THE BREATH OF LIFE 



and counter-currents everywhere, ceaseless change 

 everywhere; it finds nothing in the heavens more 

 spiritual, more mysterious, more celestial, more 

 godlike, than it finds upon this earth. This does 

 not imply that evolution may not have progressed 

 farther upon other worlds, and given rise to a higher 

 order of intelligences than here; it only implies that 

 creation is one, and that the same forces, the same 

 elements and possibilities, exist everywhere. 



VII 



Give free rein to our anthropomorphic tendencies, 

 and we fill the world with spirits, good and bad — 

 bad in war, famine, pestilence, disease; good in all 

 the events and fortunes that favor us. Early man 

 did this on all occasions; he read his own hopes and 

 fears and passions into all the operations of nature. 

 Our fathers did it in many things; good people of 

 our own time do it in exceptional instances, and 

 credit any good fortune to Providence. Men high in 

 the intellectual and philosophical world, still invoke 

 something antithetical to matter, to account for the 

 appearance of life on the planet. 



It may be justly urged that the effect upon our 

 habits of thought of the long ages during which this 

 process has been going on, leading us to differentiate 

 matter and spirit and look upon them as two oppo- 

 site entities, hindering or contending with each 

 other, — one heavenly, the other earthly, one ever- 



274 



