behind it an undying impulse. It manifests its vitality, not only
among the uninstructed masses, but in the most select ranks of
scientists and philosophers. And thus it is not too much to say
that the idea of a universal life in nature is as firmly rooted
today as it was in the dawn of man's intellectual development.
The form in which the idea has been presented has changed
with the ages. Mythology succeeded animism, and has in turn
yielded to many curious and vanished theories, polytheistic,
gnostic, pantheistic, and the rest. Now, the belief in distinct
beings behind natural phenomena has virtually disappeared. Not
so the belief in some form of universal life or consciousness--of
which belief representative types will be given directly.

Of the persistence of the mental attitude in the modern child,
Ruskin gives a charming example, in his "Ethics of the Dust."
"One morning after Alice had gone, Dotty was very sad and
restless when she got up; and went about, looking into all the
corners, as if she would find Alice in them, and at last she came
to me, and said, 'Is Alie gone over the great sea?' And I said,
'Yes, she is gone over the great deep sea, but she will come
back again some day.' Then Dotty looked round the room; and I
had just poured some water out into the basin; and Dotty ran to
it, and got up on a chair, and dashed her hand through the water,
again and again; and cried, 'Oh, deep, deep sea! Send little Alice
back to me.'" On this, Ruskin remarks--"The whole heart of
Greek mythology is in that; the idea of a personal being in the
elemental power; of its being moved by prayer; and of its
presence everywhere, making the broken diffusion of the
element sacred." It would seem that Dotty did not definitely
personify the element, but was rather in the animistic stage. The