THE LIVING WORLD. It) 7 



with which we associate the thoughts of love, of 

 righteousness, of true necessity. The facts which 

 life presents to us, when seen with the eyes of 

 science, assert for themselves this character. We 

 have to do with a spiritual fact in that necessity 

 which makes living things what they are. 



But this necessity is the same as that by which 

 the rest of nature is what it is. The same law or 

 necessity of force which determines the former, 

 determines all. We learn better from the organic 

 as it is nearer us ; we see nature more truly there 

 where it is less beyond our scope. And thus I 

 seemed to be taught that the essential fact which 

 all things imperfectly exhibit to us is spiritual also, 

 and fraught with moral elements. 



The appeal lies here to the heart: and, surely, 

 it gives no equivocal reply. As plainly as facts 

 can speak to the moral nature, does this fact of the 

 union of perfect law and beneficent result, of a 

 necessity so inherent in the nature of the case, and 

 fruits which a moral necessity alone could involve, 

 speak of a spiritual essence in that which we call 

 nature. 



