THE LIVING WORLD. 163 



met by words which express no meaning. For it 

 is nothing less than this (and the awe with which 

 the thought impressed me first is present to me 

 still), what is the true significance of that law, 

 which, appearing to us under the simple form that 

 motion takes the direction of least resistance (a mere 

 definition, mere truism as it is), yet brings forth 

 the varied order, the beauty and adaptations, the 

 ends and uses full of manifest love, which the 

 animated world reveals ? What is this law of least 

 resistance of seeming physical necessity which 

 bears such fruits? What fact is it that shines 

 through this " phenomenon ? " 



In order to feel the question aright, we need 

 to retain both terms of the problem well in our 

 thoughts. There are the results of life on the one 

 hand; there is the necessary law embodied in it, 

 on the other. The true thought of life must account 

 for not only one, but both. In life there is a 

 necessity which seems mechanical ; there is a result 

 which is divine. How shall we read this riddle ? 



I had not long pondered this problem, when I felt 

 that it raised itself out of the intellectual into the 



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