Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/170

 itself while constantly altering and reconstructing the process. Thus what strikes any one who begins to reflect, is the element of harmonious relation in the world existing between the organic and the inorganic, and how existing things seem to be arranged with special reference to Man. For, at first, Man has before him things which have an independent existence, things which exist solely for themselves, but which, all the same, are in harmonious relation with his existence. What is really wonderful is that those very things which at first seem totally unrelated are just the things which really exist for one another, and therefore what produces wonder is the opposite of that indifference or absence of relation, namely, conformity to an end. We are thus in presence of a principle which is entirely different from that involved in unrelated existence.

This first principle is, so far as existing things are concerned, merely accidental. Nature, things, could not of themselves work harmoniously through so many forms of existence towards a contemplated end, and for this reason a rational arranging principle has to be forthcoming, and this the things themselves are not.

That things exist in conformity to an end is not a truth which is involved in or posited by the things themselves. Life certainly is so active that it makes use of inorganic nature, maintains itself by means of its act of assimilation, negates it, identifies itself with the inorganic and yet preserves itself in it. Its activity is certainly that particular activity of the subject which constitutes itself the centre point and uses the Other as a means, but the second characteristic is external to the things. Men, it is true, make use of things, they assimilate them, but the fact that there are such things which they can use is not involved in man’s existence, is not posited by men. The fact of their being externally unrelated or indifferent to each other so far as their existence is concerned, as well as the fact of their existence, are not involved in or