Chapter IX: Book II: Edinburgh

“_We do not know where sentient powers, in the widest sense of
the term, begin or end. And there may be disturbances and moods
of Nature wherein the very elemental forces approach sentient
being, so that, perhaps, mythopœic man has not been altogether a
dreamer of dreams. I need not dwell on the striking reflections
to which this possibility gives rise; enough that an idealistic
dynamism forces the possibility on our view. If the life of
Nature is from time to time, and under special conditions,
raised to the intense requisite level, we are in the presence of
elemental forces whose character primitive man has not entirely
misunderstood._”--“Individual and Reality” (E. D. Fawcett).