UNDER THE INIAPLES 



ment of molecules of matter in the bram, which is 

 certainly only temporary. On the printed page it 

 is a certain combination of white and black that 

 moves the cells of the brain through the eye to 

 create the idea. So the conception in our minds 

 of our neighbor or friend — his character, his per- 

 sonality — exists after he is dead, but when our own 

 brain ceases to function, where is it then? 



We rather resent being summed up in this way 

 in terms of physics, or even of psychology. Can 

 you reconstruct the flower or the fruit from its 

 ashes? Physics and biochemistry and psychology 

 describe all men in the same terms; our component 

 parts are all the same; but character, personality, 

 mentality — do not these escape your analysis? and 

 are they not also real? 



in. THE INTERPRETER OF NATURE 



Emerson quotes Bacon as saying that man is the 

 minister and interpreter of Nature. But man has 

 been very slow to see that he is a part of that same 

 Nature of which he is the minister and interpreter. 

 His interpretation is not complete until he has 

 learned to interpret himself also. This he has done 

 all unconsciously through his art, his literature, his 

 religion, his philosophy. Painting interprets one 

 phase of him, music another, poetry another, sculp- 

 ture another, his civic orders another, his creeds and 

 beliefs and superstitions another, so that at this 



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