MARKS or MIND IN NATQKE. 307 



are felt even in our own time. The earliest and purest of 

 them was Monotheism — God over nature and nature from 

 ■God. Radically different from this was Pantheism — God in 

 nature and all nature God. And Polytheism — single poAvers 

 •of nature as personified in individual men. These systems 

 are not dead but they are passing away. What is to occupy 

 their ground? Is science saying '* there is no God"? or is it 

 willing to admit that its findings warrant the upward look 

 and the desire to join Avith the noblest of its students in the 

 words — " Lord, Thou art God, which hast made heaven, and 

 «arth, and sea and all that in them is " ? Till now the best 

 and the greatest scientific workers have rejoiced in this 

 revelation. They see in all their studies evidences of mind 

 in nature which they cannot ignore, and the words quoted 

 .strengthen the conviction that they are there by creative 

 gift and as the expression of creative thought : " Ask now 

 the beasts and they wall teach thee ; and the fowls of the air 

 and they shall tell thee ; and the fishes of the sea shall 

 declare unto thee." 



2. Organisation. Take a lump of formless, unmarked, 

 plastic clay firmly into the hand and then examine it. 

 What are those fine, curiously arranged lines on its surface? 

 They are marks of the striee on the human hand and they 

 thus at once suggest personality — brain, Jieart, and thought 

 power. Now place amoeba under a good lens. It looks, at 

 first sight, as if it Avere onl^^a lifeless gelatinous speck, but it 

 begins to move, by pushing out part of its body. Prepare it 

 for the microscope, and it will be found to be an aggregation 

 of cells, each one of Avhich suggests well marked parts — cell 

 membrane, cell protoplasm, nuclear membrane, nuclear pro- 

 toplasm, and nuclear coils (chromatin). If the striae marks 

 on the clay led us to believe that it had been in a human 

 hand, what cause have Ave to doubt the proofs of creative 

 touch on amwha — a touch Avhicli determined the permanence 

 of its specific marks throughout the ages ? The Avorkman's 

 touch could give the striae marks but could not giA^e life. 

 God alone could do that, and the simplest of living forms is 

 tlie proof that He did it. From this point of view, we get a 

 glimpse of the beginning of organisation. 



Matter may either be looked at as in the mass, or as 

 specialised. The latter is living, the former is dead ; the latter 

 has structural parts or organs; the former is destitute of 

 these ; the latter grows by the assimilation of food in digestive 

 organs ; the former is enlarged by mere aggregations o,f 



X 2 



