232 TROUT FISHING 



of each new shower of snow? Is the 

 perception that the First Cause ordained 

 the species incompatible with belief that 

 the First Cause may still control the 

 creation and the varieties of the units ? 

 Can the occasional coming of a genius 

 such as Shakspeare be accounted for by 

 "natural laws" undisturbedly arranging 

 their own results ? That is a thought 

 apart. The immediate question is. 

 Were these wonderful snowflakes the 

 result of a fiat issued that very day, or 

 were they the result of something that had 

 happened millions of centuries before ? 

 On the whole, it seemed just as likely 

 that I had witnessed an instantaneous act 

 of creation as that the flakes were merely 

 the inevitable outcome of the state of 

 things which was arranged just after the 

 earth ceased to be without form and void. 

 You see, neither Calvinist nor Evolu- 

 tionist, though both dogmatise from per- 

 ceptions that one must admit to be 

 necessities of thought, is at all times con- 

 scious of all the necessities : some of 



