308 WALKS AND TALKS. 



system of structures in the organism to an ideal plan implies 

 first, a conception of the plan ; secondly, a perception of fit- 

 ness between the plan and each particular tissue in process of 

 formation. Certainly, we must say that here mind is at work. 

 But is it the mind of the animal or plant ? Every person can 

 answer for himself whether he made his own bones. The 

 question is absurd. Is the mind evinced possessed by the 

 matter? Do these atoms and molecules move and arrange 

 themselves by an intelligence and choice of their own? Has 

 each one a conception of the plan to which they so consen- 

 taneously work ? Do they intelligently maintain the processes 

 of digestion, blood-purification, assimilation, and tissue-building? 

 How do they conceive, think, and will without brain ? How 

 select without eyes or hands? Who ever knew intelligence 

 acting without brain? But, it is conceivable, you say. Yes, 

 though it is not a brainless molecule. There is intelligence 

 acting in the organism, which does not belong to the matter 

 or the individual; whose intelligence is it? Intelligence is an 

 attribute ; it belongs to being ; it does not act abstracted from 

 being. What being then, acts in the living organism ? It is 

 the Omnipresent Being. 



We need not restrict our consideration to the subtleties of 

 physiological action ; the fall of an apple teaches the same 

 thing. You say the attraction of the earth causes the apple 

 to fall. Good, but what is the attraction of the earth? Do 

 you mean that the earth possesses the attribute of attraction, 

 and exercises that attribute across the distance which separates 

 it from the apple? I think that is what most people mean by 

 attraction. But will you now explain how the earth as a 

 cause produces an effect in the apple a place where the cause 

 is not? Must not the cause of an effect be present in place 

 as well as time ? Either there is some medium intervening 

 between the earth and apple, through which the earth trans- 

 mits its action on the apple, or the downward pull comes 

 from some other source, and the presence of the earth is only 

 the occasion on which the pull is exerted. Which alternative 

 will you adopt? 



