was the organization of its particles, and that is gone. The face and
form of my friend can indeed be blotted out in no single item. But I
care nothing for its material items, The totality may be wrecked, and
it is that totality to which my affections cling. And so it is in the
world around--material remains, organic wholeness goes. It is almost a
sarcasm of nature that she counts our precious things so cheap, while
the bricks and mortar of which these are made--matters on which no
human affection can fasten--she holds for everlasting. The
lamentations of the ages, then, have not erred. Something tragic is
involved in the framework of the universe. In order to abide,
divulsion must occur. Destruction of organism is going on all around
us, and ever will go on. Things must unceasingly be torn apart. One
might call this destructive and lamentable change the only steadfast
feature of the world.



V

Yet after all, and often in this very process of divulsion, we catch
glimpses of a nobler sort of change, For there is a third species to
which I might perhaps give the name of transforming: change. When, for
example, a certain portion of oxygen and a certain portion of
hydrogen, each having its own distinctive qualities, are brought into
contact with one another, they utterly change. The qualities of both
disappear, and a new set of qualities takes their place. The old ones
are gone,--gone, but not lost; for they have been transformed into new
ones of a predetermined and constant kind. Only a single sort of
change is open to these elements when in each other's presence, and in
precisely that way they will always change. In so changing they do