working the changes which
are believed to have occurred. All things have evolved, if they have
evolved at all, _by chance_.

Now, over against this doctrine of chance there stands the monumental
fact that throughout nature, living and non-living, there runs a
principle of _design_. The minerals, the plants, the animals, all
exhibit, as even the superficial observer knows or might know, a plan.
There is design in the crystals in which elements exist when they pass
from a liquid into a solid state; there is design in the leaf and flower
of every plant; there is plan, design, in the structure and physiology
of animals. We would add, there is an evident plan in the history of the
Chosen Race, the Jews, as we possess it in the Old and New Testaments;
there is a plan in the moral sphere, laws producing unvaried results;
there is an ordered scheme even in the life of the individual. But let
us limit our investigation to the domain of nature. Let us note how
little necessity there is for assuming that by mere chance things have
come to be what they are.

As a rule each chemical substance has an individual crystal by which it
can be distinguished. It is possible to classify the thousands of
different crystals, since all belong to one of six classes, according as
their surfaces are grouped symmetrically around the axes of the crystal.
The salt crystal has one form, the topaz another, quartz and beryl
another, borax another, and these forms are absolutely unvaried wherever
these substances are found in nature or in the chemist's retort. It is
not here our intention to point out how impossible it is to assume that
there has been an evoluton [tr. note: sic] of one of these forms out of
another. The point is that there is not chance, but orderly arrangement,
symmetrical shape, in a word, most evident design.

Turning to plant life, even the amateur student cannot fail to observe
that the entire world of plants is built on a beautiful system which
argues most powerfully not for accidental arrangement but for plan. The
place of every leaf on every plant is fixed beforehand by unerring
mathematical rule. As the stems grow on, leaf after leaf appears exactly
in its predestined place, producing a perfect symmetry;--a symnetry [tr.
note: sic] which manifests itself not in one single monotonous pattern
for all plants, but in a definite number of forms exhibited by different
species, and arithmetically expressed by the series of fractions,