THE DIVINE SOIL 



of evolution, instead of to the far away, the un- 

 known, or the supernatural. 



How the organic came to bud and grow from the 

 inorganic, who knows ? Yet it must have done so. 

 We seem compelled to think of an ascending series 

 from nebular matter up to the spirituality of man, 

 each stage in the series resting upon or growing 

 out of the one beneath it. Creation or develop- 

 ment must be continuous. There are and can be 

 no breaks. The inorganic is already endowed with 

 chemical and molecular life. The whole universe 

 is alive, and vibrates with impulses too fine for 

 our dull senses; but in chemical affinity, in crys- 

 tallization, in the persistence of force, in electri- 

 city, we catch glimpses of a kind of vitality that 

 is preliminary to all other. I never see fire bum, 

 or water flow, or the frost-mark on the pane, 

 that I am not reminded of something as myste- 

 rious as life. How alive the flame seems, how 

 alive the water, how marvelous the arborescent etch- 

 ings of the frost! Is there a principle of flre? 

 Is there a principle of crystallization? Just as 

 much as there is a principle of life. The mind, 

 in each case, seems to require something to lay 

 hold of as a cause. Why these wonderful star 

 forms of the snowflake? Why these exact geo- 

 metric forms of quartz crystals ? The gulf between 

 disorganized matter and the crystal seems to me 

 as great as that between the organic and the inor- 



