SYNTHESIS OF THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL 



from which the two apparently contradictory sides of exist- 

 ence are seen to be intrinsically one. When it came home 

 to us that the progressive development of the life of the 

 world and man is organic, it became clear that there is, in 

 spite of appearances to the contrary, no schism in the 

 body. Every member shares the common life. "In the 

 production of this needle, with which I prick this blister in 

 the palm of my hand, the whole universe took part," said 

 a young student of science while he rested on the golf 

 grounds and chatted to his companion. In this new view 

 we see that life is more truly described as a growth than as 

 a building. True this view is not, in the strictest sense, 

 new. It is new only in the sense that we are becoming 

 more conscious of it. It has been dimly present in all the 

 great theories of human existence, for though in actual 

 life man has always been distracted by the clashing 

 currents of experience, there never has been absent from 

 him the half-born feeling that these interacting forces 

 have their being in one Element. But in this generation 

 the feeling has become articulate. From the day we enter 

 school to the day we leave it, and in all our studies after- 

 ward we are looking at things in the light of the idea that 

 things hang together and that what is now is the fruit of 

 the past and the seed of the future. I^et us therefore bring 

 this view of life before us, and try to discover, in the light 

 of it, the principle of unity in and through which the 

 apparently contradictory individuals^ while retaining their 

 individuality, advance to a single goal, {a) Regarding 

 man's development as revealed in history, Edw^ard Caird, 

 late Master of Balliol, Oxford, says, "there is no idea 

 which is so potent in our day as the idea of evolution, 

 development, or organic growth. The favorite method of 

 finding out what anything is, or at least what any living 

 thing is, is to ask how it came to be, to read its present 

 state in the light of its past, and to trace out the various 

 steps of change that link the form it has attained with the 



