70 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



ism of the machine, which within every seven 

 years or so completely renews itself; and which, 

 to perpetuate its kind, crowds the floor-space of 

 its master s garage with a strong and vigorous 

 progeny of young automobiles that can in time 

 replace it, when it at last must share the fate of 

 all things earthly why then, and not till then, 

 will there be reason for giving some considera 

 tion to the materialistic explanation of life, to the 

 causo-mechanical theory of learned university 

 dons. Then at last we might believe that causo- 

 mechanism is an explanation of the even far more 

 wonderful vital operations that take place in the 

 human organism. 



But even all this would not be sufficient. That 

 the argument of the materialists may be made 

 convincing, it is necessary that they show us such 

 a machine which was due to purest chance, which 

 had no designer to plan it and no mechanician 

 to make it, which just happened, no one knows 

 how. When all this has come to pass, then and 

 not till then it is time to consider whether this far 

 more marvelous human machine, that converts the 

 selfsame mother s milk into the eye that sees, the 

 ear that hears, the little rosy fingers that can close 

 so tightly on everything within their grasp, and 

 all that makes up, in its thousandfold variety, the 

 human body; whether this same wonderful ma 

 chine that repairs itself, and renews itself, and 



