Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/350

 to. In order to understand what life is, recourse is accordingly had to external mechanical modes of conception as illustrated by the action of the blood, and to chemical conceptions as seen in analysis of foods. It is not, however, possible by such processes to discover what life itself is. It is necessary to suppose the existence of some third thing which has brought these processes into existence. As a matter of fact, however, it is just the subject which is this unity, this harmony of the organism. Still this unity involves the relation of the living subject to external Nature, which is thought of as having a merely indifferent and accidental connection with the subject.

The conditions involved in this relation do not form the sole basis of the development of what has life; still, if the living being did not find these conditions ready to hand, it could not possibly exist. The observation of this fact directly produces the feeling that there must exist something higher which has introduced this harmony. It at once awakens sympathetic attention and admiration in men. Every animal has its own narrow range of means of sustenance, and indeed many animals are limited to a single source of sustenance, human nature having in this respect also the most general character. This fact accordingly, that there exists for every animal this outward particular condition, rouses in Man that feeling of astonishment which passes over into a sense of exalted reverence for that third something which has brought about this unity. This represents Man’s elevation to the thought of that higher existence which produces the conditions necessary for the accomplishment of its end. The subject secures its own preservation, and the act whereby it does this is, further, in all living things an unconscious one, is what in animals we term instinct. The one gets its means of sustenance by force, the other produces it with the help of art. This it is which we term the wisdom of God in Nature, in which we meet with that infinitely manifold