And the last appearance, and the sum-total of appearances, must be potential in the first, as in the acorn is contained a potential forest. Given one acorn, and enough of space and time, and there is actually possible a cosmos of oaks; and every oak different, and no two twigs alike. So, could we explain the electron, we should comprehend the inane; in the moment lies concealed the æon. Indeed, it is only to time-fettered space-bound man that these are not one and identical. And, if in leaf and bud, then in perceiving mind. For somehow mind, this wondering mind of man, arose upon this planet; uprose, appeared, became. No trailing comet, surely, in wanton sport, showered mind upon this world. Whencesoever it arose, being here, and fed and nurtured by all things here, emergent from matter, a fragment of earth and sea and sky, surely in this mind of man must also be that self-same hidden power.... * * * * * I, too, then, was one of a mystic band, was in the hands of the self-same power, was indeed but a mutation amid its mutations, and had a part to play on my little stage, a part without which the mighty drama would be incomplete, however lowly it were. For, as by inexorable law the youngest leaflet in that dell was potentially existent from before all time, could not help but be and sway and flutter in the breeze, so I in my little world. But what the mighty drama portended or portrayed I knew as little as did the heedless beetle that had crept out of sight; and surely, he, poor little soul, had as much right to know as I--not many mutations, on this paltry planet, separated me from him. Only I saw, behind all, some ineffable power enacting an ineffable drama: playwright and protagonist in one; conceiving and enacting an endless plot; manifesting itself to itself, yet ever remaining the thing unmanifest; sundering itself into innumerable myriads, yet remaining one and a whole--incomprehensible--divine.[17] By degrees the great sky broke up into clouds. A half moon, cut into fantastic shapes by the twigs, peered through the trees; and as I thridded the boles--I miscomprehending, obtuse, merely a larger atom in a small inane, finding my devious way by a doubly reflected light--the scene was shifted, fresh actors called, and the great drama went on, unfolding for ever a tale without end. XVI The Unity of Nature § 24