48 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 
materialism, it is far otherwise. If the pure scientists smile when 
theological philosophers, unacquainted with the methods of science, 
undertake to dogmatize on the subject of evolution, they must 
pardon the philosophers if they also smile when the pure scientists 
imagine that they can at once solve questions in philosophy which 
have agitated the human mind from the earliest times. I am anxious 
to show the absurdity of this materialistic conclusion, but I shall try 
to do so, not by any labored argument, but by a few simple illustra- 
tions. 
1. It is curious to observe how, when the question is concerning a 
work of Nature, we no sooner find out how a thing is made than we 
immediately exclaim: ‘‘It is not made at all, it became so of itself!” 
So long as we knew not how worlds were made, we of cotirse con- 
cluded they must have been created, but so soon as science showed 
how it was probably done, immediately we say we were mistaken— 
they were not made at all. So also, as long as we could not 
imagine how new organic forms originated, we were willing to believe 
they were created, but, so soon as we find that they originated by 
evolution, many at once say: ‘‘We were mistaken; no creator is 
necessary at all.” Is this so when the question is concerning a work 
of man? Yes, of one kind—viz., the work of the magician. Here, 
indeed, we believe in him, and are delighted with his work, until we 
know how it is done, and then all our faith and wonder cease. But 
in any honest work it is not so; but on the contrary, when we under- 
stand how it is done, stupid wonder is changed into intellectual 
delight. Does it not seem, then, that to most people God is a mere 
wonder-worker, a chief magician? But the mission of science is to 
show us how things are done. Is it any wonder, then, that to such 
persons science is constantly destroying their superstitious illusions ? 
But if God is an honest worker, according to reason—i.e., according 
to law—ought not science rather to change gaping wonder into 
intelligent delight, superstition into rational worship ? 
2. Again, it is curious to observe how an old truth, if it come only 
in a new form, often strikes us as something unheard of, and even as 
paradoxical and almost impossible. A little over thirty years ago.a 
little philosophical toy, the gyroscope, was introduced and became 
very common. At first sight, it seems to violate all mechanical laws 
and set at naught the law of gravitation itself. A heavy brass wheel, 
four to five inches in diameter, at the end of a horizontal axle, six or 
eight inches long, is set rotating rapidly, and then the free end of the 
