2. Again, I have used the term vital _principle_. I must justify it. I know full well that it is the fashion to ridicule the term as a remnant of an old superstition which regards vital force as a sort of supernatural entity unrelated to other forces of Nature. No one has striven more earnestly than myself to establish the correlation of vital with physical and chemical forces;[45] and yet, if the view above presented be true, there is a _kind_ of justification even for the term vital _principle_--much more, vital _force_. There is a kind of reason and true insight in the personification of the forces of Nature, and especially of vital force. All forces, by progressive dynamic individuation, are on the way toward entity or personality, but fully attain that condition only in man. 3. Again, to perceive relations and properties abstracted from material things, to form abstract or general ideas, to form not only _per_cepts but also _con_cepts, is admitted to be a characteristic of man--a characteristic on which all our science and philosophy rest. From time immemorial the vexed question has been debated, “Have such abstract or general ideas any _real_ existence, or are they mere _names_ of figments of the mind?” This is the famous question of _realism_ and _nominalism_. Now, if our view be correct, then there is one most fundamental abstraction, viz., _self_, which is indeed a _reality_. Self-consciousness is the direct recognition of the one reality, spirit, of which all others are the sign and shadow--the true reality which underlies and gives potency to all abstractions or ideas. Do we not find in this view, then, the foundation of a true realism, or rather a complete reconciliation of realism and nominalism? 4. Thus, then, Nature, through the whole geological history of the earth, was gestative mother of spirit, which, after its long embryonic development, came to birth and independent life and immortality in man. Is there any conceivable meaning in Nature without this consummation? All evolution has its beginning, its course, its end. Without spirit-immortality this beautiful cosmos, which has been developing into increasing beauty for so many millions of years, when its evolution has run its course and all is over, would be precisely as if it had never been--an idle dream, an idiot tale signifying nothing. I repeat: Without spirit-immortality the cosmos has no meaning. Now mark: It is equally evident that, _without this gestative method of creation of spirit_, the whole geological history of the earth previous to man would have no meaning. If man’s spirit were made at once out of hand, why all this elaborate preparation by evolution of the organic kingdom? The whole evolution of the cosmos through infinite time is a gestative process for the birth of spirit--a divine method of the creation of spirits.