But this may be reserved for consideration in another place. Here I will only add, in conclusion, that opposite to that gradational scale, already so often mentioned, which the vast pyramid of nature forms in relation to God and its own living development, stands another scale for man, adapted to his needs and suited to his narrow position and limited intelligence. In this scale, nature, _i.e._, in this sense, the nature which most immediately surrounds and environs man, this planet of our earth which bears and nourishes the human race, is first of all man’s habitation, teeming, indeed, with life, and even itself a living thing, in which, however, he is ever meeting here and there with something that tells him it is not his proper home. In the second step of this view of nature, which contemplates it principally in its relation to man and man’s wants, the natural world in its present form appears as the battle-place and debatable ground of the still undecided, or, rather, not as yet terminated, struggle between the good and evil powers, and the fiercer the strife again begins to be, the more necessary is it not to overlook this aspect of the matter. The third gradation in this view of nature, considered relatively to the mind or spirit of man in his finite existence, is that which teaches him to look upon it as the visible veil of the invisible world, covered all over and richly ornamented with significant symbols and hieroglyphics. And even because nature itself is even a symbolical being, therefore, when we speak of its inmost life and its spirit, or its meaning as a whole, _i.e._, when we attempt to study and to understand it, not physically only, but even philosophically, we can only hope to convey our meaning symbolically, by employing scientific illustrations and living symbols. LECTURE VII. OF THE DIVINE WISDOM AS MANIFESTED IN THE REALM OF TRUTH, AND OF THE CONFLICT OF THE AGE WITH ERROR.