In other words--and
this is a third point at which the philosophy of William James has
played havoc with the genteel tradition, while ostensibly defending
it--nature must be conceived anthropomorphically and in psychological
terms. Its purposes are not to be static harmonies, self-unfolding
destinies, the logic of spirit, the spirit of logic, or any other
formal method and abstract law; its purposes are to be concrete
endeavours, finite efforts of souls living in an environment which
they transform and by which they, too, are affected. A spirit, the
divine spirit as much as the human, as this new animism conceives it,
is a romantic adventurer. Its future is undetermined. Its scope, its
duration, and the quality of its life are all contingent. This spirit
grows; it buds and sends forth feelers, sounding the depths around for
such other centres of force or life as may exist there. It has a vital
momentum, but no predetermined goal. It uses its past as a
stepping-stone, or rather as a diving-board, but has an absolutely
fresh will at each moment to plunge this way or that into the unknown.
The universe is an experiment; it is unfinished. It has no ultimate or
total nature, because it has no end. It embodies no formula or
statable law; any formula is at best a poor abstraction, describing
what, in some region and for some time, may be the most striking
characteristic of existence; the law is a description _a posteriori_
of the habit things have chosen to acquire, and which they may
possibly throw off altogether.
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