MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 



§ 



We think of this mystery we call life under the 

 image of a fluid; it may take any or all forms; it is a 

 stream which is ever and never the same; it begins 

 and ends every moment; it adapts itself to all con- 

 ditions, in the air, in the water, in the soil, on the 

 rocks, in the surf, in the marsh, in the cold, in the 

 heat — form within form, form nourishing form and 

 destroying form, life building up, life pulling down, 

 life changing the face of the earth. The primal laws 

 of hunger, of feeding and breeding, shape all the 

 rest. To get food and a place to increase and multi- 

 ply is the source of all the "red strife" and all the 

 "white strife" in the world. These are the main- 

 springs of development. And are they not beneficent 

 laws or instincts.'^ Do not pleasure and well-being 

 jQow from them? 



To know one*s own mind on any of the great 

 questions of life, to know one's own ignorance, to 

 understand one's want of understanding, to know 

 the part played in one's mental life by race, family, 

 training, by "previous condition of servitude" to 

 creeds and parties and half-views, by the times in 

 which one lives, by ancestry, by temperament, by 

 schooling, and by surroundings, is a very great mat- 

 ter. Each of us is a composite personality; behind 

 us is an immensely long line of ancestors of all types 

 and conditions, each of whom has contributed some 



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