l exaltation in which "we feel that we are greater than we
know"--moments which we can remember, and of which the mere memory may
be the light of our lives, but which no act of our own will can bring
back. It is not till the distinction has been appreciated between nature
as it is and nature as we make it to be, between that which we see and
that which "having not seen we love," that any branch of art can be
reckoned in its proper value.

C. NATURE THE CREATION OF THOUGHT

3. In one sense of the the word, it would no doubt be true to say that
nature is simply and altogether that which we make it to be. Modern
philosophy has discarded the language which represented our knowledge of
things as the result of impressions and the transmission of images.[2]
If we still not only speak but think of ourselves as primarily passive
and in contact with an alien world, this arises simply from the
difficulty of conceiving a pure spontaneous activity. Driven from the
crude imagination which found the primary condition of knowledge in the
reception of "ideas" from without, "common sense" took refuge in the
more refined hypothesis of unknown objects, which cause our sensations,
and through sensations our knowledge.[3] But this standing-ground has
been swept away by the consideration that such a cause may be found
within as well as without, in the laws of the subject's activity as well
as in objects confessedly beyond the reach of cognition. Our ultimate
analysis can find no element in knowledge which is not supplied by
ourselves in conformity to a ruling law, or which exists independently
of the action of human thought.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] As, _e.g._, in the philosophy of Locke.

[3] Probably referring to Herbert Spencer.

D. THE "OUTWARD" ASPECT OF NATURE

4. But though the world of nature is, in this sense, a world of man's
own creation, it is so in a different way from the world of art and of
philosophy. Thought is indeed its parent, but thought in its primary
stage fails to recognize it as its own, fails to transfer to it its own
attributes of universality, and identity in difference. It sees outward
objects merely in their diversity and isolation. It seeks to penetrate
nature by endless dichotomy, glorying in that dissection of unity which
is the abdication of its own prerogative.[4] It treats outward things
as ministering to animal wants, as the sources of personal and
particular pleasures and pains; and thus i