420 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



are physical, but that the physical energies are 

 spiritual. To call the things in the physical world 

 "material" takes us no nearer the natural, no further 

 away from the spiritual. The roots of a tree may 

 rise from what we call a physical world ; the leaves 

 may be bathed by physical atoms ; even the energy 

 of the tree may be solar energy, but the tree is 

 itself. The tree is a Thought, a unity, a rational 

 purposeful whole ; the " matter " is but the medium 

 of their expression. Call it all — matter, energy, tree 

 — a physical production, and have we yet touched 

 its ultimate reality? Are we even quite sure that 

 what we call a physical world is, after all, a physical 

 world ? The preponderating view of science at 

 present is that it is not. The very term " material 

 world," we are told, is a misnomer; that the world 

 is a spiritual world, merely employing " matter " 

 for its manifestations. 



But surely there is still a fallacy. Are not these 

 so-called social forces the effect of Society and not 

 its cause? Has not Society to generate them be- 

 fore they regenerate Society? True, but to gener- 

 ate is not to create. Society is machinery, a 

 medium for the transmission of energy, but no 

 more a medium for its creation than a steam 

 engine is for the creation of its energy. Whence 

 then the social energies ? The answer is as before, 



