COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



ences received from without, adjusting new inner 

 relations to outer relations established from time 

 immemorial, man reacts upon the environment, 

 and calls into being new aggregations of matter, 

 new channels of motion, new reservoirs of en- 

 ergy. He does not perceive and reflect only — 

 he also contrives and invents. As often as he 

 builds an engine, launches a ship, paints a pic- 

 ture, moulds a statue, or composes a symphony, 

 he creates in the environment new relations tal- 

 lying with those present within himself. And 

 then, by a natural but deceptive analogy, he in- 

 fers that what has taken place in the tiny por- 

 tion of the universe which owns himself as its 

 designer must also have taken place through- 

 out the whole. All the relations externally ex- 

 isting he interprets as consequent upon primor- 

 dial relations shaped in a mind similar to his 

 own. By a subtle realism he projects the idea 

 of himself out upon the field of phenomena, and 

 deals with it henceforth as an objective reality. 

 Human intelligence made the watch, therefore 

 superhuman intelligence made the flower. Hu- 

 man volitions bring to pass wars and revolu- 

 tions, divine volitions therefore cause famine 

 and pestilence. So when, in the pervading unity 

 which amid endless variety of detail binds into a 

 synthetic whole the classes and genera of the 

 organic world, an earnest and reverent thinker 

 like Agassiz beholds the work of omnipresent 

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