"As a matter of fact, they are nothing more or less than the results of evolution, natural selection and the survival of the fittest. All we require for the demonstration of our theory, is a little bit of protoplasm at the beginning of things and a mass of elemental matter in an unformed state." "But," say I, "are you sure you are not trying to befuddle me and befuddle yourself by the use of obscure words? You use the word "protoplasm"--but if you mean by that a kind of machine, like the orange pit or the red-wood seed, your evolution theory and your scientific chain of reasoning and all your big words merely bring us back to the point where we started and really explain nothing at all. The orange seed, if left to itself in the midst of elemental matter will produce a certain kind of tree and countless oranges. A bit of protoplasm, if left to itself in the midst of elemental matter, will not only produce an orange tree and a red-wood tree, but an elephant, a spider, a human being--all the countless species of living things to be found in the universe. It may take the protoplasm a longer time to turn all this out, but it is a bigger job and time is of small account in such a consideration. "All I can say is that I prostrate myself in abject and bewildered admiration before that bit of protoplasm. If anything could be more wonderful than the orange seed with which we started, your protoplasm is certainly it. It is a miracle of a million miracles. "But there is one thing you forgot to tell me--the only thing of any real interest or importance to the average mind in such a theory. What sublime intelligence conceived the plan of that bit of protoplasm--and what kind of sublimely skilful craftsman was able to fashion it?" "Oh that," says the scientific intellect--"that just happens to be one point which our chain of reasoning has not yet been able to demonstrate in a logical and satisfactory way. We have left that out of our theory." "Well then," say I, "here are trees and flowers and animals and mankind, each perfectly adapted for the special function on earth for which they were apparently designed. The plan of them appears to have been determined, somewhere, somehow, by a sublime intelligence which surpasses understanding, for some sublime purpose, apparently, which I am yearning to know. All the details, complications and assumptions of your theory when boiled down to simple terms seem more or less of a quibble on words and meanings. "Your conclusions are of much the same sort as those of the intellectual cynic whom we quoted in connection with sympathy and affection. He undertook to prove with a chain of reasoning that I obey only motives of selfishness when I shed tears of grief because my friend has lost his only son."