134 HAECKEL 



stand outside of, but was one with, nature. 

 *' There is nothing within, nothing without : for 

 what is within is without." There was not a 

 kernel, God, and a shell, Nature. ** Nature has 

 neither kernel nor shell : it is both together." 



The years spent in southern Italy had certainly 

 helped to bring out as strongly as possible the 

 contrast between Goethe's conception and the 

 conventional idea of God as an extramundane 

 Creator. No surroundings are more apt to do 

 this than the Eomance peoples of the Mediter- 

 ranean. In the northern, Protestant countries the 

 ecclesiastical tradition of Deity has always a 

 spiritual element, a kind of vague resolution into 

 moral laws, that in some measure approach 

 natural law, though one made by man. There is 

 no trace of this in Naples and Sicily. The super- 

 natural there is the saint, the madonna ; they 

 penetrate unceasingly into the natural reality, in 

 every little detail of life and conduct. The 

 antithesis of the poor cosmic machinery and the 

 ever-present heavenly help and supersession of it 

 is raised to a supreme height in the popular belief. 

 Miracles are not relegated to earlier days and 

 ancient books. They are expected, affirmed, and 

 believed every day. The saint fills the net of the 

 fisherman as he chases the edible cuttle-fishes by 

 torchlight. The saint makes the storm that 

 threatens the boat — makes it suddenly out of 

 nothing. The madonna can arrest in a second 

 the glowing stream of lava that rolls towards the 

 village from Vesuvius, and if hundreds of them 



