers and lakes and 

 mountain-chains is too vast for us to decipher; it 

 inheres in the nature of things. It is one of the 

 potencies and possibilities which matter possesses. 

 We can take no step beyond that. 



VIII 



There seems to me to be false reasoning in the 

 argument from analogy which William James uses 

 in his lectures on *'Human Immortality.'* The 

 brain, he admits, is the organ of the mind, but 

 may only sustain the relation to it, he says, which 

 the wire sustains to the electric current which 

 it transmits, or which the pipe sustains to the water 

 which it conveys. 



Now the source and origin of the electric current 

 is outside the wire that transmits it, and it could 

 sustain no other than a transient relation to any 



22 



