THE NATURALIST'S VIEW OF LIFE 



him and furnish him his armory of tools and of 

 power, will destroy him the moment he is off his 

 guard. He is like the trainer of wild beasts who, at 

 his peril, for one instant relaxes his mastery over 

 them. Gravity, electricity, fire, flood, hurricane, 

 will crush or consume him if his hand is unsteady 

 or his wits tardy. Nature has dealt with him upon 

 the same terms as with all other forms of life. She 

 has shown him no favor. The same elements — the 

 same water, air, lime, iron, sulphur, oxygen, carbon, 

 and so on — make up his body and his brain as make 

 up theirs, and the same make up theirs as are the 

 constituents of the insensate rocks, soils, and clouds. 

 The same elements, the same atoms and molecules, 

 but a different order; the same solar energy, but 

 working to other ends; the same life principle but 

 lifted to a higher plane. How can we separate man 

 from the total system of things, setting him upon one 

 side and them upon another, making the relation 

 of the two mechanical or accidental? It is only in 

 thought, or in obedience to some creed or philos- 

 ophy, that we do it. In life, in action, we uncon- 

 sciously recognize ourselves as a part of Nature. 

 Our success and well-being depend upon the close- 

 ness and spontaneousness of the relation. 



If all this is interpreted to mean that life, that 

 the mind and soul of man, are of material origin, 

 science does not shrink from the inference. Only 

 the inference demands a newer and higher concep- 



259 



