Now the intervention of any system of created designs of animal

form--however little its details be understood--and the production of

variations under _divine guidance_ which would lead more directly to the

accomplishment of such forms as the complicated flowers of orchids above

described, would unquestionably tend to shorten the requisite time.

There would, by a process of reasoning easily followed, be an immediate

reduction of the ages required, within practicable limits, though the

time must still remain long. More than that is not necessary. The

Ussherian chronology is not of Divine revelation, though some persons

speak of it as if it was. There is not the shadow of a reason to be

gleaned from the Bible, nor from any other source, that the commencement

of orderly development, the separation of land and water, earth and sky,

and the subsequent provision of designs for organic forms of life and

the first steps that followed the issue of the design, began six

thousand years ago, or anything like it. It can be shown, indeed, that

_historical_ man, or the specific origin of the man spoken of as Adam,

dates back but a limited time; and it is calculable with some degree of

probability how far; but that is all. We are therefore in no difficulty

when ample time is demanded; but we are in the greatest straits when the

illimitable demands of a slowly and minutely stepping development,

perpetually liable to be checked, turned back, and even obliterated,

have to be confronted with other weighty probabilities and calculations

regarding the sun's light and heat, and the duration of particular

geologic eras.

CHAPTER VII.

_THE DESCENT OF MAN_.

We now approach a special objection which always, has been (and I shall

be pardoned, perhaps, for saying _always will be_) the _crux_ of the

theory of unaided, uncreated evolution--the advent of reasoning, and not

only reasoning, but self-conscious and God-conscious MAN.

Here again the lines of argument are so numerous, and the details into

which we might go so varied, that a rigid and perhaps bald selection of

a few topics is all that can be attempted.

But I may remark that naturalists are far from being agreed on this part

of the subject. Agassiz rejects the evolution of man altogether. Mr. St.

G. Mivart, while partly admitting, as every one else now does, the

doctrine of evolution, denies the descent of man. Mr. Wallace, the great

apostle of evolution, opposes Darwin, and will have none of his views on

the descent of man; and Professor Huxley himself says that, while the

resemblance of structure is such that if any "process of physical

causation can be discovered by which the genera and families of ordinary

animals have been produced, the process of causation is amply sufficient

to account for the origin of man," still he admits that the gulf is vast

between civilized man and brutes, and he is certain that "whether _from_

them or not, man is assuredly not _of_ them."

The first difficulty I shall mention is, however, a structural one.

Supposing that an ape-like ancestor developed into man, on the

principles of natural selection; then his development has taken place in

a manner directly contrary to the acknowledged law of natural selection.

He has developed backwards; his frame is in every way weaker; he is

wanting in agility; he has lost the prehensile feet; he has lost teeth

fitted for fighting or crushing or tearing; he has but little sense of

smell; he has lost the hairy covering, and is obliged to help himself by

clothes.[1] If this loss was ornamental it is quite unlike any other

development in this respect, since no other creature has the same; for

ornamental purposes the fur becomes coloured, spotted, and striped, but

not lost. It is easy to reply that man being _intelligent_, his brain

power enables him to invent clothes, arms, implements, and so forth,

which not only supply all deficiencies of structure, but give him a

great superiority over all creatures. But how did he get that

intelligence? By what natural process of causation (without intelligent

direction) is it conceivable that, given a species of monkey, all at

once and at a certain stage, structural development should have been

retarded and actually reversed, and a development of brain structure

alone set in? Nor, be it observed, has any trace of _man_ with a

rudimentary brain ever been discovered. Savages have brains far in

excess of their requirements, and can consequently be educated and

improved. The skull of a prehistoric man found in the Neanderthal near

Dusseldorf is of average brain capacity, showing that in those remote

ages man was very much in capacity what he is at present.

[Footnote 1: It is remarkable that the loss of the hairy covering is

most complete when it is most wanted: the back, the spine, and the

shoulders are in nearly all races unprotected; and yet the want of a

covering from the heat or cold is such that the rudest savages have

invented some kind of cloak for the back.]

It must, however, be admitted that the special difficulties of the

origin of man are not purely structural. We do not know enough of the

Divine plan to be able to understand why it is that there is a certain

undeniable unity of form, in the two eyes, ears, mouth, limbs and organs

generally of the animal and man. Moreover, much is made of the fact, as

stated by a recent "Edinburgh Reviewer," that "the physical difference

between man and the lowest ape is trifling compared with that which

exists between the lowest ape and any brute animal that is not an

ape.[1]" This fact no doubt negatives the idea put forward by Bishop

Temple and others, that if there was an evolution of man, it must have

been in a special branch which was foreseen and commenced very far back

in the scale of organic being. For the structural difference might not

require such a separate origin; while the mental difference, affording

objections of a different class, will not allow of _any_ such evolution

at all. That there is _some_ connection between man and the animal

cannot be denied, and consequently, in the absence of fuller

information, very little would be gained by insisting on the purely

_physical_ development question. The Bible states positively that the

man Adam (as the progenitor of a particular race, at any rate) was a

separate and actual production, on a given part of the earth's surface.

All that we need conclude regarding that is that there is nothing known

which entitles us to say, "This is not a fact, and therefore is not

genuine revelation."

[Footnote 1: No. 331, July, 1885, p. 223.]

Moreover, as to the question of the possibility of human development

generally, there are certain considerations which directly support our

belief. For example, directly we look to the characteristic point, the

gift of intellect, we can reasonably argue that the action of a Creator

is indispensable. The entrance of consciousness and of reason, however

elementary, marks something out of all analogy with the development of

physical structure, just as much as the entrance of Life marked a new

departure in no analogy with the "properties" of inorganic matter.

From the first dawn of what looks like _will_ and _choice_ between two

things, and something like a _reason_ which directs the course of the

organism in a particular way for a particular object, we have an

altogether new departure. The difficulty commences at the outset, and

even in the animal creation; it is merely continued and rendered more

striking when we take into consideration the higher development of

intellect into power of abstract reasoning, self-consciousness and

God-consciousness.

It is perfectly true that the difference between the "instinct" of

animals and the reason and mind of man, is one of degree rather than

kind. As Christians, we have no objection whatever to a development of

reason from the lowest reason solely concerned with earthly and bodily

affairs to the highest powers searching into deep and spiritual truths.

But such a development, though it is parallel to a physical

development--as spiritual law appears to be always parallel (as far as

the nature of things permits) to physical laws--still is a development

which cannot under any possible circumstances dispense with an external

spiritual order of existence, and one which cannot be physically caused.

Nor is it conceivable that man should develop a consciousness of God,

when no God really exists externally to the consciousness.[1]

[Footnote 1: For our consciousness of God is obviously very different

from a figment of the imagination, or the sort of reality experienced in

a dream. This is not the place to develop such an argument, but it seems

to me more than doubtful whether we can even _imagine_ something

_absolutely_ non-existent in nature. When the artist's imagination would

construct, e.g., a winged dragon, the concept is always made up of

_parts which are real_--eyes like an alligator, bat-wings, scales of a

fish or crocodile, and so forth. All the members or parts are real, put

together to form the unreal. I do not believe that any instance of a

human conception can be brought forward which on analysis will not

conform to this rule.]

The main objection, then, that I would press is, that admitting any

possibility of the development of man from a purely physical and

structural point of view, admitting any inference that may be drawn

fairly from the undoubted connection (increasingly great as it is as we

go upwards from the lower animal to the ape) between animals and man,

that inference never can touch the descent of man as a whole; because no

similarity of bodily structure can get over the difficulty of the mental

power of man. We have to deal not with a part of man, but with the

whole. The difficulty cannot be got over by denying _mind_ as a thing

_per se_; for all attempts to represent mind as the _mere_ product of a

physical structure, the brain, utterly fail.

Nobody wishes to deny what Dr. H. Maudsley and others have made so plain

to us, that mind has (in one aspect, at any rate) a physical basis--that

is, that no thought, imagination, or combination of thought, is known to

us _apart from_ change and expenditure of energy in the brain. Nor can

we, by any process of introspection or observation of other subjects,

separate the mind from the brain and ascertain the existence of "pure

mind," or soul, experimentally. But still, there is no possibility of

getting the operations of mind out of mere cell structure, unless an

external Power has added the mind power, as a faculty of His endowing;

then He may be allowed to have connected that faculty ever so

mysteriously with physical structure; we are content. And I must insist

on the total failure of all analogy between the development of bones or

muscles and the development of mind; and even if we grant a certain

stage of instinct to have arisen, we are still in the dark as to how

that could develop into intellect such as man possesses, including a

belief in God. On this subject let us hear Professor Allman. Between a

development of material structure and a development of intellectual and

moral features, the Professor says, "there is no conceivable analogy;

and the obvious and continuous path, which we have hitherto followed up,

in our reasonings from the phenomena of lifeless matter to those of

living form, here comes suddenly to an end. The chasm between

_unconscious_ life and _thought_ is deep and impassable, and no

transitional phenomena are to be found by which, as by a bridge, we can

span it over.[1]"

There can be _life_ or _function_ without _consciousness_ or _thought;_

therefore, even if we go so far as to admit that life is only a property

of protoplasm, there can be no ground for saying that _thought_ is only

a property of protoplasm.

[Footnote 1: British Association Address.]

"If," says Professor Allman, "we were to admit that every living cell

were a conscious and thinking thing, are we therefore justified in

asserting that its consciousness with its irritability is a property of

the matter of which it is composed? The sole argument on which this view

is made to rest is analogy. It is argued that because the life

phenomena, which are invariably found in the cell, must be regarded as a

property of the cell, the phenomena of consciousness by which they are

accompanied must also be so regarded. The weak point in the argument is

the absence of all analogy between the things compared: and as the

conclusion rests solely on the argument from analogy, the two must fall

to the ground together."

Try and assign to matter all the properties you can think of, its

impenetrability, extension, weight, inertia, elasticity, and so forth,

by no process of thought (as Mr. Justice Fry observes in an article in

"The Contemporary Review [1]") can you get out of them an adequate

account of the phenomena of mind or spirit. We just now observed that

consciousness, thought, and so forth, are never exhibited apart from the

action of the brain; some change in the brain accompanies them all. We

do not deny that. But it is obvious that thought being manifested in the

presence of cerebral matter or something like it, is a very different

thing from thought being a _property_ of such matter, in the sense in

which polarity is the property of a magnet, or irritability of living

protoplasm.

[Footnote 1: October, 1880, p. 587.]

To all this I have seen no answer. The way in which the opponents of

Christian beliefs meet such considerations appears to be to ignore or

minimize them, so as to pass over to what seems to them a satisfactory

if not an easy series of transitions. If Life is after all only a

"property" of matter, then given life, a brain may be produced; and as

mind is always manifested in the presence of (and apparently

indissolubly united with) brain structure, it is not a much greater leap

to accept _life_ as a property of _matter_ than it is to take _thought_

as a property of a certain _specialized physical structure_. It is true

that the distance is great between the instinct of an animal and the

abstract reasoning power of a Newton or a Herbert Spencer; but (as we

are so often told) the difference is of degree not of kind, and as the

brain structure develops, so does the power and degree of reason. As to

the difference in man, that he is the only "religious" animal--the one

creature that has the idea of God--that is a mere development of the

emotions in connection with abstract reasoning as to the cause of

things. No part of our mental nature is more common to the animal and

the man than the emotional; and if in the one it is mere love and

hatred, joy and grief, confidence and fear, in the other the emotions

are developed into the poetic sense of beauty, or the awe felt for what

is grand and noble; and this insensibly passes into _worship_, the root

of the whole being fear of the unknown and the mysterious. That is the

general line of argument taken up.

Even accepting the solution (if such it maybe called) of the two first

difficulties--life added spontaneously or aboriginally to matter, and

thought and consciousness added to organism--still the rest of the path

is by no means so easy as might at the first glance appear. Development

in brain structure certainly does not always proceed _pari passu_ with a

higher and more complex reasoning. In actual fact we find high

"reasoning" power, quite unexpectedly here and there, up and down the

animal kingdom. Some _insects_, with very little that can be called a

brain at all, exhibit high intelligence; and some animals with smaller

brains are more docile and intelligent than others with a much larger

development. The ape, in spite of his close physical approach to the

structure of man, and his still greater relative distance from the other

animal creation, is not superior (if he is not decidedly inferior) in

reason or intelligence to several animals lower down in the scale.

Savages, again, have a brain greatly in excess of their actual

requirements (so to speak). Hence the mere existence of brain, however

complex, does not indicate the possession of mental power.

There is reason to believe that all thought and exercise of the mind--in

fact, every step in the process of "Education," whereby an ignorant

person is brought at last to apprehend the most abstract

propositions--is accompanied by some molecular (or other) change. So

that a person who has been carefully educated has the brain in a

different state from that of an exactly similarly constituted person

whose brain has been subjected to no such exercise. But even if this

action could be formulated and explained, it would not follow that

thought is the _product_ of the molecular change; or that, _vice versâ_,

if we could artificially produce certain changes, in the brain, certain

thoughts and perceptions would thereon coexist with the changes, and

arise in the mind of the subject forthwith. And if not, then no process

of physical development accounts for grades of intellect; we have only

mind developing as mind. But the theory of evolution will have nothing

to do with any development but physical; or at any rate with mental

development except as the result of physical: it knows nothing of pure

mind, or spiritual existence, or anything of the sort.

In the nature of things we can have neither observation nor experiment

in this stage. We cannot by any process develop the lower mind of an

animal into the higher mind of man, and prove the steps of the

evolution.[1] It is important to remember that the power of _directing

the attention by a voluntary process of abstraction_, is one that

distinctively belongs to man. It is an effort of will, of a kind that no

animal has any capacity for. By it alone have we any power of abstract

reasoning, and it is intimately concerned with our self-consciousness

and memory, and with our language. I am quite aware that animals possess

something analogous to a language of their own; they can indicate

certain emotions and give warning, and so forth, to their fellows. But

that language could never develop into human language, or the animal

will (such as it is) ever rise to a human will, or animals become

endowed with self-consciousness, unless they could acquire the power of

voluntarily abstracting the mind from one subject or part of a subject

and fixing the attention on another. We cannot formulate any process of

change whereby the lower state could pass on to or attain to the higher

in this respect.

[Footnote 1: We can of course follow the sort of mental development

which is traceable when we consider the origin of our own sagacious and

faithful dogs in the wild prairie dog: but this development is always in

contact with the mind of man, and is, as it were, the result of man's

action, as man's development in mind and soul is the result of God's

action.]

Therefore again we conclude that the higher reason is a gift _ab

externo_.

If we take a step further to the "spiritual" or "moral" faculties of

man, we have the same difficulty intensified, if indeed it does take a

new departure. To examine the question adequately would require us to go

into the deep waters of psychology; and here we should encounter many

matters regarding which there may be legitimate doubt and difference of

opinion, which would obscure and lead us away from our main line of

thought.

This I would willingly avoid. But it is quite intelligible, and touches

on no dangerous ground, when we assert that there is a distinct

ascent--an interval again raising developmental difficulties, directly

we pass from the intellectual to the moral. We may wonder at the high

degree of intelligence possessed by some animals; but we are unable to

conceive any animal possessing a power of abstract reasoning, having

ideas of beauty (as such), or of manifesting what we call the poetic

feeling. And still more is this so when we look at the further interval

that lies between any perception of physical phenomena, any reasoning in

the abstract, or investigation of mathematical truth, and the

overmastering sense of obligation to the "moral law," or the action of

the soul in its instinctive possession of the conception of a Divine

Existence external to itself. It is because of this felt difference that

we talk of the "spiritual" as something beyond and above the "mental."

The distinction is real, though we must not allow ourselves to be led

too far in attempting to scan the close union that, from another point

of view, exists between the one and the other.

In a recent number of "The Edinburgh Review,[1]" the author complains of

Bishop Temple thus: "He uses the word spiritual in such a way that he

might be taken to imply that we had some other faculty for the

perception of moral truths, in addition to, and distinct from, our

reason." And the writer goes on to make an "uncompromising assertion of

reason as the one supreme faculty of man. To depreciate reason (he says)

to the profit of some supposed 'moral' illative sense, would be to open

the door to the most desolating of all scepticisms, and to subordinate

the basis of our highest intellectual power to some mere figment of the

imagination."

[Footnote 1: July, 1885, p. 211, in the course of the article to which I

have already alluded.]

On the other hand, some writers (claiming to derive their argument from

the Scriptures) have supposed they could assert three distinct natures

in man--a spiritual, a mental (or psychic), and a bodily. Now there is

no doubt that, rightly or wrongly (I am not now concerned with that),

the Bible does distinctly assert that a "breath of lives" [1] was

specially put into the bodily form of man, and adds that thereby "man

became a living soul." But it is also stated of the animal creation that

the breath of life was given to them,[2] and animals are said to have a

"soul" (nephesh).[3] So that neither in the one case nor the other have

we more than the two elements: a body, and a life put into it; though of

course the man's "life" (as the plural indicates, and other texts

explain) was higher in kind than that of the animal.

[Footnote 1: The plural of excellence appears to mark something superior

in the spirit of man over that of the animals. Also compare Job xxxiii.

4, "The breath of the Almighty hath given me life," with Isa. xlii. 5

and Zech. xii. 1.]

[Footnote 2: Though not in the plural of excellence. See Gen. vi 17,

vii. 22, &c.]

[Footnote 3: Gen. i. 20, margin of A.V.]

St. Paul, it is true, speaks of the "whole spirit, and soul, and

body.[1]" But our Lord Himself, in a very solemn passage (where it would

be most natural to expect the distinction, if it were absolute and

structural, to be noticed), speaks of the "soul and body" only.[2]

The fact is that we are only able to argue conclusively that, besides

the physical form, we have a non-material soul, or a self. And our Lord,

whose teaching was always eminently practical, went no further. We are

conscious of a "self"--something that remains, while the body

continually grows and changes.

There was in _Punch_, some time ago, a picture of an old grandfather,

with a little child looking at a marble bust representing a child. "Who

is that?" asks the little one; and the old man replies, "That is

grandfather when he was a little boy." "And who is it now?" rejoins the

child. One smiles at the picture, but in reality it conceals a very

important and a very pathetic truth. Nothing could well be greater than

the outward difference between the grey hairs and bowed figure and the

little cherub face; and yet there was a "self"--a soul, that remained

the same throughout. In Platonic language, while the [Greek: eidôlon]

perpetually changes, the [Greek: eidos] remains. We have, therefore,

evidence as positive as the nature of the subject admits that we are

right in speaking of the _body and the soul, or self_. And as we cannot

connect the higher reasoning, and, above all, conscience and the

religious belief, as a "property" of physical structure, we conclude

that the Scripture only asserts facts when it attributes both to the

soul, as a spiritual element or nature belonging to the body. Man is

essentially one;[3] but there is both a material and a non-material, a

physical and a spiritual element, in the one nature. But, being a

spiritual element, that part of our nature necessarily has two sides (so

to speak). It has its point of contact with self and the world of sense,

and its point of contact with the world of spirit and with the Great

Spirit of all, from whom it came. _Because_ of that higher "breath of

lives" given by the Most High, man possesses the faculty of

_consciousness of God_ (i.e., the higher spiritual faculties), besides

the consciousness of self, or merely intellectual power regarding self

and the external world. Therefore, when an Apostle desires to speak very

forcibly of something that is to affect a man through and through, in

every part and in every aspect of his nature, he speaks of the "whole

spirit, soul, and body." To sum up: all that we know from the Bible is

that God gave a "soul" (nephesh) to the animals, in consequence of which

(when united to the physical structure) the functions of life and the

phenomena of intelligence are manifested. So God gave a non-material,

and therefore "spiritual," element to human nature; and this being of a

higher grade and capacity to that of the animal world, not only in its

union with physical structure, makes the man a "living soul"--gives him

an intelligence and a certain reason such as the animals have, but also

gives him, as a special and unique endowment; the consciousness of self

(involving--which is very noteworthy--a consciousness of its own

limitations) and the consciousness of God. Hence man's power of

improvement. If the man cultivates only the self-consciousness and the

reason that is with it, the Scriptures speak of him as the "natural or

psychic man;" if he is enabled by Divine grace to develop the higher

moral and spiritual part of his nature, and to walk after the Spirit,

not after the flesh, he is a "spiritual man."

[Footnote 1: 1 Thess. v. 23.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 28.]

[Footnote 3: The well-known argument of St. Paul regarding the

resurrection in 1 Cor. xv. (ver. 45, &c.) is well worthy of

consideration in this connection. He deals with man as _one whole_;

nothing is said about a man being (or having) a spirit separate from his

soul and his body, and that spirit being given a higher body than it had

upon earth; but of the whole man, soul _and_ body, being raised and

changed into a man, also one whole, with a more perfect body--a body

more highly developed in the ascending scale of perfection. I do not

forget the passage where the same Apostle (2 Cor. v. 6) speaks of being

in the body, and absent from the Lord; and of being "clothed upon;" but

this does not in any way detract from the importance of the treatment of

the subject in the First Epistle.]

It is idle to speculate whether the "nephesh" of the animals, or the

"living self" of the man, is an entity separate from the body, and

capable of existing _per se_--of its own inherent nature--apart from

it. We do not know that animal forms are the clothing of a lower-graded

but separate spiritual form, or that such an animal soul or spirit can

exist separately from the body; and we do not _know_ (from the

Bible)--whatever may be the current language on the subject--that man's

spirit is in its nature capable of anything like permanent separate

existence.[1] Man is essentially one; and when the physical change

called death passes over him, it does not utterly obliterate the whole

being. The non-material element is not affected any more than it is by

the sleep of every night; and the man will be ultimately raised, not a

spiritual or immaterial form, but provided, as before, with a body, only

one of a higher capacity and better adapted to its higher

environments--the "spiritual body" of St. Paul, in a word. The original

union of mind and matter is, on any possible theory, mysterious; and the

separation of them for a time is neither less so, nor more. All this is

perfectly true, whether the non-material element in man's nature is

_necessarily_, inherently and _by nature_, immortal or not--a question

which I do not desire to enter on.

Hence it is that a certain element of truth is recognized in the protest

of the Edinburgh Reviewer. On the other hand, as we have not only

intelligence, emotions (which are possessed in lower degree by animals),

self-consciousness, the power of abstract reasoning, and the higher

faculties of the imagination,[2] but also the consciousness of God and

the commanding sense of right and wrong; and seeing that the last-named

are different in kind from the former, we give them a separate name, and

speak of the moral or spiritual nature or capacity of man, as well as

the intellectual or mental. Some (by the way) choose "moral" to include

both, holding that ethical perceptions arise out of (or are intimately

connected with) our sense of God. Others would make a further

distinction, and confine "moral" to the (supposed) bare ethical

perception of duty or of right and wrong, and add "spiritual" to

distinguish the highest faculty of all, whereby man holds communion with

his Maker and recognizes his relation to Him.

[Footnote 1: This remark does not, of course, in any way touch the

question whether the spiritual part of a man is conscious in the

interval between death and resurrection, or whether it can be made

sensible in any way whatever to living persons.]

[Footnote 2: The poetic sense, the perception of the beautiful, &c.]

Whether this further distinction is justified or not, there is a

distinction between the moral and the purely intellectual; and we are

justified in using different terms for things that are _practically_

different. This the Edinburgh Reviewer seems to have forgotten.

It was necessary to my argument to enter on this somewhat lengthy

examination of the spiritual nature of man, because, while we

acknowledge the unity of man, we are compelled to recognize in his

religious sense and aspirations and capacities something quite

disparate--something that we could not get by a natural process of

growth from such beginnings of reason as are observed in the lower

animals.

I am aware that Dr. Darwin conceived that the religious feeling of man

might have grown out of the natural emotions of fear,[1] love,

gratitude, &c., when once men began to question as to the explanation of

the phenomena of life, and to ascribe the forces of nature to the

possession of a spirit such as he himself was conscious of: and with

much more positive intent, Mr. H. Spencer has also, after most

painstaking inquiries, formulated what he conceives to be the origin of

religious belief in man. He refers us to the early belief in a "double"

of self, which double could be projected out of self, and remained in

some way after death, so as to become the object of fear, and ultimately

of worship. When this ancestor-worship resulted in the worship of a

multitude of "genii" (whose individuality, as regards their former

earthly connection, is more or less forgotten), then the idea of

attaching the numerous divinities or ancestor-souls to the ocean, the

sky, the sun, the mountains, and the powers of nature, arises; whence

the poetic systems of ancient polytheistic mythology. Gradually men

began to reason and to think, and they refined the polytheism into the

"higher" idea of one great, central, immaterial all-pervading power,

which they called God.

[Footnote: 1 See the "Descent of Man," vol. i. p. 68 (original edition).

But it is right to state that the subject is not treated in any way

whatever so as to argue that the religious belief is a fancy, or

development of fancy, with no God and no facts about God behind it.]

Mr. Spencer, in effect, concludes that this "God" is only man's own

idea of filling up a blank, of explaining the fact that there must be an

ultimate first cause of whatever exists, and there is also a great

source of power of some kind external to ourselves.[1]

I am not going here to enter on any special argument as to the validity

of these theories in their relation to the direct question of the nature

and existence of God. What we are here concerned with is, whether they

enable us to exclude the idea of a gift and a giver of spiritual or

mental (we will not quarrel about terms) nature to man, and whether, by

any fair reasoning from analogy, we can suppose man's reason and his

"_sensus numinis_" to arise by the mere stages of natural growth and

development. Dr. Darwin's supposition takes no notice of the moral law

and its influence; indeed he adopts[2] the view that conscience is no

sense of right and wrong, but only the stored up and inherited social

instinct, a sense of convenience and inconvenience to the tribe and to

the individual, which at last acts so spontaneously and rapidly in

giving its verdict on anything, that we regard it as a special sense. It

would of course be possible to expend much time and many words in

argument on this subject. There is not, and never will be, any direct

evidence as to the origin of conscience; and as that sense (like any

other power of our mental nature) is capable of being educated, evoked,

enlightened, and strengthened, and may also by neglect and contradiction

deteriorate and wither away, there is ample room for allowing a certain

part of the theory.[3] But many people who examine their own conscience

will feel that the description certainly does not suit them; there are

many things which conscience disapproves, of which no great evil

consequences to themselves or any one else are felt. Conscience is

constantly condemning "the way that seemeth good unto a man."

_Ultimately_ no doubt, there is real evil at the end of everything that

conscience warns a man against; but not such as "inherited experience"

is likely to recognize. Is it, for instance, the experience of the mass

of men, as men, that the "fleshly mind is death, but the spiritual mind

is life and peace"? Is not rather the world at large habitually putting

money-making, position-making, and the care of the things of the body,

of time, and of sense, in the first place; and is not the moral law

perpetually warning us that the fashion of the world passes away, and

that what seems gold is in reality tinsel? As far as the condemnation

that conscience passes on the broad evils which affect society--"thou

shalt not steal," "thou shalt not lie," or so forth--no doubt it is

supported by the transmitted sense of inconvenience; but who has told it

of the evil of things that do not affect our social state? and who has

changed the inconvenient, the painful, into the _wrong_? It is one thing

to instinctively avoid a theft or a falsehood, even if the first origin

of such instinct were the fear of consequences or the love of

approbation; it is quite another--the inward condemnation of something

which "the deceitfulness of sin" is able to excuse, and which the world

at large would regard as permissible or at least venial. Even if

inherited use has its full play, there is still a something wanted

before the one can be got into (or out of) the other. Why, again, are

savages prone to imagine natural phenomena to be caused or actuated by

"spirits"? Surely it is because there _is_ consciously a spirit in man,

and a Higher Power, even God, outside, who exists, though man in his

ignorance has many false ideas regarding Him.

[Footnote 1: It is not necessary to my immediate argument, and therefore

I do not press it into the text (though I should be sorry to seem to

forget it for a moment), to urge that St. Paul draws a clear distinction

between the intellectual faculties and the higher spiritual ones, when

he assures us that the clearest intellect alone cannot assimilate the

truths of religion. For the spiritual faculties have been in man

grievously deadened and distorted (to say the least of it), so that his

intellectual faculties, bright and highly developed as they may be, will

always prove insufficient for the highest life in the absence of the

"grace of God." It is exactly analogous to the case of a man whom we

might suppose to have his sense of sight, touch, &c., distorted, and he

himself unable to correct them by aid of the senses of others. However

acutely he might exercise his reason, he would be continually wrong in

his conclusions. See 1 Cor. ii., the whole, but specially vers. 14, 15.]

[Footnote 2: "Descent of Man," vol. i. p, 70.]

[Footnote 3: The attempt (already alluded to) to separate moral and

spiritual, to imagine something that is ethical, apart from the

religious idea, has lent some strength to these ideas of the moral

sense; but in fact, the moral sense is _inseparably_ connected with the

idea of God, and His approval and disapproval. The idea of God may be

obscured and lost, but conscience is the surviving trace of it; the

circumference that accounts for the broken arc.]

It is an objection of the same order that applies to the other theory

(Mr. Spencer's). There can be little doubt that in many respects it is

true: as an account of all _human_ systems of religion it is adequate

and natural; but it breaks down hopelessly when we try to use it to

explain how the conception of God originated in the mind. Just as there

is a felt difference--not of degree or in form, but essential and

radical in its nature--between the _undesirable_ and the _wrong_, so

there is a difference between the idea of a mysterious thing towards

which apprehension or awe is felt, and the conception of God. Granted

that man believed in his own spirit or double, and attributed similar

immaterial motor powers as a cause for the wind and waves, and so forth;

granted that he at last "refined" this into the belief in one Spirit

whose power was necessarily great and varied--the origin is still

unexplained. How did man get the idea of a personal spirit or double--no

such thing, _ex hypothesi_ existing? How did he get to formulate the

idea of a _God_ when he had simplified his group of many spirits into

one?

If man is created with a consciousness of his own inner-self, _as a

self_, he is able naturally to imagine a like self in other beings; if

he has an idea of God innate in him, he can assimilate the truth when it

is at last presented to his mind; and that is why he feels that it _is_

a refinement; a rising from the lower to the higher (because from

falsehood to truth), to let the many gods give place to the One God. If

the idea of God has been obscured, and the power of its apprehension

deadened, the man can only grope about helplessly, fashioning this

explanation of nature and that--all more or less false, but all dimly

bearing witness to the two absolute facts, that there is an inner

non-material self, and an external non-material God.

If then there are insuperable difficulties in connecting thought with

matter by any process of unaided development, there are also great

difficulties, even when thought in a rudimentary form is given, in

conceiving it developed into man's reason, or man's religious belief, by

any known process of "natural" causation.

CHAPTER VIII.

_FURTHER DIFFICULTIES REGARDING THE HISTORY OF MAN_.

There are, however, some other matters connected with the history of man

on the globe, unconnected with psychological development, but which

demand notice, as making the argument against an undesigned, unaided

development of man a cumulative one. It is urged that whatever may be

thought of the connection of man with the animal creation, at any rate

the received Christian belief regarding the origin of man--especially

his late appearance on the scene--is contrary to known facts, and that

we have to mount up to a vast geologic antiquity to account for what is

known from exhumed remains in caves and lake dwellings, and the like.

Now no one pretends that the history of man is free from doubt and

difficulty, but the doubt and difficulty are not confined to the

"orthodox." For the inferences to be drawn from the exhumed remains are

equally doubtful whatever views be adopted.

I shall not go into great length on this subject, partly because some

recent popular tracts of Canon Rawlinson, Mr. R.S. Pattison, and others,

have already made the ordinary reader familiar with the main outlines of

the subject; and still more because, be the views of archaeologists what

they may, it is impossible for any rational person to contend either

that they can be reduced to anything like unity among themselves, or

that they lead to any conclusion favourable to the belief in the

self-caused and undesigned evolution of man.

It may be regarded as known, that at the dawn of history, mankind was

passing through what may be called a Bronze age, in which weapons of

bronze were used before tools of iron were invented. But this age was

preceded by one in which even bronze was unknown. Stone implements, and

some of bone and horn, were alone used. It is also well ascertained that

there were two _widely divided_ stone ages. The latter, distinguished by

the polishing of the stones, is described as the _neolithic_; the

former, in which flint and other hard stone fragments were merely

chipped or flaked to an edge, is called the _palaeolithic_.

It is hardly contended that the neolithic age could have been more than

four or five thousand years ago. There is always the greatest difficulty

in fixing any dates because from the nature of the case written records

are absent, and the stages of growth in the history of peoples overlap

so.

We know that sharp flakes of stone were still used for knives in the

time of Moses and Joshua. We are not out of the stone age yet, as

regards some portions of the globe; and it is quite possible that parts

of the earth, not so very remote, may have been still in the midst of a

stone age when Assyria, Chaldaea, and Egypt were comparatively highly

civilized.

It is also fairly certain that between the neolithic or smooth-stone

age, and the palaeolithic, certain important geological changes took

place, though those changes were not such as to have demanded any very

great length of time for their accomplishment.

The palaeolithic stone implements are found in river gravels and clays,

along the higher levels of our own Thames Valley, that of the Somme in

France, and in other places. They are also found at the bottom of

various natural caverns.

No human bones have been found as yet with the implements, but the bones

of large numbers of animals have. And it seems certain that the men who

made the implements were contemporaries of the animals, because in the

later part of the age, at any rate, they drew or scratched likenesses of

the animals on bone. Among these representations are figures of the

_mammoth_ an extinct form well known to the reader by description and

museum specimens of remains.

The animals contemporary with these primeval men were the mammoth,

species of rhinoceros and hippopotamus, the "sabre-toothed" lion, the

cave-bear, the reindeer, besides oxen, horses, and other still surviving

forms.

In his address to the British Association in 1881 Sir John Lubbock

called attention to the fact that these animals appear to indicate both

a hot and a cold climate, and he referred to the fact (known to

astronomers) that the earth passes through periods of slow change in the

eccentricity of its orbit, and in the obliquity of the ecliptic. The

result of the latter condition is, to produce periods of about 21,000

years each, during one-half of which the Northern hemisphere will be

hotter, and in the other the Southern. At present we are in the former

phase.

But the obliquity of the ecliptic does not act alone; the eccentricity

of the orbit produces another effect, namely, that when it is at a

minimum the difference between the temperatures of the two hemispheres

is small, and as the eccentricity increases, so does the difference. At

the present time the eccentricity is represented by the fraction .016.

But about 300,000 years ago the eccentricity would have been as great as

.26 to .57. The result, it is explained, would have been not a uniform

heat or cold, but extremes of both; there would probably have been short

but very hot summers, and long and intensely cold winters.

This, Sir John Lubbock thought, might account for the co-existence of

both hot and arctic species, like the hippopotamus and rhinoceros on the

one hand, and the musk-ox and the reindeer on the other.

But such considerations really help us little. In the first place, it is

only an assumption that the fossil hippopotamus _was_ an animal of a hot

climate--it does not in any way follow from the fact that the now

existing species is such; nor if we make the assumption, does it explain

how, if the hot summer sufficed for the tropical hippopotamus, it

managed to survive the long and cold winters which suited the arctic

species.

Moreover, no such calculations can really be made with accuracy: we do

not know what other astronomical facts may have to be taken into

consideration, nor can we say when such "periods" as those which are so

graphically described, began or ended.

In this very instance, we know that the mammoth only became extinct in

comparatively recent times, since specimens have been found in Siberia,

with the hair, skin, and even flesh, entirely preserved. Granted that

the intense cold of the Siberian ice effected this, it is impossible to

admit more than a limited time for the preservation--not hundreds of

thousands of years. Professor Boyd Dawkins is surely right in stating

that the calculations of astronomy afford us no certain aid at present

in this inquiry.

As regards the geological indications of age, the best authority seems

to point to the first appearance of man in the post-glacial times: that

is to say, that the gravels in which the palaeolithic implements are

found were deposited by the action of fresh water after the great

glacial period, when, at any rate, Northern Europe, a great part of

Russia, all Scandinavia, and part of North America were covered with

icefields, the great glaciers of which left their mark in the numerous

scoopings out of ravines and lake beds and in the raising of banks and

mounds, the deposit of boulders, and the striation of rocks _in situ_,

which so many districts exhibit.

The few instances in which attempts have been made, in Italy or

elsewhere, to argue for a pliocene man (i.e. in the uppermost group of

the tertiary) have ended in failure, at least in the minds of most

naturalists competent to judge.

One of the most typical instances of the position of the implement age

has been discovered by Fraas at Shüssenried in Suabia; here the remains

of tools and the bones of animals (probably killed for food) were found

in holes made in the glacial _débris_.

But here, again, it is impossible to say when this glacial age

terminated, and whether man might not have been living in other more

favoured parts while it was wholly or partially continuing.

In Scandinavia no palaeolithic stone implements have been found, from

which it may be inferred that the glacial period continued there during

the ages when palaeolithic man hunted and dwelt in caves in the other

countries where his remains occur.

The best authorities do not suppose that the men _originated_ in the

localities where the tools are found; and there is so little known about

the geology of Central Asia (for example) that it is impossible to say

whether tribes may not have wandered from some other places not affected

by the glaciation we have spoken of.

Again, the gravels and brick earths containing the tools are just of the

kind which defy attempts to say how long it took to deposit and arrange

them.

It may be taken as certain, that after the one age ceased and the first

men appeared, the beds in which their relics occur have been raised

violently, and again depressed and subjected to great flushes and floods

of water. The caves have been upheaved, and the gravels are found

chiefly along the valleys of our present rivers, but at a much higher

level, showing that there was both a higher level of the soil itself and

a much greater volume of water.

The Straits of Dover were formed during this period.

But none of these changes required a very long time; and if we can trace

back the later stone age, which shows remains of pottery and other

proofs of greater civilization, to the dawn of the historic period not

more than 4000 or 5000 years ago, there is nothing in the nature of the

changes which, as we have stated, intervened between the palaeolithic

and neolithic periods, that need have occupied more than a thousand or

two of years. Upheavals of strata and disruptions may be the work of

but a short time, or they may be more gradual. And as to the effect of

water, that depends on its volume and velocity; no certain rule can be

given. Our own direct experience shows that very great changes may take

place in a few hundred years.

"The estuaries," remarks Mr. Pattison,[1] "around our south-eastern

coast, which have been filled up in historical times, some within the

last seven hundred years to a height of thirty feet from their

sea-level, by the gradual accumulation of soil, now look like solid

earth in no way differing from the far older land adjoining. The

harbours out of which our Plantagenet kings sailed are now firm,

well-timbered land. The sea-channel through which the Romans sailed on

their course to the Thames, at Thanet, is now a puny fresh-water ditch,

with banks apparently as old as the hills. In Bede's days, in the ninth

century, it was a sea-channel three furlongs wide."

[Footnote 1: "Age and Origin of Man"--Present-Day Tract Series.]

Thus we are in complete uncertainty as to the date of the palaeolithic

man, or as to the time necessary to effect the changes in the surface of

the earth which intervened between it and the later stone ages. But

there is nothing which conflicts with the possibility that the whole may

have occurred within some 8,000 years.

For the supposition of Mons. Gabriel Mortillet that man has existed for

230,000 years, there is neither evidence nor probability. His theory is

derived from an assumption that the geologic changes alluded to occupied

an immense time; and the further assumption (if possible still more

unwarranted) that the old race which used the chipped stone tools

remained stationary for a very long period, and very gradually improved

its tools and ultimately passed into the neolithic stage when the art of

pottery became known, however rudely.

But, in point of fact, we are not required by our belief in Scripture to

find any date for the origin of man, at least not within any moderate

limits (not extending to scores of thousands of years). The Bible was

not intended to enable us to construct a complete science of geology or

anthropology, and the utmost that can be got out of the text is that a

date can be _suggested_ (not proved) for one particular family (that of

Adam) by counting up the generations alluded to in Holy Writ before the

time of Abraham. But these are manifestly recorded in a brief and

epitomized form; nor do all the versions agree. We may well believe that

a watchful Providence has taken care of the record of inspiration, but

we know it has been done by human and ordinary agency. The Bible is

God's gift to his Church, and the Church has been made in all ages the

keeper of it. Now in the matter of early dates and numbers, an unanimous

version has not been kept. According to the construction adopted in the

Septuagint, the creation of Adam would go back 7,517 years, while the

Vulgate gives 6,067 years. Dr. Hale's computation makes 7,294 years,

and the Ussherian 5,967;[1] the Samaritan version is, I believe, further

different from either.

As it is, the facts show nothing inconsistent with an approximation to

these several periods.

As to any absolute date for the appearance of man as a species, no

calculation is possible, because of a certain doubt, which no one can

pretend to resolve, as to whether the Scriptures do assert the creation

of _all_ mankind at any one period. If, owing to more positive

discoveries in the future compelling us to put further back the date of

man's first appearance upon earth, we have to suppose a beginning before

the time of Adam, we are reminded that there is an allusion in the sixth

chapter of the book called Genesis to "the sons of God" and the

"daughters of men." Now this passage cannot conceivably refer to angels;

nor can we ignore its existence, however doubtful we may feel as to its

meaning.[2]

[Footnote 1: I take these figures from Mr. R.S. Pattison.]

[Footnote 2: The text which speaks of God making "of one blood all

nations for to dwell on the face of the earth," would naturally apply to

the races existing when the speaker uttered the words: it would be as

unreasonable to press such a text into the service of _any_ theory of

the creation of man, as it was absurd for the Inquisition to suppose

that the Psalmist, when asserting that God had made the "round world so

fast that it could not be moved," was contradicting the fact of the

earth's revolution round the sun.]

It can hardly be denied that such a text opens out the _possibility_ of

an earlier race than that of Adam; in that case the creation of Adam

would be detailed as the creation of the direct progenitor of Noah,

whose three sons still give names (in ethnological language) to the main

great races of the earth, with whom exclusively the Bible history is

concerned, and especially as the direct progenitor of that race of whom

came the Israelites, and in due time the promised seed--the Messiah. I

do not say this _is_ so, nor even that I accept the view for my own

part; I only allude to the possibility, without ignoring any of the

difficulties--none of which, however, are insuperable--which gather

round it.

It is certainly a very remarkable fact that all about this region in

which the Semitic race originated, traditions of Creation somewhat

resembling the account in Genesis, the institution of a week of seven

days, and a Sabbath or day of rest from labour, existed from very early

times; and with these traditions, a belief in distinct races, one of

which owned a special connection with, or relation to, the Creator. Here

I may appeal to the work of Mr. George Smith and his discoveries of

tablets from the ancient libraries of Assyria. Originally, the country

to which I have alluded consisted of Assyria in the centre and Babylonia

to the south; while to the east of Assyria was a country partly plain

and partly hill, which formed the "plain of Shinar" and the hills beyond

occupied by Accadian tribes, from whose chief city, Ur, Abraham, the

forefather of the Jews, emigrated. The Assyrian documents are copies of

Babylonian originals, but the Babylonian kingdom itself was a Semitic

one founded on the ruins of an earlier population, the inhabitants of

the plain of Shinar and the mountains beyond. Some time between 3000 and

2000 B.C. the Semitic conquerors of Babylonia took possession of the

plains, and some time later conquered also the Accadian mountaineers.

The Babylonians possessed and translated the old Accadian records: the

Assyrian tablets are mostly, but not all, copies, again, of the

Babylonian transcripts. The celebrated "Creation tablets," which contain

an account closely corresponding to Genesis, are among those which were

not copied from Accadian originals; and they do not date further back

than the reign of Assur-bani-pal, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks; who

reigned in the seventh century B.C. They may therefore be derived from

the Bible, not the Bible from them. It would seem from some earlier

(Accadian) tablets, that a different account of the Creation existed

among them. But though it is doubtful how far the Accadians had

preserved this account, or at least had others along with it, _they had

a seven days week_ and _a Sabbath_. All this points to _one_ original

tradition, which specified days of creation and a Sabbath, though it got

altered and distorted, so that the true account was preserved as one

among many local variations. This goes to prove the immense antiquity of

the story, which is not affected by the fact that the actual inscription

of it which we at present have, dates only about 670 B.C. The point

here, however, interesting in the legends, is that they contained the

idea of a special connection of one particular race with the Creator,

and of other races, or of one other race, besides.

As far as the possibility of bringing forward the history of mankind as

any aid to the theory of Evolution is concerned, I might have very well

let the subject alone, or even noticed it more briefly than I have done.

For, in truth, there is no _evidence_ whatsoever, and all that the

denier of creation can resort to is a supposed analogy and a probability

that the peculiarities of man could be accounted for in this way or in

that. But the main purpose of my brief allusion is to introduce the fact

that, as far as any evidence to the contrary goes, we have an absolutely

sudden appearance of man on the scene, and no kind of transitional form.

Not only so, but there is no trace of any gradual development of man

when he did appear. There was the first palaeolithic man; then a

considerable geologic perturbation of the earth's surface, resulting in

the upheaval of the cliffs in which the caves of remains occur, and in

the alteration of the gravel beds in which the human remains are found;

and then the neolithic age, with its evidently greater civilization (as

evidenced by pottery, &c.) connected with early and traditional, but

still with recent, history; but no trace of any development of one race

into the other.

The absence of all progressive change is forcibly indicated by the

measurements of ancient skulls, which, though not found along with the

flint tools, have been found elsewhere. It has been fully shown that

they differ in no respect from the skulls of men at the present day;

while the skulls of the apes most nearly anthropoid, or allied to the

human form, remain as widely separated in brain-capacity as ever.[1]

Thus the fact remains, that no intermediate form between the ape and the

lowest man has been discovered, and that there is nothing like any

progressive development in the races of man. These facts, taken together

with what has been brought forward in the last chapter, show how

completely the theory of the descent of man breaks down; how utterly

unproved and untenable is the idea that he should have been evolved by

natural causes and by slow steps from any lower form of animal life.

[Footnote 1: The gorilla has a brain size of 30.51 cubic inches; the

chimpanzee and ourang-outang (in the males) from 25.45 to 27.34 inches.

According to Dr. J. Barnard Davis the average of the largest class of

European skulls is 111.99, that of the Australian 99.35 cubic inches.]

CHAPTER IX.

_CONCLUDING REMARKS_.

It will naturally be asked, "If there is all this objection to some

parts of the theory of Evolution, or to that theory in an extreme or

absolute form, how is it that it has been so eagerly accepted in the

ranks of scientific men?"

The answer is, in the first place, because the theory of Evolution is to

a great extent true. When men speak of controversy with the Evolutionist

and so forth, they of course mean such as insist on carrying the

doctrine to a total and even virulent denial of any Divine control at

all. And it must, I think, be admitted that much of the theological

opposition offered to the doctrine was aimed at _this_ aspect of it. At

first, men zealous for what they believed to be Divine truth, did not

discriminate; they saw that the then new idea of evolution was, in many

branches of its application, still very poorly proved, and they

conceived that it could not be accepted apart from a total denial of

religion. We have grown wiser in the course of time: misconceptions

have been swept away; and everybody may be content with the assurance

that there is no necessary connection even, far less any antagonism,

between evolution and the Christian faith at all. We may admit all that

is known of the one without denying the other. Where the controversy has

to be maintained is, that some will insist (like Professor Häckel) in

carrying evolution beyond what evidence will warrant; and not only so,

but will insist on polemically putting down all religion on the strength

of their improved theories. If "Evolutionists" complain of the treatment

they have received at the hands of "Theologians," they will at least, in

fairness, admit that there has been some misconception, some error on

both sides. What we maintain is, that evolution (i.e., here, as always,

unlimited, uncontrolled evolution) still fails to account for many facts

in nature; that we are still far from holding anything like a complete

scheme in our hands; there may be _limits_ to the wide circle of

progressive changes, to the results of development, of which we are

ignorant; and there is, above all, in that most important of all

questions--the descent of man--an absolute want of proof of animal

_descent_ (i.e., in any sense which includes the "soul" or spiritual

faculties of man). Hence that evolution in no way clashes with an

intelligent Christian belief. In saying this, I would carefully avoid

undervaluing the services which the evolution theory has rendered, and

is rendering, to science. Even in its first form as a mere hypothesis,

it was an eminently suggestive one; there was from the first quite truth

enough in it to make it fruitful, and many working hypotheses have been

immensely useful in science, which have in the end been very largely

modified. Before Darwin's wonderfully accurate mind and marvellous skill

in collecting and making use of facts, turned the current of natural

science into this new channel, men seemed to be without an aim for their

naturalist's work. The _savant_, for example, procured an animal

evidently of the cat tribe, and another species like a polecat. He knew

as a fact that the feline teeth had a certain structure, and that the

dental formula of the viverrine animals is different. Here, then, he

could distinguish and perhaps name the species; but what more was to be

done? All natural history as a study seemed to end in classifying and

giving long names to plants and animals. The Evolution theory at once

gave it a new object. Why is the dental formula of the _viverrinae_

different? What purpose has the long spur in the flower of _Angraecum_,

or the marvellous bucket of _Coryanthes_, the flytrap of _Dionaea_, the

pitcher of _Nepenthes_? What is the cause, what is the purpose, what is

the plan in the scheme of nature, of these structures? Under the

stimulus of such questions naturalists woke up to new views of

classification, to new experiments, inquiries, and to research for facts

and the explanation of facts, in all quarters of the globe. No wonder

that science rose, under such an impulse, as a butterfly from its

chrysalis. But some will not be satisfied with any scheme the parts of

which are separated, or which admits of anything unknown or

unexplainable. They want to unite all into one grand and simple whole,

which glorifies their own intelligence, and does not force them to

humble patience and waiting for more light. And then the fatal enmity of

the human heart--which is a plain fact, an undeniable tendency--delights

to get rid of the idea of God's Sovereignty, the humbling sense that

everything is at His absolute disposal, and nothing could be but as He

wills it. It seems so satisfactory to eliminate all external mysterious

power, to make the whole "_totus teres atque rotundus_"--having started

the great machine of being _somehow_ to see it all expand and unroll

of itself and advance to the end.

Imagination leaps the chasms, minimizes the difficulties, passes from

the possible to the certain, from the "may have been" to the "must have

been" and to "it was so," and, fascinated with the _completeness_ of its

scheme, commences to denounce and revile as ignorant and unscientific

all that would, calmly appeal to evidence, and confess ignorance, or at

least a suspended judgment, in any stage where the evidence is negative

or incomplete.

It has been well observed that "men are so constituted that completeness

gives a special kind of satisfaction of its own, and a habit of

specially regarding the general uniformity of nature begets a desire to

assume its absolute and universal uniformity."

There _is_ a great mystery underlying life and the plan in which the

animal form, the organs of sight, hearing, and the rest, run through the

whole creation: and, given a mystery, there is always ample room for

speculation. Taking firm hold of the facts of development and variation,

the extreme evolutionist is carried away with the idea of having the

same principle throughout: he is impatient of any line or any check; he

is therefore prepared to ignore all difficulties, to hope

against hope for the discovery of to him necessary--but, alas,

non-existent--intermediate forms, till at last he comes to deny, not

only his God, but his own soul, as a spiritual and supra-physical

entity.[1]

[Footnote 1: Those who want a specimen of the way in which extreme

evolutionists will _romance_ (it can be called nothing else) will do

well to read Dr. Häckel's "History of Creation," only they must be on

their guard at every step. The author constantly states as facts (or,

perhaps, with an impatient "must have been") the existence of purely

hypothetical forms, of which there is _no kind_ of evidence. To such

ends does the love of completeness lead!]

Such extremes are no part of true science, and have neither helped the

progress of knowledge, nor advanced the condition of mankind. But, on

the other hand, let us hear no more of a sweeping condemnation of the

theory of Evolution as a whole; let us beware of any insistence

on, or assumption of, the supposed fact that God created

separately--ready-made and complete--all known animal forms, bringing

them up from the ground, like the armed men in the Greek legend, from

the dragon's teeth.

We have no more right to dogmatize and assume a scheme of creation from

a popular and long-accepted interpretation of the Bible, than the

evolutionist has to ignore the palpable evidences of Divine guidance and

design, and construct a theory or organic being which ignores both.

PART II.

CHAPTER X.

_THE GENESIS NARRATIVE--ITS IMPORTANCE_.

We have now completed the first portion of our inquiry: there remains

the second, which, to a large class, at any rate, will appear of not

less importance. For the Scriptures, which they have been taught to

trust, contain a brief but direct and positive statement regarding

Creation, as well as numerous other less direct allusions to the

subject, all (as far as I know) in unquestioned harmony with the first.

Is the account in the Book of Genesis true? It is necessary to answer

this question, because, even if a general belief in an Almighty Author

and Designer of all things is shown to be reasonable, still the

Scripture ought surely to support the belief; and it would be strange

if, when we came to test it on this subject, we found its professed

explanations would not stand being confronted with the facts.

No one will, I think, deny that the question is important. Writers of

the "anti-theological" school still continue to insist on the falsity of

the Mosaic narrative, as if the error was not yet sufficiently slain,

and was important enough to be attacked again and again. And

theological writers, down to the most modern, continue to explain the

text in one way or another;--besides, _they_ admit the importance, under

any circumstances. I do not forget that there is a school of thought,

which is distinctly Christian in its profession, but does not allow the

importance. It would regard the narrative as addressed to Jews only, and

therefore as one which does not concern us. If that was all, it would

not be needful for me to discuss the position. But it has been held, not

only that the narrative does not concern us, but _also_ that it is

certainly inaccurate.

This view I cannot adopt: it seems not quite fair to ourselves, and not

quite fair to the Jews. Let me explain what I mean. If we have nothing

to do with the narrative, let us abstain _equally_ from defending it

_or_ pronouncing it wrong--that is for ourselves. As to the Jewish

Church, a little more must be said. Let us admit, at any rate for

argument's sake, that the separation between the Jewish formal and

ceremonial religion and Christianity is as wide as can be wished. Nor

would I undervalue the importance of insisting on pure Christianity, as

distinct from Judaism. And, further, let us (without any question as to

ultimate objects) regard the narrative as primarily addressed to Jews,

and let us admit that it may have been unimportant, for the purpose of

the first steps in Divine knowledge, that any account should be given of

Creation beyond the primary fact that all idolatrous cosmogonies were

false, and that the Unseen God of Israel alone made the heavens and the

earth "in the beginning." Why should the Jews have received that truth

through the medium of a story of which the whole framework was false,

and nothing but the moral true? The framework, moreover, is one so

plainly _professing to be fact_, that it was certain to be received as

such by a simple people. It seems to me that there is something very

suspicious, something repugnant to notions of truth and honest dealing,

in the possible communication of underlying Divine truth through the

medium of stories, which are not stories on the face of them, but

profess and pretend to be statements of fact and authoritatively made.

But, further, it cannot be denied that, whatever allowance may have to

be made under the early Jewish dispensation for the ideas and weaknesses

of a semi-barbarous people, whatever "winking" there may have been "at

times of ignorance," the main object was, by a gradual revelation,[1] by

a system of typical ordinances and ceremonies, to lead up to the full

spiritual light of the Christian dispensation. Everything written, said,

or done, was a step--however small an one--always tending in the one

direction, according to the usual law of Evolution. The Christian

believer may then look back to the early stages as imperfect

foreshadowings and dim illustrations of the whole truth; but he would, I

should think, on any ordinary principles, be shocked to find truth

developed out of positive error. And should the error have been

discovered, as it now is[2] (in the view of these I am contending

against), this discovery might have arrested the further development of

Divine truth altogether. If Moses, or whoever wrote the Book of

Genesis--we will not cavil at that--was allowed to compose his own

fancies or beliefs on the subject of Creation, _and to state them as

Divine fact_ (no matter that the reader at the time was not able to find

out the error), would not grave suspicion attach to whatever else he put

forward? Who could tell that, on any other subject, the plainest and

most direct statement of fact was not equally a fancy, only embodying or

enshrining (under the guise of its errors) some real Divine facts? If

Genesis i. is unreliable, we have a case of a writer going out of his

way to add to certain truths, which might easily have been stated by

themselves, a number of positive declarations, _as of Divine authority_,

regarding facts, which are not facts.

[Footnote 1: I am not aware of any authority, living or dead, who has

gone so far as to deny that God's revelation to the Jewish Church was in

any way connected with Christianity; that it was not even a stage of

progress, or preparatory step towards the kingdom of Christ.]

[Footnote 2: And was _sure to be_ sooner or later, when a science of

Biology and Palaeontology became possible.]

The great truths that God is really the Maker and Author of all things,

and that man has a spiritual being, and so forth, surely _gain nothing_

from being conveyed to the world in the folds of a fable. And when it

is not in a confessed fable, but a fable put forth as fact--"God said,"

"God created," "it was so"--not only is there no gain, but our sense of

fitness and of truth receive a shock. A parable is always discernible as

a parable, a vision as a vision. When our Lord, for example, tells us of

the ten virgins, we do not suppose Him to be revealing the actual

existence of ten such maidens, wise and foolish. We know that He is

reading a lesson of watchfulness. But looking at the Genesis narrative,

who could suppose it to be a parable? If sober, unmistakable statement

of fact is possible, we surely have it here, in intention, at least.

The plan of teaching truth in an envelope of error is _per se_ difficult

to conceive. But how much worse is it when we consider--what criterion

does mankind possess for disinterring and distinguishing the elements of

truth? If in religion we had only to do (as some would perhaps contend)

with obvious enforcements of common morality and kindness, there might

be a possibility of getting over the difficulty, because man would

possess some kind of criterion whereby to distinguish what was

fictitious, by the simple process of considering whether any given

statement bore on morals or not. Such a test would not indeed go very

far, because the human race is by no means agreed on all moral

questions; nor does it always find it easy to say what is, and what is

not, directly or indirectly connected with morals. But, in fact, the

scope of religion cannot be so confined: and then the difficulty

returns; for a revelation that tells us anything of the nature of God

and His method of government, of the nature of our own being and of a

future state, must necessarily go beyond our own ethical knowledge and

powers of judging, or it would not be a revelation. Supposing that the

revelation regarding such vital subjects is occasionally conveyed

through the medium of erroneous statements, where in any given case

would be the certainty as to what was Divine truth, and what not so?

This argument applies equally to another school of thinkers, who do not

care to tell us what the narrative in itself means: who believe that God

did not do what He is said to have done in Genesis, and yet who hold

that the narrative is in a sense inspired, and that we may learn from it

the great facts that God (and none other) originated all things--that

man has a spiritual element in his nature, and that woman is equal in

nature, but subordinate in position, to man, and so forth. Not only is

enlightened judgment, even, inadequate to pronounce with certainty on

how much is true; but the strange feeling still remains, if God designed

to teach us these truths only, why was it not possible to enable the

writer[1] to state them without the (purely gratuitous) error? The

sufferance of such a strange and unnecessary mixture of error seems

rather like that "putting to confusion" of the human mind, which we feel

sure the Great Teacher would never willingly perpetrate.

[Footnote 1: For on the supposition stated, there _is_ a revelation in

the text. Nor could any class of believer deny this. It is entirely

unnecessary to define the kind and extent of insphation. But "all

Scripture is '_theopneustos_'"--I leave the word purposely untranslated

(2 Tim. iii. 16); that surely means that the Divine Spirit exercised

_some kind_ of continuous control over the writers.]

Nor, again, can the narrative be got over by saying it is a poetic side

or aspect of the facts, and not to be taken literally. If any one knows

exactly what this means, and can tell us always how to translate the

matter into plain language, it is to be wished that he would enlighten

the world as to the process. But even if such process exists infallibly

and universally, still, one would suppose, the narrative must, to begin

with, be unmistakable poetry. And here, again, the narrative bears every

mark of an intention to state facts, not poetic aspects of facts. Nor

can we take the narrative as belonging to a familiar class in Scripture

where a dream is used as a vehicle of communication. In those cases

there is really no room for doubt; the visible facts themselves are

obviously designed only to typify or represent some other facts.

The events stated in Genesis are not of this class. Those, therefore,

who would be content with getting over the narrative without caring for

its details, can, I must suspect, have hardly given adequate attention

to the form and to the contents of the narrative as it stands. Not only

are the statements positive, but, taking any interpretation whatever of

them, they are not nearly imaginative enough to suit the purpose.

They have an obvious amount of relation to fact which has never been

denied.[1]

If the narrative is purely human even (and that the school we are

considering do not aver), how did the writer come to be accurate even to

that extent? Take only the order of events. I admit it does not

correspond with the geologic record in the way commonly asserted; yet it

has a very remarkable relation to that sequence.

Now, in any case, the writer could have had no knowledge of any kind _of

his own_ on the subject: how did he hit on this particular

arrangement?[2] It is a mere matter of calculation on the well-known

rules of permutation and combination to realize in how many different

ways the same set of events could have been arranged; the number is very

considerable.

And he could derive no assistance from any similar existing narrative.

If we conclude from the Assyrian discoveries that a non-biblical but

similar narrative existed, still it is certain that the principal one we

as yet have is so late in date, that it is more likely to be derived

from the Bible than the Bible from it. And though, on referring to the

earlier tablets, we find traces of the same narrative, it is so obscured

by idolatrous and false details, that the Bible writer must have had to

make a virtually new departure to get his own simple narrative. A

re-revelation would be required. As to all other cosmogonies, Egyptian,

Indian, and Buddhistic, nothing can be more opposed in principle and in

detail than they are to the severe and stately simplicity and directness

of the Mosaic.

[Footnote 1: Not even, for example, by Professor Häckel.]

[Footnote 2: How, for example, did the writer come to introduce the

adjustment of hours of daylight and seasons in the _middle_, after so

much work had been done? How did he come to place _birds_ along with

fish and water monsters, and not separately?]

We cannot, then, account for the narrative on human grounds; nor can we

suppose that any inspiring control would have given the author so much

truth, and yet allowed so much error.

All this points to only one of two possible conclusions: either the

narrative is not inspired at all, and is a mere misleading story, into

which the name of God is introduced by the author's piety--and so really

teaches us nothing, since it is not revelation; _or_ the narrative is,

as a whole, divinely dictated, and must be true _throughout_, if we can

only arrive by due study at its true meaning. That part of it is, or may

be, true, even on the most cursory study, is not denied; that it is

_all_ true will appear, I think, in the sequel.

But there is a shorter and simpler reason why the rejection of the

narrative in Genesis would be a direct blow to Christian faith. The

plain truth is that it can hardly be denied, by any candid student of

the New Testament, that our Lord and His apostles certainly received the

early chapters of Genesis as of Divine authority. This has always been

perceived by the whole school of writers opposed to the Faith. They

therefore continue to attack these early revelations, and rejoice to

overturn them if they can, because they are aware that hardly any

chapters in the Bible are more constantly alluded to and made the

foundation of practical arguments by our Lord and His apostles.

If these chapters can be shown to be mythical, then the Divine knowledge

of our Lord as the Son of God, and the inspiration of His apostles, are

called in question. In the New Testament, especially, there are repeated

and striking allusions to Adam, the temptation of the woman by the

Serpent, and the entrance into the world of sin and death. Our Lord

Himself places the whole argument of His teaching on marriage and the

permissibility of divorce on Genesis ii. 24 (_cf_. St. Matt. xix. and

St. Mark x.). In St. John viii. 44 our Lord clearly alludes to the

Edenic narrative when He speaks of the tempter as a "manslayer ([Greek:

anthropoktonos]) from the beginning." Still more remarkable is the

argument of St. Paul in Romans v.; altogether based as it is on the

historical verity of the account of the Fall; and other allusions are to

be found in 1 Cor. xi. 8, in 2 Cor. xi. 3, in the Epistle to the

Ephesians, and elsewhere. In short, there are at least sixty-six

passages in the New Testament, in which the first eleven chapters of

Genesis are directly quoted or made the ground of argument. Of these,

six are by our Lord Himself, two being direct quotations;[1] six by St.

Peter, thirty-eight by St. Paul, seven by St. John, one by St. James,

two by St. Jude, two by the assembled apostles, three by St. Luke, and

one by St. Stephen.

[Footnote 1: St. Matt. xix. 4; St. Luke xvii. 27; and perhaps we might

add a third--St. Matt. xxiii. 35.]

We cannot, in fact, possibly avoid the conclusion that our Lord and His

apostles admitted the Divine origin and historical truth of these

chapters.

Therefore, we are bound as Christians to accept them, and that without

glossing or frittering away their meaning, when we have arrived, by just

processes, at what that meaning really is.

The fact just stated further warns us against accepting an indefinite

interpretation which, while it acknowledges the truth of the general

conclusion, still virtually, if not in so many words, allows that the

details may be wholly inaccurate.

CHAPTER XI.

_SCRIPTURE METHODS OF REVELATION_.

Passing, then, to a consideration of the explanations of the narrative

that may be or have been given at various times, I would first call

attention to the fact, that it seems in many instances to have been the

distinct purpose of Divine inspiration to allow the meaning of some

passages to be obscure; perhaps among other reasons, that men might be

compelled to study closely, to reason and to compare, and thus to become

more minutely acquainted with the record. Especially in a case of this

sort, where the world's knowledge of the facts would necessarily be

gradual, was it desirable that the narrative should be confined in

scope, and capable of being worked out and explained by the light of

later discoveries; because, had the narrative really (as has long been

supposed) been revealed to tell us what was the actual course of

evolution of created forms on earth, it would not only have occupied a

disproportionate space in the sacred volume, but would have been

unintelligible to the world for many centuries, and would have given

rise to much doubting and false argument, to the great detriment of

men's spiritual enlightenment. It would have diverted men's minds from

the great moral and conclusion of the whole (and here it is that the

"moral" or conclusion is so important) to set them arguing on points of

natural science.

The Bible was never intended (so far we may agree with all the schools

of thought) to be a text-book on biology or geology. We need rather to

be impressed with the great facts of God's Sovereignty and Providence,

and to know definitely that all the arrangements of our globe and all

forms of life are due to Divinely-created types. This is exactly secured

by the narrative as it stands; but such a purpose would not be served by

a narrative which, while it contained these great facts, had them

enwrapped in a tissue of unnecessary and false details. And therefore it

is, if I may so far anticipate my conclusion, that the narrative has no

direct concern with how, when, and where, the Creation slowly worked

itself out under the Divine guidance which is still elaborating the

great purpose of the "ages"; it confines our attention to what God, the

great Designer, did and said in heaven, as preliminary to all that was

to follow on earth. The former was not a proper subject for revelation,

because man would in time come to learn it by his studies on earth; but

the latter all ages could only learn--the first as well as the

latest--from a Divine Revelation.

Again, let me address a few words to those who are tempted, half

unconsciously perhaps, to think that any lengthy prelude and "elaborate"

explanation of Genesis must condemn the narrative _à priori_, or be

derogatory to the dignity of Revelation. Why the narrative should be

brief and concise I have just suggested. That it needs explanation of

_some_ sort is inevitable, because it _must_ be put into human language;

and directly such language is employed, we come upon such terms as "let

there be," "he created," and "days," which do not always call forth the

same ideas in all minds.

It will not have escaped the attention of any earnest student, that

Scripture has several different methods of describing things so as to

reveal them to men. This, a moment's reflection will enable us to

expect. However high and wonderful the things to be stated are, in order

to be brought within reach of human understanding _they must be

expressed in terms of human thought and experience_; and these are

imperfect and essentially inadequate. Hence it is, that many truths have

to be brought before us in special or peculiar ways.

How, for instance, are we told of the temptation and fall of man? How

are we to understand what was meant by the Tree of Life or the Tree of

Knowledge of Good and Evil, or by the Serpent speaking and beguiling

Eve? We are at a great loss to give a precise explanation, though the

practical meaning is not difficult.

The facts may be none the less true, though from their transcendental

character it may have been necessary to put them down in mysterious,

possibly even in merely allegorical, language. Another instance of this

might be given in the account of Satan in the presence of the Lord as

described in the Book of Job, or of the lying Spirit described by

Micaiah when prophesying before Ahab. It maybe that these narratives

describe to us transactions in a world beyond our own, which _could_

only be conveyed to us in figures or in imperfect form. When St. Paul

was caught up into the third heaven, he "heard unspeakable things" which

it was not _possible_ for him to utter--the medium of expression was

wanting. Divine or mysterious things have, then, to be described in

peculiar language which is not always easy to understand. Nor, having

respect to the varying requirements of the different ages, or the

circumstances of the time and of the inspired writer, is it easy to

understand why any particular form of communication was selected, though

doubtless if we knew more we should see a good reason for it. This gives

us one class of Scripture passages--of methods of revelation. On the

other hand, there are in Scripture many facts of the highest import, and

in themselves of transcendent magnitude, which are yet capable of being

stated without any possibility of our interpreting or understanding the

narrative in more ways than one. When it is stated that Christ Jesus

rose from the dead, we know beyond all reasonable doubt what is meant.

The fact may be true or false, but the narrative of the fact needs no

explanation; there are no terms which need expansion--which could bear

more than one possible meaning, and which could be used accordingly in

one sense or another. This instances a second class. Again, we can bring

forward yet another class of Scripture revelations, namely, passages

which are necessarily understood with reference to certain other matters

which are unexpressed but are taken for granted, or in which the words

used may bear more than one meaning, or a meaning which is uncertain or

obscure. If the unexpressed matter can be supplied without doubt, then

all ages will agree in the interpretation; and if the terms can (by

reference to context or otherwise) be explained, the same result

follows: if not, then in interpreting the narrative, each age will _make

its own assumption_ regarding the terms used, on the basis of such

knowledge as it possesses. It follows, then, inevitably, that if the

state of knowledge varies, the interpretation will be different

according to the different standard of knowledge, according to which the

necessary assumptions are made. And yet all the while the authority of

the passage itself is not touched. As it is unquestionable that such

different classes of passage do occur in Scripture, it is merely a

question of criticism whether any given passage is of this class or

that, and whether its terms do admit of or require explanation. It is no

doubt possible to make mistakes and to err by refusing the direct

meaning, and giving to the terms an assumed meaning for which there is

no real necessity.[1] We have always to be on our guard against giving

special meanings to words where they are not required; but granted that

caution, there undoubtedly are passages in which either the terms

themselves are not plain, or in which they may really have a meaning

different from the ordinary one.

[Footnote 1: As, for example, where persons desirous to get over the

plain reference to Baptism in St. John iii. 5, try to explain away the

term "water" to mean something metaphorically but not actually water.]

To descend from the general to the particular, it is obvious that the

account of Creation in Genesis i., ii. is in such a form that we must

assume our own ideas of the term "day" therein employed, and also those

to be attached to "created" and similar terms.

In early times, no one would take "day" to mean anything else but an

earth day of the ordinary kind, and no one would question whether or not

the whole existing animals and plants, or their ancestors, appeared on

earth in six such days, or whether anything else was meant. Again, by

the time St. Augustine was writing, a little more knowledge of nature

and a little more habit of reasoning about the origin of things was in

the world, and that knowledge led people to suppose that creation meant

only the making of things "out of nothing," but that it would take

longer than six times twelve hours, so that "days" might mean "periods."

And people imagined for a long time that--taking for an example the

work in the middle of the narrative--there was a time when the earth

emerged from the tumult of waters, that it then got covered with plants,

the waters remaining barren of life; but that when the plants had come

up all over the ground, then the waters all at once became full of all

sorts of sea-shells, fish, and monsters of the deep, and so on.

They did all this, by naturally _assuming_ that the terms "creation,"

"day," &c., meant what the _existing state of knowledge_ at the time

suggested.

At the present day, one would have supposed that every one must feel

that while the term "day" might or might not admit of explanation,

certainly _creation_ (i.e., terms implying it) did require very great

care in interpreting, and very great consideration as to what they

really meant But however that may be, we have here a passage which

_must_ have an explanation; and which must have an explanation that

depends on the state of knowledge.

The utility of Revelation is not negatived by this necessary result of

the employment of human language in describing the facts. It was _not_

necessary before, that all should be understood; it may be now

increasingly necessary in the purposes of God that it should be. At any

rate the fact is so, that in former days people did not possess the data

for knowing fully what creation meant, and certainly they do now possess

it to a very much greater extent at least. Always men could learn from

the narrative what it always was important for them to learn, namely,

God's Sovereignty and Authorship. It is in this way that the value of

the _general_ teaching of the narrative comes out, and not by trying to

allow a mixture of truth and falsehood in Revelation. All is and always

was true; but _all_ the truth was not equally extractable at all times.

Again: the dignity of the old written Revelation is not compromised

because God has virtually given a further revelation in His works,

i.e., by enabling man to know more about the rock-strata and the

succession of life on the earth. That is what it really comes to. It

should never be forgotten that the book of Nature _is_ a revelation.

The _works_ of God, if interpreted truly, are evidence of the same

nature as the _word_ of God if interpreted truly. God has created man

and his reason. It is impossible to suppose that it can be unrighteous

reasoning in God's sight, to derive from the facts of nature any

legitimate conclusion to which those facts point. It is childish to

believe that God created ready-made--if I may so speak--rocks with

fossils in them, marks of rain-drops showing which way the wind blew at

the time, foot-prints of birds, animals with remains of the prey they

had been feeding on, in their stomachs, and so forth. It is perfectly

reasonable and right to conclude certainly, that those creatures were

once living beings; that the surface of the earth was once a soft

sediment which received the impression of the rain-drops as they fell;

and that stratified rocks were deposited out of lakes and seas, as we

see alluvial strata deposited at the present day. It is impossible,

therefore, that (if we are not misled by appearances) any

well-ascertained fact can be contrary to the truth of God as explained

by Revelation. If we are not sure of the facts of nature, we must wait

patiently till further knowledge enlightens us, and must not hastily

conclude that the Bible is wrong. The repeated corrections which

successive years have compelled us to make in conclusions which were

once firmly accepted and proclaimed as "truths of science," should teach

us caution in this respect.

Nor, lastly, is it any reproach to the Church, as keeper of the Divine

Revelation, that its opinion of certain passages should vary with the

growth of knowledge. It would be hardly necessary to make this obvious

remark but for the fact that it has been reproached against Christian

belief, that science is contrary to the Bible, and that the Church has

ever had to confess itself wrong, after having persecuted people for not

following its peculiar views. It is, indeed, unfortunate that a blind

zeal for God has led, in the past, to persecution; the Church failing to

see that such men as Galileo and Bruno never denied God at all, nor did

their discoveries really contradict the Word. But persecution is not a

sin peculiar to the Church; it is a sin of human nature.

It is also true that Christian views may be wrong, but the fault is in

the views, not in the Bible.

Scientific men, of all people, should be the last to complain of

_change_ in views, seeing that what was science two hundred years ago is

now (much of it) exploded nonsense.

There is no harm whatever in changing our views about the meaning of

difficult passages--provided we never let go our hold on the central

truth, and put the error to our own account, not saying that the Word

itself is wrong.

It may, in this connection, be at once observed that any particular

explanation, or that one which I propose presently to suggest, of the

first chapters of Genesis, may not commend itself to the reader, and yet

the general argument I have adduced will hold good notwithstanding.

All that I care to contend is, that science does not contradict a

syllable of the narrative on _one_ possible interpretation, and that

changes in view as to interpretation are no arguments against the truth

of the passage itself.

CHAPTER XII.

_METHODS OF INTERPRETING THE NARRATIVE--ASSUMPTIONS OF MEANING TO

CERTAIN TERMS._

Returning, then, to the narrative in the Book of Genesis, I think we may

take it as clear that the passage stands in such a concise and condensed

form, that it is obviously open to _be interpreted_. Further, that we

should not be surprised if the interpretation at the present day, with

our vastly increased knowledge of Nature, is different from what it was

in earlier times.

I make no apology for repeating this so often, because it is really

amazing to see the way in which "anti-theological" writers attack what

_they suppose_ to be the interpretation of the narrative, or what some

one else supposes to be such, and seem to be satisfied that in so doing

they have demolished the credibility of the narrative itself.

If you choose to assume that Creation as spoken of by the sacred writer

means some particular thing, or even if the mass of uneducated or

unreflecting people assume it and you follow them, I grant at once that

the narrative can be readily made out to be wrong.

Permit me, then, to repeat once more, that the narrative is in human

language, and uses the human terms "created," "made," and "formed," and

that these terms _do_ (as a matter of fact which there is no gainsaying)

bear a meaning which is not invariable. Hence, without any glossing or

"torturing" of the narrative, we are under the plain obligation to seek

to assign to these terms a true meaning _with all the light that modern

knowledge_ can afford.

Now (having already considered the school of interpretation which

declines to attend to the exact terms) we can confine our attention to

two classes of interpreters. One explains the term "days" to mean long

periods of time; the other accepts the word in its ordinary and most

natural sense, and endeavours to eliminate the long course of

developmental work made known to us by palaeontological science, and

supposes all that to have been passed over in silence; and argues that a

final preparation for the advent of the man Adam was made in a special

work of six days.

All the well-known attempts at explanation, such as those of Pye-Smith,

Chalmers, H. Miller, Pratt, and the ordinary commentaries, can be placed

in one or other of these categories.

Now, as regards both, I recur to the curious fact (already noted) that

it seems never to enter into the conception of either school to inquire

for a moment what the sacred writer meant by "created"--God

"created"--God said "let there be." It _is_ curious, because no one can

reasonably say "these terms are obvious, they bear their own meaning on

the surface;" a moment's analysis will scatter such an idea to the

winds. Yet the terms _are_ passed by. The commentators set themselves

right earnestly to compare and to collate, to argue and to analogize, on

the meaning of the term "days;" the other term "created" they take for

granted without--as far as I am aware--single line of explanation, or so

much as a doubt whether they know what it really means!

The interpretation that I would propose to the judgment of the Church is

just the very opposite. It seems to me that the word _day_ as used in

the narrative needs no explanation; it seems to me that the other does.

As regards the term "day," it is surely a rule of sound criticism never

to give an "extraordinary" meaning to a word, when the "ordinary" one

will give good and intelligible sense to a passage. And looking to the

fact that, after all, when the days of Genesis _are_ explained to mean

periods of very unequal but possibly enormous duration, that explanation

is not only quite useless, but raises greater difficulties than ever, I

should think it most likely that the "day" of the narrative should be

taken in the ordinary sense. But of this hereafter.

On the other hand, with regard to the terms "creation,[1]" "created,"

"Let there be," and so forth, I find ample room for the most careful

consideration and for detailed study before we can say what is meant.

Even then there remains a feeling of profound mystery. For at the very

beginning of every train of reflection and reasoning on the subject, we

are just brought up dead at this wonderful fact, the existence of

_matter_ where previously there had been _nothing_. The phrase "created

_out of_ nothing" is of course a purely conventional one, and, strictly

speaking, has no meaning; but we adopt it usefully enough to indicate

our ultimate fact--the appearance of matter where previously there had

been nothing. Nor is the difficulty really surmounted by alleging such a

mere _phrase_ as "matter is eternal," for we have just as little mental

conception of self-existent, always--and _without beginning_--existent

matter, as we have of "creation out of nothing."

[Footnote 1: The entire silence of commentators regarding the doubtful

meaning of "creation" is so surprising, that I have had the greatest

difficulty in persuading myself that the explanation I propose is new.

Yet certainly I have never come across it anywhere.]

The human mind has always a difficulty when it is brought face to face

with something that is beyond the scope not only of its own practical,

but, even of its theoretical or potential ability.

The "creation," therefore, of matter by a Divine Power is matter of

_faith_, as I endeavoured to set forth in the earlier pages of this

little work; but it is _reasonable_ faith, because it can be supported

by sound reasoning from analogy and strong probability.

All our attention, then, I submit, should be directed to understanding

what is "creation" in the sacred narrative.

CHAPTER XIII.

_THE GENESIS NARRATIVE CONSIDERED GENERALLY._

I.--THE FIRST PART OF THE NARRATIVE.

§ 1. _Objections to the Received Interpretations_.

Taking the narrative as it stands, we find it to consist of two parts.

First, a general statement, of which no division of time is predicated,

and which is unaccompanied by any detail. Second, there is an account

seriatim of certain operations which are stated to have been severally

performed one on each of six days.

As regards the first portion, we have no definite knowledge of

scientific truth with which to compare the narrative. It is obviously

necessary for some Divine teacher to tell us authoritatively that God

originated and caused the material earth, and the systems of suns and

stars which men on the earth's surface are able to discern in the

"heavens."

We are consequently informed that in the beginning--there is no

practical need for defining further--"God created the heavens and the

earth." Here the question arises whether the Hebrew "bara," which is a

general term, alludes to the first production of material, or to the

moulding or fashioning of material already (in terms) assumed to exist.

I think that the conclusion must be that the best authority is in favour

of the idea of absolute origination of the whole;--the bringing the

entire system into existence where previously there was a perfect blank.

But even if the secondary meaning of "fashioned" or "forged" be allowed,

we have still an intelligible rendering. For in that case the first

origination of matter is tacitly assumed by the term itself, and the

statement would be, that the matter of the future cosmos so existing,

the Divine Artificer fashioned or moulded it into the orderly fabric it

has come to be.

The narrative then at once refers to our earth, with which, and with its

inhabitants, the whole volume is to be in future directly concerned.

"The earth was (or became) without form and void (chaotic), and darkness

was on the face of the deep (or abyss)."

We have no positive knowledge of what the first condition of terrestrial

matter was, apart from Revelation. The remarkable discoveries that the

spectroscope has enabled, and the facts learned from the physical

history of comets and meteorites, can do no more than make what is known

as the "nebular hypothesis" highly probable. But it is amply sufficient

for our purpose to point out, that if it is true that matter originated

in a nebulous haze to the particles of which a spiral rotatory motion

had been communicated, and if (confining our attention to one planet

only) that attenuated matter gradually aggregated in a ring or rings,

and then consolidated into a solid or partly solid globe, then the

results are briefly, but adequately and sublimely, provided for by the

form of the Mosaic statement.

Matter thus aggregating would have developed an enormous amount of heat,

and there would have been a seething mass of molten mineral matters,

with gases and other materials in the form of vapours, which would have

gradually cooled and consolidated. Vast masses of water would in time be

formed on one hand, and solid mineral masses on the other; the latter

would contract as cooling progressed, causing great upheavals and

depressions and contortions of strata. And before the advent of

life-forms, it is not difficult to conceive that the first state of our

globe was one which is intelligibly and very graphically described as

being "without form and void." Nothing more than that, can, from actual

physical knowledge, be stated.[1]

It is also stated that this confused elemental state of our earth was

accompanied at first by darkness. Material darkness that is--for the

potentiality of light and order was there; the SPIRIT OF GOD "moved" (or

brooded) upon the face of the abyss. This presents no difficulty of

interpretation, and may therefore be passed over for the present.

[Footnote 1: It would be hardly necessary (but for some remarks in the

course of the Gladstone-Huxley controversy) to observe that the term

"void" does not imply vacuity or emptiness, as of _substance,_ but

absence of defined form such as subsequently was evolved.]

Practically, indeed, there has been no grave difficulty raised over this

first portion. And if it is argued (on the ground of what I have already

in general terms indicated) that the term "created" will, on my own

interpretation, get us into difficulties, I reply that here, in its

position and with the context, there is no room for doubt, for clearly

the word implies _both_ the great primary idea of the Divine design or

plan formulated in heaven, _and_ the subsequent result in time and

space.[1] This will become more clear when I have further explained the

subject.

[Footnote 1: And of course if the true sense be "fashioned" or

"moulded," the question does not arise.]

II.--THE SECOND PART OF THE NARRATIVE.

But from this point the narrative commences to be more precise, and to

exhibit a very singular and altogether unprecedented division of

creative work into "days."

Now I have already indicated my doubt whether we ought to import any

unusual meaning to explain this term.

In the first place, the objection that till the movements and relations

of the sun to the earth were ordained there would be no _measure of a

day_ will not stand a moment's examination. Nor will the further

objection sometimes made, that even with the sun, a day is a very

uncertain thing: for example, a day and a night in the north polar

regions are periods of month-long duration, quite different from what

they are in England, or at Mount Sinai. Obviously, a "day" with

reference to the planet for which the term is used, means the period

occupied by one rotation of the planet on its own axis. The rotation of

the earth is antecedent to anything mentioned in the narrative we are

considering. In the nature of things, it would have been coeval with the

introduction of the _prima materies_--at least if any nebular hypothesis

can be relied on. The "day" would be there whether it were obscured by

vapours or not, and whether specially made countable and recognizable by

what we call the rising and setting of the sun, or not, and whether we

were standing in Nova Zembla or in Australia.

Nor is it of much use to refer to the general use of "day" for

indefinite periods, which is just as common in the English of to-day as

it was in the Hebrew of the Old Testament. But the double use of the

term in different senses has become general, just because it was found

in practice that no confusion ordinarily resulted; and surely such a

practice would not have been common, or at any rate would have been

specially avoided in the sacred volume, wherever any mistake or

confusion was likely or even possible.

No one can mistake what is meant when allusion is made to "the day in

which God made the heaven and the earth." No one falls into doubt when

the "days" of the prophets are spoken of--any more than they do now when

a man says, "Such a thing will not happen in my _day_."

Whenever in Daniel, or in similar prophetic writings, the term "day" is

used in a peculiar sense as indicating a term of years, we have no

difficulty in recognizing the fact from the context and circumstances of

the narrative; nor am I aware that any controversy has ever arisen

regarding the use of the term "day" _in any passage of Scripture

excepting in this_.

This fact alone is suspicious; the more so, because there is absolutely

nothing in the context to indicate that anything but an ordinary day is

intended. Not only so, but there _is_ in the context something that does

very clearly indicate (and I think Dr. Réville is perfectly justified in

insisting on this) that an ordinary terrestrial day is meant. One of the

primeval institutions of Divine Providence for men, my readers will not

need to be reminded, was that of a "Sabbath," which any one reading the

text would understand to mean a day, and which the Jews--the earliest

formal or legal recognizers of it--_did_ so understand, and that under

direct Divine sanction.

If the _days_ of Genesis mean indefinite periods of aeonian duration,

how is the seventh _day_ of rest to be understood?

But even if these difficulties are overcome, absolutely nothing is

gained by taking the day to be a period.

I presume that the object of gaining long periods of time instead of

days in reading the Mosaic record, is to assume that the narrative means

to describe the actual production on the earth of all that was created;

in other words, to assume a particular meaning for the words "created,"

"brought forth," &c and then to make out that if a whole age is

granted, Science will allow us a sequence of a "plant age" a "fish and

saurian age," a "bird age," and a "mammalian age";--that is, in general

terms and neglecting minor forms of life. But then _to make any sense at

all with the verses_ we are bound to show that each age preceded the

next--that one was more than partly, if not quite completely,

established _before_ any appearance of the next.

It is to this interpretation that Professor Huxley alludes when he says,

in his first article,[1] "There must be some position from which the

reconcilers of Science and Genesis will not retreat--some central idea

the maintenance of which is vital, and its refutation fatal.... It is

that the animal species which compose the water population, the air

population, and the land population,[2] respectively, originated during

three successive periods of time, and only during those periods of

time."

[Footnote 1: "Nineteenth Century," December, 1885, pp. 856-7.]

[Footnote 2: These (unfortunate) terms are Mr. Gladstone's.]

For my own part, I hasten to say that, as one of the despised race of

"reconcilers," not only is this idea no central position from which I

will not retreat, but one which I should never think of occupying for

one moment.

But on the view of the _periods_, some such position must be taken up.

And if so, I must maintain that Professor Huxley has shown--if indeed it

was not obvious already--that the idea of a series of periods, and in

each of which a certain kind of life began and culminated (if it was not

fully completed) _before_ another began, is untrue to nature. This,

therefore, cannot have been intended by the author of Genesis.

I will here interrupt my argument for a moment to say that there is a

_certain degree_ of _coincidence_ between the succession of life on the

earth as far as it is explained by palaeontological research, and the

order of creation stated in Genesis; but that is not concerned with any

forced interpretation of the term "day." The coincidence is just near

enough to give rise to a desire to identify creative periods with the

series shown by the fossil-bearing rocks; while it is attended with just

enough of difference to furnish matter for controversy, and to expose

the interpreters to be cut up.

But to return. Nothing, I submit, is gained by getting _day_ to mean

period. Let us put the matter quite squarely. Let us take day to mean

period, and let us take all the verses to mean the _process_ of

_producing_ on earth the various life-forms.

In order to come at once to the point, let us begin with the time when

the dry land and the waters are separate. At that moment, there is

nothing said (or implied) about life already having begun in either

water or on dry land. God commanded plants to grow; consequently during

that _whole period_ nothing but plants, and that of all the kinds and

classes mentioned, should appear either in water or on land. That period

being done, then came the command for water animals, fish and great

monsters, and also birds. We ought, accordingly, to come next upon a

whole period in which no trace of anything but plants and these animals

can be found; and lastly, we ought to find the period of mammalia,

smaller reptiles, _amphibia_ and insects (creeping things).

That is the fair and plain result of what comes of supposing the terms

"let there be," &c., to mean _production on earth of the thing's

themselves_, and that the days are long _periods_.

All overlapping of the periods is inadmissible. All meaning is taken

away, if we allow of fish (e.g.) appearing in the middle of our first

period; for God did not command another day's work till after the first

was completed--"there was evening and there was morning, a first day"

(period), &c.

No; to suit the text so interpreted, we must have a full _period_ of

plants with no fish; then a period of both but no insects, no creeping

things, no animals; and so on. Now it is quite idle to contend any

longer, that any such state of things ever existed.

If we pass over the long series of the most ancient strata in which

doubtful forms of obscure elementary plant and animal life appear

_almost_ together, we shall come to shell-fish, and crustaceans fully

established in the water, and scorpions, and some insects even on land,

_before_ plants made any great show. For the Carboniferous--_the_ age of

acrogen plants, _par excellence_--does not occur till after swarms of

_Trilobite_ Crustaceans had filled the sea and passed away, and after

the Devonian fish-age had nearly passed away; and so on throughout.

The groups in nature overlap each other so closely, that though

plant-life (in elementary forms) probably had the actual start;

virtually the two kingdoms--plant and animal--appeared almost

simultaneously. There is nothing like the appearance of a first period

in which one _alone_ predominated. And long before the plants are

established in all classes, the great reptiles, birds, and some mammals,

had appeared. The seed-bearing plants--true grasses and exogens with

seed capsules (angiosperms) did not appear till quite Tertiary times.

That is the essential difference between the facts and the theory. If we

make a diagram, and let the squares represent the main groups, the order

(according to the period interpretation) ought to be as in A, whereas

it really more resembles B. Thus.

[Illustration: The dotted extensions of the squares indicate the fore

runners of the families, i.e., their first indications in the ages.]

[Illustration: _A New Interpretation suggested_]

But then it will be asked, if the day means only an ordinary day--not a

long period--what is there that actually could have happened, and did

happen, in _three days_ (for that is the real point, as we shall see),

such as the writer describes as the third, fifth, and sixth days?

I answer that on those days, and on the previous ones, God did exactly

what He is recorded to have done. After the creation of light (first

day), and the ideal adjustment of the distribution of land and water

(second day), He (_a_) "_created_," on the third day, plants, from the

lowest cryptogam upwards; then (_b_) paused for a day (the fourth) in

the direct work of creating life-forms, to adjust certain matters

regarding times and seasons, and regulation of climate, which doubtless

would not be essential during the early stages of life evolution, but

would become so directly a certain point was reached; then (_c_) resumed

the direct creating work (fifth day), with fishes, great reptiles,[1]

and birds (grouped purposely so, as we shall see); and, lastly (_d_),

before the Day of Rest, created the group of mammals (_carnivora_ and

_herbivora_), the "creeping things" of the earth, and man (also grouped

together).

[Footnote 1: This term may be here accepted for the moment--not to

interrupt the argument. It will be more fully dealt with in a subsequent

chapter.]