u8 THE CREATION OF MATTER 



different parts are proportioned to each other. They 

 shape. What artist can approach them in many of their 

 fashionings? They collocate. With unerring accuracy 

 they set every fibre and organ in its own place, 

 every part of fibre and organ at its own point. How 

 many and how marvellous are the collocations, in the 

 eye, the ear, the hand, yea throughout the whole body. 

 There are ten thousand such. They adapt. They adapt 

 organisations for their functions. They build them up of 

 such materials, shapes, and activities as are suitable for 

 the peculiar work they have to perform. They adjust. 

 They adjust fibre to fibre. They fit bone to bone. They 

 bind fibre to fibre, bone to bone, in the most suitable 

 way, by the most simple and skilful means. They thus 

 act as from minute and perfect knowledge of each frame. 

 They know and unerringly recognise every stage they 

 have reached. They know and unerringly recognise, at 

 every stage they have reached, what is next to be done. 

 They act as from a knowledge of the body, which 

 anatomists and surgeons might well envy in the case of 

 the human frame, which their splendid labours and 

 assiduous studies have never enabled them to reach. 

 The amount of selecting, measuring, shaping, collocating, 

 adapting, and adjusting which falls to them to do 

 cannot be made too much of. The amount of know- 

 ledge, foresight, discrimination, imagination required is 

 such as no architect ever dreamed of possessing. Where, 

 then, is the knowledge laid up? Where is the intelli- 

 gence possessing it, and endowed with the power of 

 turning it to account? Carbon saith, It is not in me. 

 Hydrogen saith, It is not in me. Oxygen, nitrogen, and 

 all elements, protoplasm and protoplasmic ovules protest, 

 It is not in us. All with one voice confess that they 

 know not, neither do they understand. They know not 



