- perceptible beginning of that marvelous evolution
which resulted in Humanity,—evolution which to us is calculated to have taken thousands of years, whereas in the eternal countings it has occupied but a few moments,—Sex was proclaimed in the lowliest sea-plants, of which the only remains we have are in the Silurian formations,—and was equally maintained in the humblest lingula inhabiting its simple bivalve shell. Sex is proclaimed throughout the Universe with an absolute and unswerving regularity through all grades of nature. Nay, there are even male and female Atmospheres which when combined produce forms of life."
The verbal duel between Heliobas, the man of
God, and El-Râmi, the man of Science, is exceedingly
well-written. In the course of their conversation
El-Râmi opines that Heliobas is more of a
poet than either a devotee or a scientist. The
monk's rejoinder is worth quoting:
"Perhaps I am! Yet poets are often the best
scientists, because they never know they are scientists.
They arrive by a sudden intuition at the facts
which it takes several Professors Dry-as-Dust years
to discover. When once you feel you are a scientist,
it is all over with you. You are a clever biped
who has got hold of a crumb out of the universal
loaf, and for all your days afterwards you are turning
that crumb over and over under your analytical
lens. But a poet takes up the whole loaf unconsciously,
and hands portions of it about at haphazard
and with the abstracted behavior of one in
a dream."
