Every manifestation of every individual power of nature is connected with all the other powers, for nature is one connected whole. Its manifestations, therefore, are strictly necessary, and the logical conclusion at which I arrive is that it is absolutely impossible that anything should be other than what it is. I have not come into existence by my own power. I have been called into being by a power out of myself. Thought is assuredly a far higher and more subtle operation of nature than the formation of a plant or the motion of an animal.
Thought exists in nature, as well as the creative power which gives birth to the plant.
To attempt to deduce thought from any mere organization of matter, however, is an extravagance into which I shall not easily fall. There is in nature an original thinking power, as well as an original plant-creating power. This form, this motion, this thought, this duration of all essential qualities amidst many non-essential changes belong to me as to a being of my species. But the man-forming power in nature has manifested itself, at the time of my production, under manifold conditions and circumstances. By these conditions and circumstances it was determined that I should become.