The main trellis or branch conditions that run through everything are the conditions of Life, Death, Growth, and Decay. These are the four master branches. All others are the twigs subsidiary and derived from these. Think, if you can find a conception of the mind, exclusive of mathematical concepts, that does not embody these four in its essence, and is not, in fact, the child of these. And yet, these four are only one. For death is complementary to life; it is the absolutely faithful shadow of life. Nay, it is life itself, for life is perpetual change, and the essence of death is not death, but change. And growth, what is it?—change; and decay, what is it?—change. Change, then, is the one master idea, the trunk from which all ideas spring—and what is the soul of change?—motion. And what is motion?—it is the soul of the Universe. End of Project Gutenberg's The New Optimism, by Henry De Vere Stacpoole