and sediment behind. Do not proper work and the exercise of will power have the same effect upon our lives?" Truly this is contact with God. Naturalism leaves no stone unturned in its determined search for the knowable in nature. But unlike any of the old religions and philosophies it makes no attempt to explain the unknowable. There is no temptation, even, in this direction; for everything needful and appropriate to man may be found in the realm of the knowable. II John Burroughs has written the last chapter in his own. intellectual and spiritual autobiography in his book, "Accepting the Universe," rather than advanced a scheme of life for his fellow men. But in reading it we are prone to feel that he invites us to accept the Universe with him. He is serene in his conclusions, exalted in the joy of frankly admitting and unreservedly accepting what he sees. He takes nature at her face value and believes in her. Schopenhauer, in pondering the problem of being, arrived at the conclusion that the non-existence of the world is not only conceivable but preferable to its existence. But Burroughs outstays Schopenhauer. He notices every detail of the life drama, he shrinks from no scene, setting or character; and at the end his verdict is: All is well; there is more good than evil. The evil is real and there is plenty of it; but Naturalism is not disturbed by the evil. Without the evil there could be no good. Moreover, evil is in most cases of a transient character challenging man to achievement. As regards the great crises in life, sorrow, affliction, oldage and death, we must meet them as best we can. It is childish to be resentful and fretful about things beyond our control. Marcus Aurelius anticipated Naturalism when he said that these things are simply the conditions upon which we receive life and are not to be placed in the categories of good and evil. We must accept them, and in our willingness to accept them may be found the surest means to mitigating their harshness. In inviting us to accept a universe compounded of good and evil, but entirely relieved of theological palladia, Burroughs shows us how we must break away from the relative human point of view and see things as a whole from nature's side. Things partake of good or evil only as they help or hinder, benefit or injure, us. Nature's stakes are on both sides or all sides-she never loses. In nature everything is good, or at any rate not evil; everything pure, or at any rate not impure; everything beneficent, or at least not malevolent. If we can get this point of view it will enable us to see that whatever happens is for the best-regardless of the effect upon you or me, or upon this nation, or this civilization-because nature always wins. Thus we may laugh with nature at our misadventure; we may rise with nature above our own adversities. No doubt a sort of bewilderment attends our arriving at this view. Where are our human bearings? What is to direct our aims and acts? But this is not a philosophy of procedure; it is an Attitude, a way of accepting and using life composedly. We glimpse the universal regulations; we perceive the rules of nature's game; we take a hold which is out beyond the little human drama; we walk (in our reflections) with the Big Fellow, Nature, whose gains are both our gains and losses. This cosmic attitude enabled Burroughs to take a broad and tolerant view of the old religions. They are all from nature, therefore all from God, and were useful in their day still are to some people for whom that day has not ended. They are good in the same way that the geocentric theory was good-working hypothesis, temporary in its nature, to be discarded as soon as we have found better and truer. Burroughs accomplished this for himself. He does not deliberately tell you and me to do it, but still he says that the only way he sees out is "by purging our minds of the old dogmas and boldly facing the reality as science shows it to us." He is tolerant, and Naturalism is tolerant, of the old religions (and the new) for such as need them. Few are as yet prepared to accept the seemingly barren truths of Naturalism. Burroughs does not go into the ethical problem. Scattered throughout his writings are striking statements indicative of the means by which nature teaches us how to live. "All men see how literally we are its children, and all men learn how swift and sure is the penalty of disobedience to its commands." The commands of nature are discoverable in the consequences, good or bad, which attach to our acts. Those of us who are most skilled in directing our lives with a view to desirable consequences, know best what to do and what not to do. "We know the conditions of our wellbeing. We know the price we have to pay for each blessing." Burroughs does not go on to tell us how to derive prudence from Naturalism: he no doubt feels that whoever has sympathy for his ideas will be wise enough to look after this matter for himself. III No system of thought escapes all difficulties or succeeds in covering all vulnerable spots. Professorial empiricists cannot on the whole take offense at Naturalism; but they are likely to take pleasure in enveloping the simple ideas advanced by Burroughs with clouds of learned casuistry. For Burroughs has neglected a vast amount of abstruse matter. The Idealists, on the other hand, will feel constrained to combat his ideas, or to ignore them. Accustomed as they are to elaborating thought in fields once suggested by, but now remote from, perceptive experience, they will deny the limits that he sets to knowledge. Consciousness, for them, is as real a field for investigation as that of the five senses. But to the advocate of Naturalism this super-mundane field is too likely to prove unfruitful-yielding up "great argument about it and about"-full of divergences and contradictions, and for the most part utterly incompatible with the already established truths of the sense world. More important still, it is not needed by him. He has found everything he needs in nature. Why then look beyond nature? Leaving such controversies to such as have relish for them, I will here call attention to one uncertainty that long beset the mind of John Burroughs. This pertains to the question of life. What is life and whence came it? The mysterious difference between living and non-living matter tempted Burroughs to believe that there is something ab extra in the former. But he did not go so far as Sir Oliver Lodge and declare that life is independent of matter. He leaned heavily toward Bergson's conception of life as a new principle, established at a definite time in the past, working creatively with matter. At any rate such was his leaning five years ago when he wrote "The Breath of Life." In his last book he seemed to incline to the conception of matter as containing in itself originally and always the potency of life. This last is the refined materialism of Tyndall, Huxley, Lester F. Ward, Benjamin Moore and others. Between Bergson's conception and Tyndall's "vitality" no striking difference appears at first glance. But there is a tremendous and important difference. By imagining life to have entered into matter as a new principle, Bergson as much as says that life existed before or separate from matter. He is able therefore to hold open the door for the continued existence of life after it has left matter. And in fact he declares that the fate of consciousness is not involved in the fate of the brain. Whereas the other conception excludes this possibility utterly in its espousal of the hylozoistic doctrine poetically expressed by Goethe in these words: "Matter can never exist without spirit, nor spirit without matter." It is highly significant that John Burroughs approached the last experience with no other expectation as to what might lie beyond than of being reclaimed atom for atom, element for element, into the bosom of nature. But we must remember that nature was both his God and his religion. He attained the heart's desire of the ardent devotee of all times. Yet, stripped of poetry, we know what it means. Nothing is lost, everything is saved, believed Burroughs. To him this was undoubtedly a great and sublime idea of immortality, though to us it may seem utterly barren. Why bother about death and what may or may not come after it? Our concern is not with death but with life. Says Burroughs: "Our wise attitude toward death is, I think, to forget or ignore it entirely." The quintessence of Burroughs' Naturalism is this: Know yourself and your environment; acquire a sane and healthy attitude; direct your acts with regard to their consequences. By some such means may a person "make the most of his life and strive for the highest happiness, which is knowledge and appreciation of the universal." BIRCH TREES JOHN R. MORELAND The night is white, The cruel winds Have blown away Each little leaf Of silver gray. O lonely trees As white as wool . . .. That moonlight makes So beautiful. |