188 THE HEART OF NATURE 



every living thing, in beast and bird and insect,^ 

 in flower, plant, and man — and dw^elling in them 

 all in their togetherness. We have found it to be 

 both immanent and transcendent. It only exists — 

 and can only exist — ^in these its single self -active re- 

 presentations. But in relation to each of them it is 

 transcendent. Each star and flovper, each beast and 

 man, is its partial representation. But the whole 

 together is that Power which while it transcends is 

 yet resident in, and inspires, each single part which 

 goes to its making. In the inmost heart of Nature, 

 as the ground and source of Nature, yet permeating 

 Nature to the uttermost confines, and reigning 

 supreme over the whole, we find God ; actuating 

 the heart of God we find an ideal ; and actuating the 

 heart of the ideal- we find an imperative urge towards 

 perfection, an inborn necessity to perfect itself for 

 ever — ^just as inside the rough exterior of Abraham 

 Lincoln was the real Abraham Lincoln, at his heart 

 was an ideal, and at the heart of the ideal an inner 

 impulse towards perfection ; or as within the ex- 

 terior France is the real France, in the heart of 

 France an ideal, and in the heart of the ideal the 

 determination to perfect itself. 



This view of Nature is very different from that 

 view of her which would regard the world as having 

 been originally created by, and now being governed 

 by, an always and already perfect Being, living as 

 apart from it as the Sun is from the Earth, and 

 being as distinct and separate from it as a father is 

 from his son. And the difference in view must 

 make a profound diflPerence in our attitude to 

 Nature, and therefore in our capacity for seeing 



