Paul stopped in his walk and stood regarding him. But he did not make an answer to that. "If you don't guess, what happens then?"
Manning smiled languidly. "Well, you don't guess, that's all. It's quite simple. Perhaps there is a god; perhaps He is all that is said about Him. Perhaps.... Only we are reasonable men and we have to go upon facts, and the facts are that there is no trace of Him."
"Unless very existence is a sign—the fact that things are," said Paul, catching at a straw.
"Oh, very well, have it if you will. But of what or of whom is existence a sign? I know it's sentimental twaddle to talk of the cruelty and so on of Nature, and I won't. But you know and I know there are laws, and what sort of laws? To what sort of mind can you argue from Nature's laws? Think."
Paul thought. He thought of the regularity and beauty of ice-crystals which no one can see without a microscope. Why always regular? Why beautiful? He thought of the evolution and the extinction of the dinosaur, the pterodactyl and the rest. Why? Necessary? Useful? "Did the hand, then, of the Potter shake?" He thought of the laws that calmly allow men and women to bring forth congenital idiots or children loathsomely diseased in body or in soul. Laws! He flamed suddenly with rage. "The mind of a devil!" he cried.
"Rubbish," retorted Manning. "Good heavens, Paul, pull yourself together! But there, I suppose it takes time."
"An idiot, then."
"Oh, chuck it. I've some work to do. Go and read Tennyson."
"Well, what other sort of personality could it be?"
"You dear old ass, there's NO personality in it at all. That's the whole argument. You will guess. Talk about the high hills! You go skipping on from point to point—in imagination. Existence exists so far as we can tell. Relatively to us it exists, anyway. But that is the end of the argument. You can go no further. Nothing imaginable can have created it—nothing—nothing." And forgetting Tennyson, he pushed his arm through Paul's and led him out into the garden.