164 LIFE IN NATURE. 



moral sphere ; and that, in truth, it was a spiritual 

 fact that thus presented itself to us under a material 

 guise. Translated from its passive phenomenal form 

 into the terms of true action, this law of least 

 resistance assumes a moral meaning : it expresses 

 Tightness love. It is adapted, thus, to bear the 

 fruits we see it yield. 



In dealing thus with Life, holding it with both 

 hands, as it were, looking at it on both its sides 

 its law and its results and so binding ourselves 

 by the true conditions of the problem ; and remem- 

 bering also that nature is not truly what it is to our 

 apprehensions, but is something more ; we are forced 

 to feel that the phenomena of organic life put us 

 in the presence of a spiritual fact. And since in 

 that life there is nothing more than is throughout 

 all nature, nature itself must be the phenomenon 

 or appearance of the spiritual world. 



To this point I was brought, and feel myself still 

 inevitably brought, by the studies to which the 

 science of physiology committed me. If there be 

 any life in nature and how can we deny it? it 

 is a spiritual life. For in nature regarded as 



