Plotinus’s aim, like that of all thinkers in the degree of their conception, is, in Coleridge’s words, “the perfect spiritualisation of all the laws of Nature into laws of intuition and intellect.” It is the subsumption of phenomena in terms of personality, the reduction of Nature to the mind of man. Conversely it will be seen that the process may be said to personalise Nature; in other words, to assume the presence in natural phenomena of a kind of personal intelligence. If this be animism, I decline to be shocked by it on that account; for in that event the highest philosophy and one of the lowest forms of religion coincide, and there is no more to be said of it. The danger of this reasoning from mind to Nature and from Nature to mind is anthropomorphism. We tend to make Nature in our own image, or, conversely, _à la_ Nietzsche, to make ourselves after the image of Nature. But the greater the truth the greater is the peril of it; and thinkers must be on their guard to avoid the dangers, while nevertheless continuing the method. Plotinus certainly succeeded in avoiding the anthropomorphic no less than the crudely animistic dangers of his methods; but at the cost of remaining unintelligible to the majority of readers. THE NEW EUROPE.—It should be possible before long to begin to discern some of the outlines of the new continent that will arise from the flood of the present war. That it will be a new continent is certain, and that it will contain as essential features some of the aspects of the Slav soul is probable. For what has been spiritually most apparent during the war has been the struggle of the Slav soul to find expression in the Western medium. Russia, we may say, has sought to Europeanise herself; or, rather, Russia has sought to impress upon Europe Russian ideas; with this further resemblance in her fate to the fate of the pioneers of every great new spiritual impulse, that she has been crucified in her mission. The crucifixion of Slavdom, however, is the sign in which Russian ideals—or, let us say Slav ideals—will in the end conquer. They will not submerge our Western ideas; the new continent will be the old continent over again; but they will profoundly modify our former configurations, and compel us to draw our cultural maps afresh. In what respect, it may be asked, will our conceptions be radically changed? The reply is to be found confusedly in the events of the Russian Revolution; in the substitution of the pan-human for the national ideal, and in the attempt, this time to be made with all the strength at the disposal of intelligence, to create a single world-culture—a universal Church of men of good-sense and good-will. This appears to me to be the distinguishing feature of the new continent about to be formed; and we shall owe it to the Slavs.