204 HEREDITY. 



in human form. Of course the figure representing 

 the Divine Being must be a failure, and perhaps 

 blasphemy ; but art says that, as a mere human form, 

 it is one of the most matchless in the world. Some 

 cherubs' faces that accompany it are exceedingly 

 noble. This figure represents the creative Power. 

 It extends its right arm, and Adam lifts up his left. 

 His hand is lax ; his whole body is flaccid ; but from 

 the Divine finger to his finger there passes an electric 

 spark of the Divine likeness, and Adam becomes a 

 living soul. A photograph of that supremely majes- 

 tic work of Michael Angelo I keep on my study-wall, 

 and I cannot live with it out of sight. Nevertheless, 

 to me it is not the most perfect symbol of the method 

 of the Divine action in the creation of a human 

 spirit. Better than that picture to suggest the atti- 

 tude of modern science, would be one far older, the 

 tabernacle in the wilderness enswathed with a cloud 

 full of light, and having at one part of its interior a 

 holy flame. The cloud touching every part of the 

 tabernacle is the emblem of the Divine Intelligence 

 acting in all natural law. But this presence is mani- 

 fested in some parts of that tabernacle, in a sense in 

 which it is not in all parts. There is a conscience 

 in man ; there is in the human soul a capacity which 

 does not exist in the immaterial portion of a brute 

 creature. The cloud enswathes the slabs and the 

 brass and the curtains of the tabernacle, as well as 

 the holy of holies. There is no portion of the sym- 

 bol that is not bathed in the cloud, and so there is no 

 part of natural law that is not filled by the Divine 



