Suppose I happen to be impressed by the beauty and wonder of an orange
tree, with its golden, luscious fruit, its delicately tinted and
deliciously scented blossoms, its graceful leaves and branches, its
symmetrical trunk so firmly rooted in the ground? Merely as a piece of
machinery, as a little factory, designed to manufacture a certain kind
of edible product, it is far more ingenious, economical and generally
marvellous than anything the combined brains of mankind have been able
to design throughout the centuries. It is automatic, self-lubricating,
self-repairing and goes on, year after year, in fair weather or foul,
turning out its brand of juicy pulp, done up charmingly in little yellow
packages. How does it operate? How does it always manage to get the
necessary raw materials from the earth and the air? How do the roots and
the leaves and the sap ever contrive to convert these into perfume and
blossoms and pulp and pigment?
Now suppose a scientific intellect comes along and, after investigating,
dissecting, analyzing, eventually holds out before my eyes a tiny white
seed which it has located in the centre of the yellow package--and says:
"This is the explanation of the whole thing.
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