Nor, on the other hand, do we see any signs of the forest being the result of a preconceived plan gradually being worked out--as a bridge is gradually built up according to the previously thought out plan of the engineer. The carrying out of a plan means that in course of time the plan will be completed, and that each stage is a step towards its completion. But in the forest life there is no sign of any beginning of an approach towards the completion of a plan. There is no tendency to a closing in. There is a reaching upward, it is true. But there is also a splaying outward. One line leads up to man. But others splay out to insects, birds, and elephants. Another noticeable fact is that nowhere is perfection reached. If a plan were being worked we should expect to see the lower stages --like the foundations of the bridge--well and truly laid, incapable of improvement. But no living being--neither the lowliest nor the highest--is itself as a whole or in any one particular absolutely perfect. There is room for improvement everywhere. Most wonderful things we see. But not perfection. The eye is a wonderful thing. But an oculist would point out defects in even the best. And if it be argued that there has not been sufficient time yet to work out a plan, the reply is that there has been infinite time. Time is infinite. If the Activity were merely working out a plan, the plan would have been completed ages ago. So the Organising Activity which we see must be working at the back of things, keeping all the separate individuals together in a connected whole, not only preserves the strictest order among them, but grants them freedom, stimulates emulation among them, inspires them to reach upward and to look into and provide for the future. Such an Activity is no mere mechanical activity. It is a purposive Activity. It is an essentially _spiritual_ Activity. Spirit is not the casual flash flaming up from the working of blind physical and chemical forces. Spirit dominates these blind forces. Spirit is a true determining factor in the whole process. Spirit is at the root and source and permeates the whole. This Spiritual Activity is what in ordinary language we speak of as "the Spirit of Nature," and emanates from the Heart of Nature. * * * When, therefore, our Artist sums up his impressions of Nature as epitomised in the life of the forest; when he has been able to feel that he has, as it were, got inside the skin of Nature, entered into her Spirit and really understood her--as the artist-midge we have referred to would enter into the nature of a man and try and understand him--he will probably find that Nature works in very much the same way as he himself works, and is of much the same character as himself.