God Arises
Nature and Science Speak about God
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of a funnel, beautifully adapted to pick up sounds
and equipped with fleshy folds, which enable it to
perceive the direction from which the sounds come.
Inside the ear, fine hairs and a sticky wax prevent
harmful insects, dust, etc. from getting in. Across
the inner end of the funnel there is a tightly
stretched membrane, the eardrum, which vibrates
like the skin of a tabla when sound waves strike it.
The vibrations are passed on and amplified by three
bones (called the hammer, the stirrup and the anvil)
whose relative sizes are precisely adjusted to
produce just the needed amplification. Indeed these
bones never grow: they are of exactly the same size
in the infant and in the adult.
The amplified vibrations are carried by the bones to
another membrane just beyond which lies the
wonderful organ of hearing, the inner ear. This is a
small tube (the cochlea) coiled up like the shell of a
snail, and filled with a liquid, in which a harp of
6,000 strings ranging in length from 1/20th to ½
mm., hangs suspended. Each string vibrates to a
particular frequency of sound so that the ear can
hear all possible combinations of 6,000 different
sounds. The vibrations of the strings are transmitted
