SIGNS AND SIGNS OF MIND 7 



wrought upon by human skill are made to assume forms 

 of beauty and usefulness. Implements of agriculture, 

 machinery at the service of every industry, mighty 

 engines, inventions without number, inventions which 

 delight us by their simplicity and ingenuity, or by their 

 complex order concentrated and directed to one end, 

 houses, mansions, churches, cathedrals, works of painting 

 and sculpture, these are the magnificent fruits of the 

 working of the human mind on the matter of our globe. 



And everywhere signs of mind on material objects are 

 due to mind. Scientists act on this principle. Were it 

 possible for a geologist to find in a stratum of the earth's 

 crust a comb of wax, or a beaver's lodge petrified, would 

 he not at once affirm that living creatures of the same 

 nature and intelligence as now produce such works 

 existed on it in the age to which the stratum belonged ? 

 Were he to find, we do not say a brilliant invention or a 

 complex machine, but a few arrowheads or rude axes, 

 would he not quickly affirm them to be the work of man 1 

 A wonderful system of lines has been observed on the 

 planet Mars. They are like canals, and, says Sir Robert 

 Ball, "they often show such a degree of regularity as 

 would almost suggest the idea that they had been laid 

 down by intelligent guidance." The scientist cannot but 

 interpret signs of mind even as all other signs. No one, 

 in short, when he sees the clear marks of the working of 

 any nature and force, can do otherwise than admit that 

 there that nature and force have wrought ; when he sees 

 the results of the working of fire and water, that there 

 fire and water have been operating ; and so in like manner 

 when we see clear and distinct marks of intelligence 

 engraven on any object, it is impossible not to draw the 

 conclusion that there intelligence hath presided at the 

 engraving. 



