Picture - Cosmic Polymath

A CREATOR AND DESIGNER NECESSARY TO UNIVERSE 347
with the power of movement. This movement may occur in protoplasm, in white blood-corpuscles, in cells, in
tissues, &c., but wherever it occurs it is due to prearrangement and design. It is never accidental or haphazard.
The movements in each case are co-ordinated to given ends. An amoeba, for instance, slowly shoots out and draws
in its finger-hke processes (pseudopodia). This it does deliberately and of set purpose. The white blood-corpuscle
when, because of local inflammation, it forces itself through the wall of a capillary blood-vessel, attacks the vessel as
a wedge, the thin end of the wedge always leading. When a voluntary muscle, in response to a volition, shortens
or contracts by a centripetal movement, it soon after elongates or relaxes by a centrifugal movement ; if two volun-
tary muscles, say an extensor and a flexor, are in action at the same time, the one (the extensor) shortens or
contracts, while the other (the flexor) elongates or relaxes, and vice versa. Muscles are endowed with the same
properties as pseudopodia, that is, the sarcous elements are possessed of a double power, namely, the power of
alternately shortening and elongating in the case of long muscles, and of closing and opening in the case of hollow
muscles and sphincters.
Cilia also possess this double power. In cilia, no trace of muscles or nerves can be detected, yet they can bend
first in one direction and then in another and opposite direction. Cilia, for the most part, are moved voluntarily
and to given ends. They can produce food and other currents in the vorticella and various other rudimentary
forms. They propel the ova along the Fallopian tubes, and mucus and air along the smaller bronchial tubes, and
mucous surfaces generally. They form the organs of locomotion in paramecia and other low animal forms. Structure
and difEerentiation, in the ordinary sense, are not necessary to voluntary movements, but the substances in which
the movements occur are equal to the work they are called upon to perform. The substances have, in themselves,
the potentiality and the power of movement, and they move methodically and to given ends.
The low moving forms are legion as regards number and variety, but in every case there is adaptation and
efficiency. The movements may occur in animals with or without muscles and nerves ; with or without feet ; with
or without an external or internal skeleton ; but whenever and wherever they occur due provision is made. The
movements, moreover, occur in a certain way and in a certain order. There is no such thing as sprawhng, indeter-
minate movements in nature. Movements in hving things are never objectless. To be convinced of this one has
only to study the movements and habits of the Infusoria and other rudimentary organisms under the microscope.
These are seen to dart about with great alacrity and precision in pursuit of food or other objects. They are seen
systematically to avoid each other unless when they attack and seize each other as prey. Their movements are
evidently voluntary, and regulated. The mechanism by which the movements are produced is, in many cases, not
visible, but it cannot be doubted that the substances and bodies in which they occur are in every case equal to
the results obtained. In animals provided with cilia there is no diflBiculty ; the visible means of progression are equal
to the result. They can propel the bodies on which they occur in any given direction. What is true of cihated
animals is true of all others. In the creeping animals there is a movable ventral integument provided with rugae,
setse, or feet, as in the worm and caterpillar. In animals which walk and leap, feet and legs with joints are provided
as in insects. The apparatus and mechanism of movement become more apparent as animals become differentiated,
and culminate in the beautiful, jointed feet, and hmbs of quadrupeds and bipeds ; the graduated, elastic tails and
and the expanded, deUcately constructed elastic wings of insects, birds, and bats.
My contention is, that the travelling apphances and organs of locomotion are original structures, and are as
fins of fishes and sea mammals ;
necessary to the existence and well-being of animals as the breathing apparatus, the circulatory apparatus, the organs
of reproduction, &c. Without the means of movement, visible or invisible, no animal could possibly exist.
§ 67. A Creator, Designer, and Upholder necessary to the Universe as We know it.
In considering the universe as a whole, or in part, it is necessary to postulate an intelligent Creator or First
Cause, a Designer and Adapter, an Upholder and Sustainer. Ex nihilo nihil fit is a trite and almost universally
accepted adage. From nothing comes nothing. Those who do not believe in a Creator, who ignore design and
the supervision which design implies, are, of course, entitled to ask who or what made the Creator ? They are
logically entitled to put this question, and, if put, the only satisfactory reply that can be given is that intelligence,
law, and order everywhere prevail in the universe ; a state of matters which impUes, if it does not actually prove,
the existence of a Supreme Being Who is at once omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and eternal. If a Creator
be not predicated, then matter must be regarded as self-forming, self-moving, self-adapting, and endowed with the
power of developing life de novo by a process of spontaneous generation, which is wholly opposed to modem
scientific beliefs. As intelhgence is excluded from the mechanical view of the formation and working of the
universe, it follows that chance takes the place of design, of law, and of order ; everything being a law unto itself
as apart from co-ordination and co-adaptation. It is the harmony which prevails in the universe and the obvious