THE GREEK ATTITUDE 



This is, of course, the same argument which was used 

 by Paley in his Evidences of Christianity. Just as a 

 person who had never known of a watch would be 

 compelled to postulate the existence of a watchmaker, 

 if he unexpectedly found such an object in a field, 

 because it exhibited every sign of purpose and of an 

 orderly arrangement of its parts; so the observer of 

 nature sees everywhere about him the unmistakable 

 evidences of purpose and order, and is forced to the 

 conclusion that there is a Creator and Ruler of the 

 world. 



As houses or chairs are constructed according to 

 the plans of their designers, so there is in the mind of 

 God an idea or image which is the perfect and fixed 

 pattern of each kind of material objects and accord- 

 ing to which they are fashioned. Because the soul, or 

 psuche, of man is a part of God, we, too, know these 

 divine images and thus can recognize objects such as 

 houses or chairs however they may differ in appear- 

 ance and details. Also, God has endowed each kind, 

 or class, of objects with the tendency to attain a form 

 as nearly as possible like that of its perfect pattern. 



There is thus a series of classes of forms from ma- 

 terial objects in an ascending scale through plants to 

 animals and finally to man, who is nearest to perfec- 

 tion, because he, alone having a soul, is most like to 

 God. In the organic world, what we now call a species 

 of plants or animals varies in its characteristics so as 

 to attain as nearly as possible to the qualities of its 



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