THE LIFE-SPIRAL 61 



problem that has confronted the structural unit in 

 every development serial with our own, howsoever 

 remote the period. It comes to us in a somewhat 

 different form perhaps from that which it assumed 

 for the polyp in the ages past ; but, from a biological 

 point of view, the question at issue is the same: 

 namely, collective versus individual consciousness. 



Nature's one increasing purpose through all her 

 creatures is the forming of an ever higher type of 

 consciousness. We cannot assert that purpose to 

 culminate in man. There may be, as Shaler says, 

 system within system of individualities in indefinite 

 extension into the infinite of the minute as into the 

 infinite of the great. Our senses enable us to per- 

 ceive but a small range of the gamut of sight and 

 sound ; it were strange if we were not likewise limited 

 in our perception of life. 2 



n 



" UP, THE PINNACLED GLORY BEACHED, AND THE 

 PRIDE OF MY SOUL WAS IN SIGHT." 



A coherent involution must then have for its 

 formation an impelling and self-developing purpose. 



2 " For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor 

 angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor 

 things to come, 



"Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be 

 able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ 

 Jesus our Lord." 



ROMANS viii. 



