88 
THE SOUL IN NATURE. 
There are certain philosophers who maintain that all 
existence is essentially material; while there are others 
who hold, with equal stubbornness, that there are no 
entities but those of a spiritual kind. Not to-day only, 
but from the birthday of the world, have these two oppo¬ 
site doctrines'been repeatedly brought into collision; and 
the question, as far as philosophers are concerned, is as 
much unsolved as ever. But it is not always the philo¬ 
sopher who deals most acutely with philosophy; and it 
sometimes happens that the idea of a poet, or the tradition 
of an uncultivated antiquity, throws more light on a topic 
under dispute than the most elaborate reasonings of men 
schooled in disputation. So it is in regard to this ques¬ 
tion of matter and spirit. The ancient poets, in their 
strange fables, asserted the prevalence of soul in Nature, 
and continually carried back the mind from material to 
spiritual things. The ancient creeds of the world embo¬ 
died the same thought; and, whether we refer to the 
Indian, Egyptian, or Grecian mythologies, we find that a 
spiritual existence is everywhere granted, and that body 
and soul in man, body and soul in nature, are unities 
universally adopted as respectively essential to each 
