nature is '_simply distorted and desecrated_' by the unwarranted
assumptions of theism.

Now let us try to consider accurately what Dr. Tyndall's statement
means. Knowledge of Nature, he says, associates him with Nature. It
withdraws him from '_the hampering details of earth_,' and enables the
individual human being to have communion with a something that is beyond
humanity. But what is communion? It is a word with no meaning at all
save as referring to conscious beings. There could be no communion
between two corpses; nor, again, between a corpse and a living man. Dr.
Tyndall, for instance, could have no communion with a dead canary.
Communion implies the existence on both sides of a common something. Now
what is there in common between Dr. Tyndall and the starry heavens, or
that '_power_' of which the starry heavens are the embodiment? Dr.
Tyndall expressly says that he not only does not know what there is in
common, but that he '_dare_' not even say that, as conscious beings,
they two have anything in common at all.[26] The only things he can know
about the power in question are that it is vast, and that it is uniform;
but a contemplation of these qualities by themselves, must tend rather
to produce in him a sense of separation from it than of union with it.
United with it, in one sense, he of course is; he is a fraction of the
sum of things, and everything, in a certain way, is dependent upon
everything else. But in this union there is nothing special. Its
existence is an obvious fact, common to all men, whether they dwell upon
it or no: and though by a knowledge of Nature we may grow to realise it
more keenly, it is impossible to make the union in the least degree
closer, or to turn it into anything that can be in any way called a
communion. Indeed, for the positivists to talk about communion or
association with Nature is about as rational as to talk about communion
or association with a steam-engine. The starry skies at night are