FIELD AND STUDY 



of the mechanical and chemical forces. It does not 

 annul them, but it makes use of them for its own 

 behoof. See these forces careering over the earth's 

 surface for untold ages, going their endless and fate- 

 ful rounds, dissolving and re-forming the rocks, 

 making the soil, clearing the atmosphere, depositing 

 the clay-banks, the sand-banks,, the gravel-banks, 

 the marl-banks, the phosphate-banks, scooping out 

 the valleys, laying the foundations of the hills, col- 

 lecting the waters into the rivers and lakes and seas, 

 establishing the weather-system of the globe, pro- 

 viding for the rains, the snows, the dews, — matter 

 and energy supreme, knowing no master, the only 

 activities in matter mechanical and chemical. Then 

 suddenly, or gradually, as you please, a new activity 

 appears, the vital, and after long ages a new power, 

 the mind and soul of man. The mechanical and 

 chemical forces have found their master. Man turns 

 them into new channels, or reverses them and takes 

 all sorts of liberties with them. He makes them do 

 his work, he combines and coordinates them in a 

 way they were never combined before. Psychic 

 power is the master of the physico-chemical power. 



§ 

 Life creeps or swims before it can walk, and it 

 walks before it can fly. It feels before it can see, and 

 it sees before it can hear or smell. It has sensation 

 before it has perception. It has instincts and reflex 

 actions long before it has consciousness and reason. 



