everything that happened some deity produced, some spirit, some devil,
some hobgoblin, some dryad, some fairy, some spook, something except
nature. First, then, the supernatural; and a barbarian, looking at the
wide, mysterious sea, wandering through the depths of the forest,
encountering the wild beasts, troubled by strange dreams, accounted for
everything by the action of spirits, good and bad. Second, the
supernatural and natural. There is where the religious world is
today--a mingling of the supernatural and natural, the idea being that
God created the world and imposed upon men certain laws, and then let
them run, and if they ever got into any trouble then he would do a
miracle, and accomplish any good that he desired to do. Third--and
that is the grand theory--the natural. Between these theories there
has been from the dawn of civilization a conflict. In this great war
nearly all the soldiers have been in the ranks of the supernatural.
The believers in the supernatural insist that matter is controlled and
directed entirely by powers from without. The naturalists maintain
that nature acts from within; that nature is not acted upon; that the
universe is all there is; that nature, with infinite arms, embraces
everything that exists, and that the supposed powers beyond the limits
of the materially real are simply ghosts.

You say, ah! this is materialism! this is the doctrine of matter! What
is matter? I take a handful of earth in my hands, and into that dust I
put seeds, and arrows from the eternal quiver of the sun smite it, and
the seeds grow and bud and blossom, and fill the air with perfume in my
sight. Do you understand that? Do you understand how this dust and
these seeds and that light and this moisture produced that bud and that
flower and that perfume? Do you understand that any better than you do
the production of thought? Do you understand that any better than you
do a dream? Do you understand that any better than you do the thoughts
of love that you see in the eyes of the one you adore? Can you explain
it? Can you tell what matter is? Have you the slightest conception?
Yet you talk about matter as though you were acquainted with its
origin; as though you had compelled, with clenched hands, the very
rocks to give up the secret of existence? Do you know what force is?
Can you account for molecular action? Are you familiar with chemistry?
Can you account for the loves and the hatreds of the a