viii Natural Salvation. 



Every last ion and corpuscle of matter is alive, in the 

 sense that it may take its place and contribute its life to 

 culminate with others in the life of a tree, or an animal. 

 Each minute corpuscle is to itself a living, personal 

 particle. 



There are, therefore, no insentient forces ; the universe 

 moves because it lives, not lives because it moves in- 

 sentiently. This latter doctrine had its day in a cumbrous 

 philosophy and has passed to its bourne. 



It is already apparent that the " atom," so called, is a 

 highly organized life. All these " atoms " and " mole- 

 cules " of our old-time chemistry are living creatures, 

 often comparatively long-lived, even to a degree of im 

 mortalitj'^, yet still mortal and dissoluble under certain 

 stress and duress of environment. 



The point of this newer, better conception of nature is, 

 that every corpuscle, ion, " atom," or " molecule " is in a 

 lowly sense, a living thing, having what is to itself a 

 sentient, personal life, and moving in space under the 

 impulse of that life. 



A busy New York lawyer who still finds time to con- 

 sider res ultima, writes in a friendly spirit, to criticize 

 what he deems a misuse of the terms nature and natural. 

 His conception is still another instance of the hold which 

 supernaturalism has even on the legal mind. " I do not 



