Faith : Part 7

Heart and Soul by Maveric Post
by Victor Mapes

(Page 11 of 21)

"Tut, tut," replies the scientific intellect, "this is only one sort of seed. There are hundreds, thousands of others, some so small that they look like grains of dust. Each one of these is a complete manufacturing plant, perfect in every detail, each designed to turn out a special kind of product, different from all the others. One of the most remarkable points about them is that they require no special materials - each and every one of them makes use of the same common ingredients, earth, air, light, water.

From those ingredients, this little machine, for instance, working automatically, can turn out a giant red-wood tree, which will last for centuries. This other little one, next to it, working in the same way, will produce thousands upon thousands of roses, of a certain beautiful shade of color and a certain delicate fragrance. And so it is with all these other little machines, which we call seeds, - however amazing the difference in the kind of product, it is due entirely to certain subtle differences in their design."

"But," say I, "what sublime intelligence conceived the plan of those machines, and what kind of sublimely skilful craftsman was able to fashion them?"

"They were made automatically by the various trees and plants."

"But who conceived the plan of the trees and plants?"

"The trees and plants were produced automatically by other little seeds, like these."

"But the first one of these seeds, or the first one of these trees - who conceived and executed that?"

"Oh, that," says the scientific intellect, "came about through a process of evolution, which extends way back thousands of centuries. We have studied it carefully and reasoned it all out to our entire satisfaction.

"These plant seeds are only one part of it. There are also all the animals and animalculae, including man. There are thousands of different kinds of living creatures and each kind has a distinct design from all the rest, which appears to have been determined by the special purpose for which it was intended.

"As a matter of fact, they are nothing more or less than the results of evolution, natural selection and the survival of the fittest. All we require for the demonstration of our theory, is a little bit of protoplasm at the beginning of things and a mass of elemental matter in an unformed state."

"But," say I, "are you sure you are not trying to befuddle me and befuddle yourself by the use of obscure words? You use the word "protoplasm" - but if you mean by that a kind of machine, like the orange pit or the red-wood seed, your evolution theory and your scientific chain of reasoning and all your big words merely bring us back to the point where we started and really explain nothing at all. The orange seed, if left to itself in the midst of elemental matter will produce a certain kind of tree and countless oranges. A bit of protoplasm, if left to itself in the midst of elemental matter, will not only produce an orange tree and a red-wood tree, but an elephant, a spider, a human being - all the countless species of living things to be found in the universe. It may take the protoplasm a longer time to turn all this out, but it is a bigger job and time is of small account in such a consideration.

"All I can say is that I prostrate myself in abject and bewildered admiration before that bit of protoplasm. If anything could be more wonderful than the orange seed with which we started, your protoplasm is certainly it. It is a miracle of a million miracles.

"But there is one thing you forgot to tell me - the only thing of any real interest or importance to the average mind in such a theory. What sublime intelligence conceived the plan of that bit of protoplasm - and what kind of sublimely skilful craftsman was able to fashion it?"

"Oh that," says the scientific intellect - "that just happens to be one point which our chain of reasoning has not yet been able to demonstrate in a logical and satisfactory way. We have left that out of our theory."

"Well then," say I, "here are trees and flowers and animals and mankind, each perfectly adapted for the special function on earth for which they were apparently designed. The plan of them appears to have been determined, somewhere, somehow, by a sublime intelligence which surpasses understanding, for some sublime purpose, apparently, which I am yearning to know. All the details, complications and assumptions of your theory when boiled down to simple terms seem more or less of a quibble on words and meanings.

"Your conclusions are of much the same sort as those of the intellectual cynic whom we quoted in connection with sympathy and affection. He undertook to prove with a chain of reasoning that I obey only motives of selfishness when I shed tears of grief because my friend has lost his only son."

Here we are living together on earth to-day, and here were our fathers and forefathers living, in the same general way with the same general instincts and feelings, as far back as we have any record of; and here presumably will our children and their descendants continue to be living, as far as our imagination can carry us. Whether the process of our creation involved a bit of protoplasm in the midst of chaos, or whether we were evolved from a thought and a breath of an Almighty God, is of very slight consequence as a human consideration.

Copyright 1921 by The Century Co.