66 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



being. The Solonic legislation is inconceivable 

 without admitting the mind of a true, personal 

 legislator, such as we know the Athenian states- 

 man to have been who formulated it. The clock 

 upon the wall, that is ticking away the minutes 

 and hours, is equally inconceivable as the work 

 of an impersonal craftsman. Much more then 

 must the origin of all living beings render im- 

 perative our candid admission of the existence 

 of a personal Creator. Looking upon the blade 

 of grass, the lowliest of living things, that God 

 has multiplied a million-fold to spread for a car- 

 pet beneath the feet of man, the poet Francis 

 Thompson broke out in the ardent exclamation: 



Impenetrable fool 



Is he thou canst not school 



To the humility 



By which the angels see. 



Wonders enough can be found in that blade of 

 living green to confute all the follies of atheism. 

 How could stumbling chance, or an evolution not 

 directed by the intelligence of a wise Creator, 

 have ever produced the marvels of life contained 

 in even a single one of all the invisible, multitudi- 

 nous cells in that tiny blade of living matter, whose 

 "fine mouths" all shout scorn on "dull-eyed 

 doubt"? 



If this is the undoubted conclusion we must 

 draw from the humblest of vegetative forms, the 

 same follows even more clearly from the sentient 



