PERCEIVING & PERCEIVED NATURES 131 



from them glowing with colour, kindled into every 

 loveliest hue. But, according to materialism, they are 

 not satisfied with trophies so splendid. They press 

 onward and upward, They climb to higher and ever 

 higher work. They build up protoplasmic forms, and 

 generate protoplasmic life. They construct cells which 

 put to shame the most brilliant triumphs of human art. 

 They form organisations that rise above, and outdo the 

 mightiest triumphs of human genius. They yield per- 

 ceiving natures and intelligence in the animal creation. 

 They rise to the exercise of intelligence of the highest 

 order in man. They climb to heaven. They ascend to 

 the heights of the Most High. They burn and shine 

 with heaven's purest thoughts and feelings. They not 

 only play their part in yielding natural light and heat, 

 but in the loftiest form of their excitation and motion 

 they give birth to the beauties and grandeurs, the savours 

 and odours of perception, to the noblenesses of thought 

 and the fervours of love. Thus endowed, they are ele- 

 ments imperial in potency. They are elect atoms. They 

 are among their fellows as pearls among grains of sand, 

 diamonds amid bits of glass. There is not one feeble 

 among them. They are all strong with their own peculiar 

 strength. There is not one common and low. They are 

 all capable of rising to ethereal heights of work. There 

 is not one dark. They are universally illuminated with 

 the light which breaks forth into the enlightenments 

 of consciousness. Endowed with potencies so high, 

 they outshine, each particle of them, millions of atoms 

 though bright. They are products of mind, of a mind 

 of transcendent greatness. 



It has been maintained that carbon is the chief factor 

 in yielding life and its powers. It is the atom of atoms, 

 the elect of the elect, and therefore, as we have seen 



