CXVIII

The distinction between the material and
the spiritual world is sharply brought out and
exhibited. Those whom we call the dead
are merely expanding their powers, and un-
folding new, undreamed of capacities — they
are the " breathers of an ampler day for
ever nobler ends." The evolution of our
globe — in accordance with the Nebular Hy-
pothesis — is stated with a lucidity and con-
ciseness that science might envy, and is set
forth as an allegory or parable of the evolu-
tion of the human race. The processes,
transmutations, and developments through
which our physical world has passed in its
progress from chaos to cosmos are a figure
or type of the discipline, the vicissitudes, the
shocks and agonies through which the
" higher race " must pass as it comes grad-
ually nearer to

" That far-off divine event

To which the whole creation moves."



122 A Commentary Upon

Even if man fail, his experience is not devoid
of noble lessons. The obligation rests upon
all to subdue the lower nature, bringing it
into subjection to the higher. The truth
embodied in the last stanza was substantially
expressed by Dr. Donne more than two hun-
dred years before In Memoriam was begun.
The Nebular Hypothesis is stated in The
Princess, part 2, as well as in section ii8,
with a cogency and luminousness scarcely sur-
passed in technical formulations of scientific
truth.
