THE ORGANIC AND THE INORGANIC. 201 



living truth, the joyfulness, the passion, the repose, 

 the Tightness, which even no\v Nature images, 

 though faintly and but afar off, to our hearts. 



There is yet another respect in which it seems to 

 me our thought of nature is inverted naturally 

 inverted owing to our partial apprehension, but in 

 a way^that corrects itself with growing knowledge. 

 We think the organic world that in which we dis- 

 cern the marks of life the highest part of nature ; 

 it truly is the lowest. We have seen that, viewed 

 by the eye of science, it is shown to be distinguished 

 not by the addition of anything, but rather by an 

 absence. It springs from the all-pervading order of 

 nature by a limitation and confining of her powers.* 

 Seen by the eye of the soul, it exhibits the same 

 character. Organic life shows us the good powers 

 of nature perverted to purposes that are not good. 

 And thus our mingled feelings in respect to it 

 receive an explanation. We admire, and cannot 

 but admire, the order, the mutual subservience of all 

 the parts and their interworking to common ends, 



* See chapter vi. p. 14,3. 



