refully studied fragments a vast synthesis of the
constructive power of Nature, embracing the laws of the formation of all
flower-forms. The value of analysis is to lead us to the original
starting-point of that which we analyse, and so to teach us the laws by
which its final form springs from this centre.

Knowing the law of its construction, we turn our analysis into a
synthesis, and we thus gain a power of building up which must always be
beyond the reach of those who regard "the unknowable" as one with
"not-being."

_This_ idea of the unknowable is the root of all materialism; and yet no
scientific man, however materialistic his proclivities, treats the
unanalysable residuum thus when he meets it in the experiments of his
laboratory. On the contrary, he makes this final unanalysable fact the
basis of his synthesis. He finds that in the last resort it is energy of
some kind, whether as heat or as motion; but he does not throw up his
scientific pursuits because he cannot analyse it further. He adopts the
precisely opposite course, and realises that the conservation of energy,
its indestructibility, and the impossibility of adding to or detracting
from the sum-total of energy in the world, is the one solid and
unchanging fact on which alone the edifice of physical science can be
built up. He bases all his knowledge upon his knowledge of "the
unknowable." And rightly so, for if he could analyse this energy into
yet further factors, then the same problem of "the unknowable" would
meet him still. All our progress consists in continually pushing the
unknowable, in the sense of the unanalysable residuum, a step further
back; but that there should be no ultimate unanalysable residuum
anywhere is an inconceivable idea.

In thus realising the undifferentiated unity of Living Spirit as the
central fact of any system, whether the system of the entire universe or
of a single organism, we are therefore following a strictly scientific
method. We pursue our analysis until it necessarily leads us to this
final fact, and then we accept this fact as the basis of our synthesis.
The Science of Spirit is thus not one whit less scientific than the
Science of Matter; and, moreover, it starts from the same initial fact,
the fact of a living energy which defies definition or explanation,
wherever we find it; but it differs from the science of matter in that
it contemplates this energy under an aspect of responsive intelligence
which does n