304 BIRDS AND MAN 



but this feeling, which was undefinable and not 

 to be traced to its source, was probably given to 

 us for a secret gratification. If we are curious 

 to know its significance, might we not regard it 

 as something ancillary to our spiritual natures, 

 as a kind of subsidiary conscience, a private 

 assurance that in aU our researches into the 

 wonderful works of creation we are acting in 

 obedience to a tacit command, or, at all events, 

 in harmony with the Divine Will ? 



Ingenious ! would be my comment, and 

 possibly to the eighteenth century mind it would 

 have proved satisfactory. There was something 

 to be said in defence of what appeared to him as 

 new and strange in our books ^and methods. 

 Not easily said, unfortunately ; since it was not 

 only the expression that was new, but the 

 outlook, and something in the heart. We are 

 bound as much as ever to facts ; we seek for 

 them more and more diligently, knowing that to 

 break from them is to be carried away by vain 

 imaginations. All the same, facts in themselves 

 are nothing to us : they are important only in 

 their relations to other facts and things — to all 

 things, and the essence of things, material and 



