In the world of inorganic matter, the tendency of units to form themselves into groups having relation to other groups is already visible. A force immanent in the atom clearly becomes transcendent _in relation to the atom_ when atoms group themselves into molecules. And when molecular affinities come into play, and obey definite laws of form, as in the wonderful phenomena of crystallization, we see that the force immanent in each molecule becomes transcendent, as regards the molecules taken separately, when we look at them from the point of view of the completed group. Crystallization is a process which trembles on the very verge of vital action. And in vital action the alternation of immanence and transcendence in an ever-ascending scale becomes still clearer and more significant. Every cell is a collection of forces controlled by a power which transcends each one of them, or any number of them below the whole. Every cell colony, like the _Alga_ described in an earlier chapter,[122] has a life which is immanent in the colony but transcendent as regards its component members. Definite groups of cells make up the structure of the highly organized plant or animal, and exhibit the same combination of forces immanent in the parts and transcendent, as regards those parts, in the whole. Again, each whole, each individual, is moved by life-impulses immanent in itself but transcendent in so far as they represent the communal life of the species to which it belongs. This communal life of the species becomes immanent again when we regard it as embraced in the life of the totality of beings on the globe. The thought must at once occur, as the ascending series passes out of reach of man’s intelligence: Whither, then, does it lead us in the end? Is there any end? And is our knowledge of Being absolutely limited to those parts of it which lie _beneath_ us? We are, I think, able, without going beyond the limits of observation and experience, to frame a synthesis of all physical nature, and to express its character in terms of Life and Response. But at the next step we have to embrace man with his moral nature, his intelligence, his personal consciousness, and there may for aught we know be beings far higher than man who must also be included. Now here we are not only _in_ the synthesis and therefore unable to grasp and survey it, but we are also quite unaware of its contents and limits. We ask, Is the All of Things personal? is It conscious? has It a manlike intelligence? and so forth, and I confess I see no way of answering these questions with our present capacities. We can only say—but this is much—that as the universe is one, the part of it which we do not see cannot stand in any essential contradiction to that which we do.