existed like the wheat, for themselves; we utilise them, but they are not of
us.

There is nothing human in any living animal. All nature, the universe as far
as we see, is anti- or ultra-human, outside, and has no concern with man.
These things are unnatural to him. By no course of reasoning, however
tortuous, can nature and the universe be fitted to the mind. Nor can the
mind be fitted to the cosmos. My mind cannot be twisted to it; I am separate
altogether from these designless things. The soul cannot be wrested down to
them. The laws of nature are of no importance to it. I refuse to be bound by
the laws of the tides, nor am I so bound. Though bodily swung round on this
rotating globe, my mind always remains in the centre. No tidal law, no
rotation, no gravitation can control my thought.

Centuries of thought have failed to reconcile and fit the mind
to the universe, which is designless, and purposeless, and
without idea. I will not endeavour to fit my thought to it any longer; I
find and believe myself to be distinct--separate; and I will labour in
earnest to obtain the highest culture for myself. As these natural things
have no connection with man, it follows again that the natural is the
strange and mysterious, and the supernatural the natural.

There being nothing human in nature or the universe, and all
things being ultra-human and without design, shape, or purpose,
I conclude that, no deity has anything to do with nature.
There is no god in nature, nor in any matter anywhere, either
in the clods on the earth or in the composition of the stars.
For what we understand by the deity is the purest form of Idea,
of Mind, and no mind is exhibited in these. That which
controls them is distinct altogether from deity. It is not