VIII 

 NATURE AND MAN 



PERSONALITY marks the present high-water mark of 

 a flood of life sweeping steadily onward. Man has not 

 yet arrived, very possibly he never will. He is com- 

 ing. Man represents the apical bud, the growing point, of 

 the luxuriantly branching tree of animal life. But most of 

 its branches bend downward, a host have died. 



The meaning of evolution is to be sought in the direction 

 of its tendencies expressed and partially realized in its high- 

 est forms, not in bacterium or protozoan. '^ Origins prove 

 nothing." Says Bergson: "A perfect definition applies only 

 to a completed reality; now vital properties are never com- 

 pletely realized, though always on the way to become so. 

 They are not so much states as tendencies." ^ Life is dynamic, 

 not static, it is always changing, " doing things." 



We have paid no attention to the vegetable world or to 

 the inorganic realm of chemistry and physics. In the great 

 universe, man is quantitively hardly more than an atom, a 

 '' thinking reed." His strength has always grown by hard 

 exercise and daily use just because of his weakness and de- 

 fencelessness. We live in a universe of whirling, seething 

 forces; at the same time universe of order and law. Human 

 life has a quality value and worth distinct from and superior 

 to them all. It stands out sharply outlined against the back- 

 ground of Nature. Life is a guiding, directing, controlling 

 power. Where is the throne or hiding-place of this elusive 

 force? 



We begin with the amoeba. Where is the seat and what 



83 



