It was no fable of Evolution that caused the Psalmist to exclaim by inspiration: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made. ... Your eyes did see my imperfect substance, and in your book were all my members written." (Psalm 139:14,16)
When he contemplated the infinite power and wisdom by which the Lord entered into the minutest detail of the life of His creatures, he said, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me." (Psalm 139:6)
The following words from a foreign journal suggest some interesting thoughts:
We are accustomed to regard the statement that "the hairs of our heads are numbered," as a highly figurative way of making us believe that nothing is too small for the attention of the Divine Artificer, and the more one studies, and the further one looks into the marvelous structure of the body, the more does he perceive that this minute uniformity is a literal reality.
Exactly such or such anatomical elements go to the production of a single hair, and one arrangement of these elements makes the hairs that pass out through the cutical of the scalp, keep up an uninterrupted growth, so that a man in full vigor must visit his barber at stated intervals, or be very uncomfortable; while the hairs that pass through the apertures of the skin of the arm remain of about the same length constantly.
No human ingenuity can change this order of nature; but one of the most interesting order of applications of this persistent uniformity is found in the recording of thumb-and-finger prints, for the identification of recruits, prisoners and other large classes of men. The ends of the nerves of touch, technically called the papillae, are arranged in orderly rows on the bulbs of the thumbs and fingers, and each papilla is placed at a certain determinate distance from its adjacent fellow, and can easily be "made out," with a good glass on many hands.
The result of the arrangement is, that a "pattern" is produced, for these nerve tips are not placed in any two of the millions of us exactly similarly, so that if a man blackens his finger with a suitable pigment, and presses it upon a properly prepared paper, he leaves an impression that is "his mark," and not another's. It is said that the Chinese practiced this method of detecting criminals a thousand years ago. Perhaps they did; and very likely they'll claim Edison next; but it has remained for a scientific Englishman to collect hundreds of these impressions--compel them to disclose their individuality by enlarged photographs, so that he has them classified and described and named and indexed--and prove the superiority of this means of identification to measurements of other methods now in vogue.
Sir Francis Galton has produced a novel, interesting, and entertaining book; of course, the subject is treated in a scientific spirit, and has added another interesting testimony to the truth, that not only the hairs of the head, but the tiny mounds made by the tips of the nerves are under the governance of the Divine law, unchanging, and the fiat of Him with whom "there is no variableness neither shadow of turning."--Present Truth, June 21, 1894--Psalm 139:6,14,16.