54 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



a being gifted with intelligence. In ordinary life 

 no man would question that postulate, even if 

 reference were made to the origin of such rela- 

 tively simple matters as a reliable time-piece or 

 a perfectly ground lens. For any one to at- 

 tribute the formation of these objects to blind 

 chance would be considered reason sufficient, on 

 the part of anxious friends, to call at once for the 

 assistance of the nearest alienist. There is no 

 escape from the dilemma that life as well as mat- 

 ter can owe its origin to an intelligent cause only 

 simple, necessary and self-existent of its very 

 nature, such as God is and matter cannot be or 

 else to blind chance. Whatever circumlocutions 

 may be used, it is not possible to escape this in- 

 evitable conclusion. But to ascribe to blind chance 

 the wonderful life of the universe, is, as Darwin 

 rightly says, an assertion "which our minds re- 

 fuse to accept." * To seek to shift the difficulty 

 by taking recourse to evolution for the cause of 

 these inexplicable developments, is but to make 

 still greater demands upon the surpassing intel- 

 ligence and power of the being that conceived 

 such laws and was able to impose them upon na- 

 ture. To quote the famous passage of Was- 

 mann: 



If we assume that God is the Creator of all things, and that 

 the world created by Him was evolved independently and 

 automatically, we have actually a greater idea of God than 



*"The Descent of Man," p. 613. (Appleton, 1896.); 



