Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/327

 form of uses matching the form of his desires; she is a greater world, the embodiment, as it were, of his own mind. So fully does nature serve him that she may be regarded as the world of his mind materialized, and, through the things thereby embodied, made responsive by her uses to all his natural desires. This is to say that use to man is the chief purpose of nature. Each successive step in its formation was a preparation for man. He has dominion over the earth, plants, animals, and the forces in nature, and subjects them to his use. So fully do all things center in him and contribute to his existence and development that he comes as the purpose of all that went before. He is as the fruit on the end of the branch, the final purpose of the tree into which it pours its life, and for which it surrenders itself. Then, since man is the end for which creation exists, the first and highest use of creation, it is conclusive that he is as enduring as the universe itself, or as the highest use.

Not only is man in touch with nature at all points through the material that nature furnishes for his natural structure, through the Correspondence with nature by means of the bodily senses, and through the science and art that respond