shows that He has a design, and that His design is that His
Creatures shall live.

"Moreover, we have a certain amount of matter, a certain amount of
moisture, while there is a vast amount of those things elsewhere:
similarly we have a certain amount of intelligence. Why then should we
suppose that intelligence is the only thing which {103} is an
exception--the only thing of which we have the whole? why suppose that
all these adaptations have been made, so wonderfully, without a
controlling mind?

"You say you would believe it if you could see the controlling Creator?
But you believe in the existence of your own mind without seeing it: on
that principle, you ought to say that all you do yourself is done by
chance.

"The next question is whether God is too great to require our service?
The answer is that God has shown a special kindness to men, as compared
with other animals. Their upright walk, their possession of hands,
their articulate voices, their superior minds, their powers of
self-protection--and the adaptation of these powers and qualities to
one another, constituting an altogether higher existence--all these
show a special kindness in a wise Creator who has all the qualities and
powers in a far higher degree. By serving one another we learn to know
our friends; by asking advice we find who are wise: so if we make trial
of God, we shall find that He is All-seeing, All-present, and Watchful
over all." This argument does not enter upon the question whether
there is one God or more; but it deals with the previous question of
Godhead; and with all that is implied in 'Maker of Heaven and Earth'.

It must also be observed that (assuming the notion of many Gods to be
excluded, and that our Belief is to be either in One God, or in no
God), the argument of Socrates has gone far towards the Bible
conception of God's Being. Cf. Article 1.

{104}

(_b_) What the Bible Revelation says about God.

Reasoning of the kind which Socrates used comes near to proof. But it
can never actually prove the existence of God. The mind of man is so
constituted that it dislikes the notion of Laws without a Lawgiver.
Evolution is a law which is found to hold in many cases, and is often
assumed, with much probability, to hold in other cases. And it is a
Law which exhibits the most beautiful adjustments in its working. We
naturally are impelled to ask further back for the maker of this Law.
The Revelation which is written in t