Note 107 — Chapter VI · —(Continued.) (continued 2)

Mr. Keightley’s meaning (and it is difficult for the words to bear any other interpretation) was that the denial of harmony is evidence that, at some previous time, the man who denies has set himself in opposition to the law, in virtue of those very desires and instincts of his animal personality to which Mr. Beatty alludes later on. In this sense, Mr. Beatty is right in saying that a law of the universe cannot be broken; but its limits may be transgressed, and consequently an attempt made by man to make himself into a small, but rival universe. It is the old story of the china pot and the iron kettle, and the fact that china gets the worst of it is conclusive that the china is struggling against Nature.