Glass Half Empty?

3. Darwin’s Half Measure.

Reason counters Soul’s challenge by enumerating all those perfected and intricate structures too perfect for blind error, which defy the sufficiency of random incremental change; the vertebrate eye; the interdependence of structures widely separated in time and man’s capacity for self-sacrifice; and many more, ..

But mostly his belief, his conviction deep dyed
That something, or someone, cares about him…

It survives in deep forests, for the barefoot Indian
Who calls upon the serpent, (the archaic scaly sage)
To tell how it works, the heart and the mind
Of creation itself, and finds he may,
Through being attentive, cure his feverish son;
Paralyse a monkey, preserve tomorrow’s fish
Ask for honeycomb politely with a torch of harmless smoke.

Nowhere have I heard it said that man is exempt
From Darwinian selection, appropriate fit
For purpose defined by competitive strife…
What possible value in preserved blind belief?

Reason ends this argument with the equal unlikeliness of genius…

No accounting for Mozart
Or the Warwickshire bard,
Beethoven, Einstein, Faraday, Gauss,
Who found colours in music, numbers in space:
Tell me again that the structure of brain
Explains the creations of inspired men?
Or answers any questions as to how a blind mole
Treads the pinnacles of virgin snow in which
Men leave the footprints of God.

The book has been ushered in; the poetic narrative explained; the journey defined, and some torchbearers introduced.

(Into dreams and memory?)