THE NATURALIST'S VIEW OF LIFE 



the forms of the sun and the moon that we see in 

 the heavens. The earth has only one side, the out- 

 side, which is always the upper side; at the South 

 Pole, as at the North, we are on the top side. I 

 fancy the whole truth of any of the great problems, 

 if we could see it, would reconcile all our half-truths, 

 all the contradictions in our philosophy. 



In considering this problem of the mystery of 

 living things, I have had a good deal of trouble in 

 trying to make my inborn idealism go hand in hand 

 with my inborn naturalism; but I am not certain 

 that there is any real break or contradiction be- 

 tween them, only a surface one, and that deeper 

 down the strata still unite them. Life seems beyond 

 the capacity of inorganic nature to produce; and 

 yet here is life in its myriad forms, here is the body 

 and mind of man, and here is the world of inanimate 

 matter out of which all living beings arise, and into 

 which they sooner or later return; and we must 

 either introduce a new principle to account for it 

 all, or else hold to the idea that what is is natural 

 — a legitimate outcome of the universal laws and 

 processes that have been operating through all 

 time. This last is the point of view of the present 

 chapter, — the point of view of naturalism; not 

 strictly the scientific view which aims to explain 

 all life phenomena in terms of exact experimental 

 science, but the larger, freer view of the open-air 

 naturalist and literary philosopher. I cannot get 



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