“But surely you cannot be blind to the enormous number of facts adduced by entomologists and botanists to show how the organs of insects and plants have a direct correlation to each other; how each organ and the whole form of the insect is the outcome of its effort to obtain food from particular species of plants, and the form of the plant the outcome of its resistance to giving food supply without payment in the shape of pollen dissemination. The ingenuity of the insect in its endeavour to get nectar easily, is met by the cleverness, so to speak, of the plant in providing the food only in such situations where it cannot be reached without efficient pollen dusting. Where is the room for your heavenly Mechanic here?” “I fail to see that you in the least disturb my theism. ‘These are only parts of His ways.’ I expect that a Creator of all things would operate by means, by just such natural laws and the power of such environment as you have instanced, to modify and develop organs. All these things serve but to make me admire the power of His inflexible laws, and the infinite wisdom which set them going. I see nothing in these things to make disbelieve in an almighty Creator. The creating influence is only set a little farther back, not excluded. That these wonderful adaptations exist potentially in the original protoplasm of the creature, is to me quite as much a proof of an all-wise Creator as if I believed in a separate interference for the production of each organ, or adaptation as its necessity arose. It is the potentiality in the cell and the atom that transcends all men’s materialist explanations, that is so wonderful to me. This is where you see Force and Nature, and the Christian sees God, as Browning says:— “‘We find great things are made of little things, And little things go lessening, till at last Comes God behind them. The name comes close behind a stomach cyst, The simplest of creations.’” “Yes,” said Linda, who had not taken part in the argument till now, “you set up your idea of God as a great First Cause to shield yourself from awkward questions and the confession of your ignorance.” “Questions that you, at least, cannot answer, and ignorance that none of our materialist philosophers can enlighten,” replied Elsworth, with a little warmth. “Precisely; only we are honest enough to say we don’t know and cannot explain; while you shelter yourself behind a mere idea, which is a barrier to investigation and an obstacle to all freedom of research.” “I protest. Nothing of the sort. Darwin was a theist; Newton was a theist. Surely neither of these men found their conception of God an obstacle to their freedom of research?”