THE NATOEAL AND THE ARTIFICIAL. 189 



■or the three parallel lines on a bone, sees nothing but spon- 

 taneous evolution or the action of molecular forces in the 

 production of the savage who made them. 



In short it takes a great mind to make a machine, but the 

 mechanic is spontaneously evolved ; none but a clever man 

 can make a watch, but any one can make a watchmaker, or 

 rather it requires no one ; for he is derived from the " spontan- 

 eous combustion of inorganic elements." 



All see mind in the artificial, while too many seek to deny 

 it absolutely in the natural ; and the reason is not far to 

 seek. For it is as natural to glorify the mind of man as to 

 seek to deny the mind of God. 



Does not the extraordinary nature of such reasoning strike 

 lis ? Turn it round for once, and say a watchmaker is 

 evidently the product of matter acted on by the mind of 

 Ood, but a watch is the result of the "spontaneous combustion 

 of inorganic elements " ; or an architect requires a great 

 Designer to make him, but St. Paul's is the natural outcome 

 of the molecular force in stone — the folly is now apparent to 

 all. The quiet ignoring and even denial of mind in the 

 natural so common with our scientists could not be tolerated 

 one moment with regard to the artificial. 



Surely the architect is a greater work than a cathedral, 

 a brickmaker than a brick, and a fortiori if the one cannot be 

 even conceived without involving the action of mind, how 

 much more the other : and if we are quite clear the watch- 

 maker is not artificial or made by the mind of man, it is clear 

 that in saving he is natui-al we imply he is made by the mind 

 of God. ' 



The artificial is capricious as the mind that makes it. It 

 cannot be foretold, it is not that Avhicliis to be — "natural " — 

 because of the difference of a petty finite mind as compared 

 with the All-wise and Infinite. 



The very words used to describe the product of the two 

 minds illustrate their difference. 



But we may carry the inquiry one stage further back and 

 -ask whence came the mind of man ? Is it eternal, self caused, 

 or itself a product? It cannot be eternal, for man is only 

 recent, nor can it be self caused. It is therefore a product. 

 But of what ? We read, " God made man in His own likeness, 

 •and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," but I suppose 

 even in this assemblage 1 must not quote Scripture as an all- 

 sufficient answer to a scientific question. No other answer is 

 however possible, and it is as self-evident on reflection that the 



