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of the Inst. could be carried on between the four walls of his little office and that the rest of the building was only a clog on its usefulness.  The wind blowing & the night cold but Father went to the club as usual.
22nd.  Monday.  10 1/2 P.M.  Yesterday was our Communion Season.  It was pleasant to be present a united family at the sacred feast but brought back the painful longing for our dear Will.  He may have been with us though we know it not.  In the evening read aloud to Father from Nature & the Supernatural, by Horace Bushnell.  Mr. Bushnell used the word vital forces instead of vital [[underline]] principle [[underline]] ^to which Father objected The vital principle he contends is not a force but a controller of the forces of Nature.  He read to us an extract from one of his own essays upon force, its accumulation &c.  It was written more than 20 years ago & was first read before the ^American Academy at one of its sessions.  It seemed to me very beautiful.  Among [[strikethrough]] 2 [[/strikethrough]] other things he said that in order to raise ^[[strikethrough]] organis [[/strikethrough]] matter to a higher organization a certain [[end page]]

[[start page]] Jan. [[underline]] 1866 [[/underline]]
part of said matter must [[run?]] down to a lower condition in order to produce said elevation thus in the potato ^[[plant]] a portion of the potato [[strikethrough]] is employed [[/strikethrough]] that is of the starch &c contained within it is expended in [[forming?]] the materials for the plant & a portion also to supply the power for its formation so - that if a ^[[strikethrough]] potato [[/strikethrough]] plant were to grow in the dark [[strikethrough]] a pa [[/strikethrough]] it would be found it weighed lighter than the potato from wh. it sprung.  We had a long & intensely interesting conversation upon Nature & the Supernatural.  I wish I had time to record it all to night  He closed by saying there was enough in this world to make us humble and trustful that the unknowable was greater than the known.  That nothing could be more certain to him except his own existance than the presence of the Creator - God in the Universe the existance of an all powerful mind controlling all things similar to our own & the best evidence to him that the Bible was what it claimed to be was it adaptbility to the wants of human nature.
[[strikethrough]] 23rd [[strikethrough]] Father and Mr. Patterson who arrived
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