20 BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION. 



Out of the myriad forms in which we must suppose it possible 

 to have moulded the formative matter of the universe, only a 

 few were chosen. Out of the infinite variation of quantities in 

 which they might have been supplied, only that proportion was 

 adopted which made a world that could be the home of living 

 beings. To this end, that of life in nature, conspire a thousand 

 coincidences in the creation and endowment of matter, each and 

 all of which we would have no difficulty in imagining might 

 just as well have been otherwise. The chances are then infinity 

 to one against the concurrence of all these favoring circumstances. 



What shall we say then ? Is the world that bears us up, that 

 feeds us, that delights our every sense, a fortuitous jumble of 

 chaotic matter? Did the grim specter of chance preside at the 

 birth of the little world-workers that have evolved this beautiful 

 Cosmos? I am myself an unpretending reasoner. But every 

 sense I have revolts at the idea of an uncreated machine that 

 works a plan with never one mistake. For myself, I cannot but 

 think that he who sees no intelligence back of all this amazing 

 structure of the universe, must be the man whom " the gods have 

 first made mad." 



