16 The Fundamentals indubitable evidence of a power to adapt means to ends which places its maker in a category by himself. Again, man is sometimes, and properly, defined as a “fire using animal.” No animal ever makes a fire. Monkeys do indeed gather round a fire when it is made. But the mak- ing of one is utterly beyond their capacity. Man, however, even in his lowest stages knows how to make fire at his will. So great is this accomplishment, that it is no wonder the Greeks looked upon it as a direct gift from heaven. Again, man may properly be described as a “speaking animal.” No other animal uses articulate language. But man not only uses it in speech but in writing. How absurd it would be to try to teach a learned pig to translate and under- stand the cuneiform inscriptions unearthed from the de- serted mounds of Babylonia. Finally, man may properly be described as a “religious ani- mal,” but who would ever think of improving the nature of the lower animals by delivering sermons in their presence or distributing Bibles among them? Yet, the Bible-—-a Book composed of every species of literature, containing the high- est flights of poetry and eloquence ever written, and pre- senting the sublimest conceptions of God and of the future life ever entertained—has been translated into every lan- guage under heaven, and has found in those languages the appropriate figures of speech for effectually presenting its lu€&S> THE CUMULATIVE ARGUMENT Now, all these peculiarities both in the body and the mind of man, to have been advantageous, must have taken place simultaneously and at the same time have been considerable in amount. To suppose all this to occur without the inter- vention of the Supreme Designing Mind is to commit logical “hara-kiri.” Such chance combinations are beyond all pos- sibility of rational belief. I t is fair to add, however, that Darwin never supposed
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