A BIRD OF PASSAGE 



nature. Rivers flow where they never would have 

 flowed without it, mountains fall in a space of time 

 during which they never would have fallen ; barriers 

 arise, rough ways are made smooth, a new world 

 appears — the world of man's physical and mental 

 activities. 



If the gods of the inorganic elements are neither 

 for nor against us, but utterly indifferent to us, how 

 came we here? Nature's method is always from the 

 inside, while ours is from the outside; hers is circular 

 while ours is direct. We think, as Bergson says, of 

 things created, and of a thing that creates, but 

 things in nature are not created, they are evolved; 

 they grow, and the thing that grows is not separable 

 from the force that causes it to grow. The water 

 turns the wheel, and can be shut off or let on. This 

 is the way of the mechanical world. But the wheels 

 in organic nature go around from something inside 

 them, a kind of perpetual motion, or self-supplying 

 power. They are not turned, they turn; they are not 

 repaired, they repair. The nature of living things 

 cannot be interpreted by the laws of mechanical 

 and chemical things, though mechanics and chem- 

 istry play the visible, tangible part in them. If we 

 must discard the notion of a vital force, we may, as 

 Professor Hartog suggests, make use of the term 

 "vital behavior." 



Of course man tries everything by himself and his 

 own standards. He knows no intelligence but his 



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