428 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



upon the scene at special crises, He is absent from 

 the scene in the intervals. Whether is all-God or 

 occasional-God the nobler theory? Positively, the 

 idea of an immanent God, which is the God of 

 Evolution, is infinitely grander than the occasional 

 wonder-worker, who is the God of an old theology. 

 Negatively, the older view is not only the less 

 worthy, but it is discredited by science. And as to 

 facts, the daily miracle of a flower, the courses of 

 the stars, the upholding and sustaining day by day 

 of this great palpitating world, need a living Will 

 as much as the creation of atoms at the first. We 

 know growth as the method by which things are 

 made in Nature, and we know no other method. 

 We do not know that there are not other methods; 

 but if there are, we do not know them. Those 

 cases which we do not know to be growths, we do 

 not know to be anything else, and we may at least 

 suspect them to be growths. Nor are they any 

 the less miraculous because they appear to us as 

 growths. A miracle is not something quick. The 

 doings of these things may seem to us no 

 miracle, nevertheless it is a miracle that they have 

 been done. 



But, after all, the miracle of Evolution is not 

 the process but the product. Beside the wonder 

 of the result, the problem of the process is a mere 



