THE NATURALIST'S VIEW OF LIFE 



flowers, the rocks, the soil, the trees, are here. He 

 appeared when the time was ripe, and he will dis- 

 appear when the time is over-ripe. He is of the 

 same stuff as the ground he walks upon ; there is no 

 better stuff in the heavens above him, nor in the 

 depths below him, than sticks to his own ribs. Thc- 

 celestial and the terrestrial forces unite and work 

 together in him, as in all other creatures. We can- 

 not magnify man without magnifying the universe 

 of which he is a part; and we cannot belittle it with- 

 out belittling him. 



Now we can turn all this about and look upon it 

 as mankind looked upon it in the prescientific ages, 

 and as so many persons still look upon it, and think 

 of it all as the work of external and higher powers. 

 We can think of the earth as the footstool of some 

 god, or the sport of some demon; we can people the 

 earth and the air with innumerable spirits, high 

 and low; we can think of life as something apart 

 from matter. But science will not, cannot follow 

 us; it cannot discredit the world it has disclosed — 

 I had almost said, the world it has created. Science 

 has made us at home in the universe. It has visited 

 the farthest stars with its telescope and spectroscope, 

 and finds we are all akin. It has sounded the depths 

 of matter with its analysis, and it finds nothing alien 

 to our own bodies. It sees motion everywhere, 

 motion within motion, transformation, metamor- 

 phosis everywhere, energy everywhere, currents 



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