and of colouring, depending largely upon his ideas of the
place of nature in relation to himself and to the invisible world. But
such anthropomorphic explanations could not long survive the progress of
the sciences, for a scientific comprehension of nature could only be
attained by getting rid of all human colouring, and by investigating
nature entirely by itself, out of all relation to the human soul. Man
then investigated nature more and more as an object apart from himself.

The first result of these investigations was to impress upon him the
reality of nature as something independent, and to increase on a very
large scale his knowledge of, and control over nature. When man began to
formulate and understand nature, he began, too, to invent machines to
profit from the knowledge he gained. Hence followed a marvellously
fruitful period of human activity, an activity which at first
strengthened man in his own soul, and gave him increased consciousness
of independence and power. While he was compelled to admit the greatness
of the natural world, he became more and more convinced that he himself
was far greater, for could he not put the laws of nature to his own use
and profit? Hence the gain to man at this stage of the development of
the sciences was very great, for he had come to appreciate more than
before the superiority of the human soul over the material world. Hence
resulted a more robust type of life, "a life energetic, masculine,
pressing forward unceasingly." Matters, however, were not destined to
remain long at this stage. As man's knowledge of the processes of nature
increased further, a twofold result followed. On the one hand, the sense
world of nature became increasingly absorbing in interest; on the other
hand, laws were formulated and nature was conceived of as being a chain
of cause and effect, a combination of mechanical elements whose
interactions were according to law, and could be foretold with the
utmost precision.

These two factors worked in the same direction, namely, that of
rendering less necessary the conception of a spiritual world. The
interest of mankind became so concentrated upon material things that the
interest in the invisible decreased, while the mechanical, soulless
elements with their ceaseless actions and reactions in definite order,
and according to inviolable law, were held sufficient to account for the
phenomena of nature. The keynote was "relation to environment"; a
constantly