74 Heredity, Variation and Genius 



who lives independently in Nature, it is Nature 

 which lives in and through him and he who is 

 a function of it : his individuality a particular 

 offshoot which, dying when it is separated, is then 

 reabsorbed. To set the individual being over 

 against external Nature as something separate and 

 self- existent, a metaphysical subject opposed to a 

 physical object, so making a monstrous duality in 

 life-long disunity and conflict with that in which 

 and by which it actually breathes, moves and 

 has its being, is to make an unnatural divorce 

 between man and things in the supposed interest 

 of his spirituality. Thereupon it is quite in keep- 

 ing to picture the natural process of expiring 

 mortality in every aspect of gloomy terror — as an 

 event so repugnant to the sacred instincts of 

 humanity that it cannot be the death it seems of 

 so noble a creature, although the like event is 

 the absolute death of all less noble creatures, can 

 only be a caterpillar-like metamorphosis of mean 

 into higher being somehow somewhere : the in- 

 stinctive love of life, while life is, projected into 

 an eternal life, when it is not. 



A true conception of things may justly dissolve 

 this violent divorce of man from Nature, teaching 

 him that he owes all that he is to the Nature 

 which brings him into being, maintains him in 

 being, and finally, in the natural dissolution and 

 evolution of things, takes him out of being. 

 Thus soberly conceiving of himself he may apply 

 his mind diligently to search out the laws of 



