124 Life and Matter [chap. vi. 



among the atoms of its pigments, and if 

 those forces rebelled or turned repulsive the 

 picture would be disintegrated and destroyed ; 

 yet those forces did not make the picture. 

 A cathedral is held together by inorganic 

 forces, and it was built in obedience to them, 

 but they do not explain it. It may owe its 

 existence and design to the thought of 

 someone who never touched a stone, or 

 even of someone who was dead before it 

 was begun. In its symbolism it represents 

 One who was executed many centuries ago. 

 Death and Time are far from dominant. 



Are we so sure that when we truly 

 attribute a sunset, or the moonlight rippling 

 on a lake, to the chemical and physical 

 action of material forces to the vibrations 

 of matter and ether as we know them, that 

 we have exhausted the whole truth of 

 things ? Many a thinker, brooding over the 

 phenomena of Nature, has felt that they 

 represent the thoughts of a dominating 

 unknown Mind partially incarnate in it all. 



