THE NATURALIST'S VIEW OF LIFE 



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When we are bold enough to ask the question, Is 

 life an addition to matter or an evolution from 

 matter? how all these extra-scientific theories about 

 life as a separate entity wilt and fade away! If we 

 know anything about the ways of creative energy, 

 we know that they are not as our ways; we know its 

 processes bear no analogy to the linear and external 

 doings of man. Creative energy works from within; 

 it identifies itself with, and is inseparable from, the 

 element in which it works. I know that in this very- 

 statement I am idealizing the creative energy, but 

 my reader will, I trust, excuse this inevitable an- 

 thropomorphism. The way of the creative energy 

 is the way of evolution. When we begin to introduce 

 things, when we begin to separate the two orders, 

 the vital and the material, or, as Bergson says, when 

 we begin to think of things created, and of a thing 

 that creates, we are not far from the state of mind 

 of our childhood, and of the childhood of the race. 

 We are not far from the Mosaic account of creation. 

 Life appears as an introduction, man and his soul as 

 introductions. 



Our reason, our knowledge of the method of Na- 

 ture, declare for evolution; because here we are, 

 here is this amazing world of life about us, and here 

 it goes on through the action and interaction of 

 purely physical and chemical forces. Life seems as 



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