THE EVOLUTION OF MAN.
The central point in the whole theory is the descent of man from
the brute. It is this which, as stated, gives it importance to the
Christian. But for this, the hypothesis would be but a curious
scientific theory. It is a matter of comparatively minor interest
how the universe or the various species came. It is only because
these theories are used to assert the animal origin of man that they
are dealt with here.
It is in this claim as to the origin of man that all the various
theories of Evolution agree, however they may vary in other matters,
and, as this is the vital point, these theories are considered as
one in this discussion. This is a question merely of fact. Did or
did not man descend from the brute or was he specially and divinely
created? This is the question in a nut-shell. The two accounts
are as follows placed side by side. Darwin's account is accepted
substantially by all evolutionists.
THE BIBLE ACCOUNT.
(Gen. i:26, 27; ii:7; v:1, 2.)
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness....
And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him; male and female created he them.... And the Lord God formed man
of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life and man became a living soul.... In the day that God created
man, in the likeness of God made he him: male and female created he
them; and blessed them and called their name Adam."
EVOLUTION'S ACCOUNT.
(From Darwin's Descent of Man, ii, 372.)
"Man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and
pointed ears, probably arborial in its habits and an inhabitant
of the Old World. This creature, if its whole structure had been
examined by a naturalist, would have been classed among the
Quadrumana, as surely as would the common and still more ancient
progenitor of the Old and New World monkeys. The Quadrumana and all
the higher mammals are probably derived from an ancient marsupial
animal, and this through a long line of diversified forms, either
from some reptile-like, or some amphibian-like creature, and this
again from some fish-like animal. In the dim obscurity of the past,
we can see that the early progenitor of the Vertebrata must have
been an aquatic animal, provided with branchia, with the two sexes
united in the same individual."
The Bible account is circumstantial, with mention of places and
rivers of undoubted historical character. It is accepted by
subsequent Scripture writers and made the basis of their historical
and spiritual teachings. The evolutionary account is lacking in all
of this. There are no exact data nor any attempt to give any. No
description save an imaginary one is ever given. As no one was there
to see, the whole is fanciful.
The two accounts are utterly irreconcilable. Whatever the Scripture
account means it does not mean Evolution, and literary justice
demands that we do not impose upon a writer a meaning he did not
intend or give.
Prof. Pfliederer writes, "There is only one choice. When we say
Evolution we definitely deny Creation. When we say Creation we
definitely deny Evolution." Prof. James Sully says, "The doctrine
of Evolution is directly antagonistic to that of Creation." (_Bible
Student_, July, 1901, quoted by Prof. Warfield.)
How anyone can accept both accounts passes all understanding. The
late Dr. John Henry Barrows, president of Oberlin University, tells
of meeting a Hindu boy in his visit to India, who had attended the
mission schools and learned there the shape and situation of the
earth. He had of course previously been taught the Hindu cosmogony
that the earth was surrounded by salt water and that by a circle
of earth and that by successive circles of buttermilk, sweet cane
juice, and other "soft drinks" with intervening circles of land.
Dr. Barrows asked the boy which belief he would hereafter hold. He
replied that he would believe both. This might be possible to the
Hindu boy, but it surpasses all previous intellectual feats that any
intelligent person can accept both the Bible account and Darwin's
account of the creation of man.
We will review the arguments for and against the evolutionary
account of the origin of man from the following spheres and subjects:
1. The Argument from the Evolution of Species. 2. From Similarity
of Structure in Animals and Man. 3. Rudimentary Organs in Man. 4.
Human Characteristics in Animals. 5. History of the Evolution of Man
from the Brute. 6. The "Missing Link." 7. The Brain. 8. Man's Mind
and Consciousness. 9. Language. 10. Pre-historic Man. 11. Antiquity
of Man. 12. Savage Races. 13. History of Mankind. 14. Religion. 15.
Ethics. 16. Christian Experience. 17. Christ.
1. ARGUMENT FROM THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.
On this argument rests the theory of man's animal origin. But for
the desire to prove that such is man's origin, the argument would
never have been conceived. We introduce it here again to call
special attention to this fact. We have seen that there is decided
difference of opinion on this theory; that many object to it; that
there is not a single case of such origin of species known; that
there is no law or force or cause agreed upon or known by which
such origin of species could take place; that there are countless
objections and facts against it; that its arguments are confessedly
insufficient; and they are at best but inferences and only "the
balancing of probabilities."
If therefore the proofs of the Origin of Species are wanting the
whole theory of Evolution falls in ruins to the ground. There would
seem no need to proceed further. Yet Evolution lightly steps over
the ruins of its previous claims and proceeds to further assertions.
Some of the greatest of the exact scientists stop here. Prof.
Dana, the great geologist, says: "Man's origin has thus far no
sufficient explanation from science. The abruptness of transition
from preceding forms is most extraordinary and especially because it
occurs so near the present time." (_Elements of Geology._)
Prof. Virchow, the most eminent pathologist of Europe, wrote as
follows: "There always exists a sharp line of demarcation between
man and the ape. We cannot pronounce it proved by science that man
descends from the ape, or from any other animal. Whoever calls to
mind the lamentable failure of all attempts made very recently to
discover a decided support for the '_generatio aequivoc_' in the
lower forms of transition from the inorganic to the organic world
will feel it doubly serious to demand that this theory, so utterly
discredited, should be in any form accepted as the basis of our
views of life."
Many more such expressions might be quoted from eminent scientists
to the same effect. But as we will use these under the respective
heads of the foregoing order of argument, we pass on here to the
arguments as stated.
2. SIMILARITY OF STRUCTURE IN ANIMALS AND MAN.
It is well known that the internal and external form of man is like
that of the lower animals. This, Evolution claims, is an argument
for genetic connection. The same argument would prove that a
locomotive was born from a stage coach, and that from a cart,
and that from a wheelbarrow. Similarity of structure proves only
uniformity of design. An intelligent maker of any nature would so
operate, and man himself so manufactures now. Why should not God
make man on the model of the lower animals, seeing he is to live in
the same world, under the same conditions, eat the same food and
propagate in the same way? There is no reason for departure from a
form which has proved useful and appropriate. All the parts in the
human form have been thus tested in the lower forms and found right
for their purpose and are now, as we would expect, applied to man.
Man is the climax of all. All is for his use in the lower worlds of
plants and animals; then why not use their frame and inner organs
also? The mechanic uses the same appliance such as the wheel in his
most complex construction as well as in the simplest engine.
But there are parts in the human frame not found in the lower
orders. Wallace, one of the greatest evolutionists, says the soft
human skin cannot be accounted for by natural causes, nor the
valves in the human veins which are in different position from
those of the brute, nor the human foot nor larynx, nor the human
voice, especially the female voice, nor the absence of hair on
the body, nor why man is short armed and long legged, while his
ape-man ancestor is the reverse. Many more such problems vex the
evolutionist. Creation accounts for all this, and does so by one
simple, sweeping argument in place of Evolution's complex and
bewildering maze of speculations.
Ruskin teaches us in this extract that God works by law and does
not deviate therefrom even where it seems to us that He might have
wrought differently: "But God shows us in Himself, strange as it may
seem, not only authoritative perfection, but even the perfection
of obedience, an obedience to his own laws; and in the cumbrous
movement of those unwieldiest of His creatures, we are reminded,
even in His divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in the
human creature, 'that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.'"
(_Seven Lamps of Architecture_, II., p. 78.)
3. RUDIMENTARY ORGANS IN MAN.
Evolution points to certain features in man which it claims came
from his brute ancestry, such as the long hairs in the eyebrow,
which they say came from the ape-man, the tips of the ear, and the
hair on the forearm, which slants from the hand to the elbow. The
whole outside ear is also claimed as a relic from that brute and is
unnecessary for hearing. So also of the five toes when a solid foot
would have been better, although most of us think not. They also
point to some evidences of a tail which they say was rubbed off when
the ape-man learned to sit down. This, however, many apes do now
with no signs of decreasing tails. Many internal members and organs
are pointed to, which are too numerous here to mention. One instance
is as good as the whole catalogue, and one reply also.
All this proves too much for the theory. Here is the loss of useful
organs and the survival of others not needed. This is not evolution,
at least not the kind we have been asked to build our hopes upon for
progress. Further, these so-called "relics of the brute" are counted
as having no use save to support Evolution. The "gill-slits" in the
neck of the human embryo are the favorite instance of this kind of
fact. Haeckel and, after him others, picture the forms of fish,
dog and man in embryonic state, and say in triumph, There is proof
of the descent of the man from the dog and of him from the fish;
and this resemblance has survived to tell the tale, there being no
other use for it. But this is not the only feature that "survives."
Heads and mouths and eyes also "survive." Why are these not pointed
to as proofs of descent? Because we can see use for them, while
there appears to be no use for the "gill-slits" except to prove
Evolution. If we could see some use in the "gill-slits" in the neck
of the embryo, the argument of Evolution would fall to the ground.
Evolution's argument from the gill-slits and all other "relics of
the brute" rests therefore on ignorance, a very unsafe foundation
for a scientific theory, for knowledge is constantly increasing,
especially of the human frame, and there is not the slightest doubt,
reasoning from analogy and past experience, that there is use for
these peculiar embryonic features.
We repeat the argument of Huxley as to these rudimentary parts:
"Either these rudiments are of no use, in which case they should
have disappeared; or they are of use, in which case they are
arguments for teleology." (_Darwinism and Design_, p. 151.)
Evidences of this nature are of that kind called circumstantial, and
in law are least relied upon, for on such evidence some innocent men
have been hung. Shall we condemn the whole race to a bestial origin
on the same evidence? All arguments founded on such facts are weak,
puerile and unworthy of scientists. No wonder that Prof. Paulsen
said Haeckel's speculations are "a disgrace to the philosophy of
Germany." Shall we suspend a philosophy of the universe upon a few
long hairs? Shall we allow the guess as to the origin of the tip of
the outer ear to revolutionize theology? Shall we risk our eternal
destiny on the supposed uselessness of the so-called "gill-slits" in
premature puppies? Yet this is the demand of Evolution reduced to
plain English.
4. HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS IN ANIMALS.
The human characteristics found in animals form an argument for
Evolution. We find the animals have memory, love, hatred, jealousy;
that they can think and plan, use means and weapons, admire things
of beauty, and some have sports. All of this, so Evolution claims,
points to genetic connection with man. But all this only shows
uniformity in the inner as in the outer being. There is as much
reason for the one as for the other. Life is the same wherever we
find it. The forces which operate in the rain drop are the same
as in the universe of boundless space. The intellectual nature of
man is the same as that of angels who have no genetic connection
with us. Even devils are the same in the intellectual nature
as God himself. Mind is the same thing wherever it exists. To
say therefore that because animals have certain characteristics
like those of man, they are the ancestors of man, is a leap to a
conclusion entirely unwarranted by either facts or logic. Yet it is
on such conclusions that Evolution rests. Creation would proceed on
the same comprehensive plan, and we have seen that man does also. He
applies his forces as he does his materials to the most varied uses.
Nor has any instance of the development of a brute or his faculties
to any approach to man's faculties ever been known. The highest
animal is still immeasurably below the lowest and most bestial man,
not only in the grade of the faculties that they have in common,
but in others which the animal does not possess and cannot acquire.
There is a great gulf fixed which they do not pass over--as our next
section will show.
5. HISTORY FROM THE BRUTE TO THE MAN.
Many have essayed the relation of the story of the change from the
brute to the man. In doing so, some have covered themselves with
ridicule, yet the attempts continue to be made as do others to
produce perpetual motion. To bridge this chasm is necessary in order
to sustain Evolution, for this is the heart of the question. It is
said that a famous professor of history abandoned his chair because
of the uncertainty of the facts of history. One would expect that
the attempt to relate what happened before man had any history,
or even existed, would be even more hazardous. Yet we are given
the account with such assurance as sometimes to deceive the very
elect--who abandon their Bibles. Haeckel's attempt was the most
impressive, and swept all before it, for a year or two. He presented
a many-branched tree, whose roots were protoplasm, its trunk
protozoa, its successive branches sponges, fish, reptiles, birds,
marsupials, monkeys, apes, man-apes, and the topmost branches, man.
Of the twenty-one stages, half have been proved to be "wrong" by
evolutionists and the rest are "doubtful."
The home of the primeval man, or ascending-ape, whichever it or he
was, is one of the difficult facts to settle. Haeckel locates it at
the bottom of the Indian ocean. He can thus defy disproof. Another
says it was in the tropics somewhere. This is also a safe assertion.
The difficulty is that the remains of the pre-historic man are found
in the northern regions, while the ancestor animal was a denizen of
the tropics. So another declares that the original home was in the
northern regions, to which a pair of wild animals of the ancestor
kind were driven by something or somebody, and their retreat cut
off, and so they were forced to the life in caves and adopted the
habits we find among cave dwellers.
But although our ancestor cannot be located we are told just who and
what he was. Thus Prof. Edward Clodd, an authoritative evolutionist,
tells us in his book, "The Making of a Man," as follows: "Whichever
among the arboreal creatures possessed any favorable variation,
however slight, of brain or sense organ, would secure an advantage
over less favored rivals in the struggle for food and mates
and elbow room. The qualities which gave them success would be
transmitted to their offspring. The distance in one generation would
be increased in the next; brain power conquering brute force and
skill outwitting strength. While some for awhile remained arboreal
in their habits, never moving easily on the ground, although making
some approach to upright motion, as seen in the shambling gait of
the manlike apes, others developed a way of walking on their hind
legs, which entirely set free the fore limbs as organs of handling
and throwing. Whatever were the conditions which permitted this, the
advantage which it gives is obvious. It was the making of a man."
(p. 126.)
It seems difficult, indeed unfair, to take this seriously. We must
assure the reader that the author of this description shows no
intention of humor either here or elsewhere in his work, or indeed
any consciousness of it. All is given in perfect sobriety. We must
therefore accept it as a profound scientific deliverance of the most
authoritative kind and deal with it accordingly, and believe that
walking on the hind legs and throwing things with the fore limbs was
"the making of a man." How easily men are made!
1. This argument rests on the theory of Natural Selection now
discarded by most evolutionists.
2. Apes have done all he here claims and far more. The chimpanzee
has been taught to sit at a table, to drink out of cups, to eat
with a knife and fork, to wipe his mouth with a napkin and use a
toothpick, but has got no further in the ways of good society, and
as to increase of cranial development, has obtained none save as the
effects of undue potations have produced an enlarged feeling.
3. The whole account is purely imaginary as no professor of
Evolution was there to observe the facts. It is in short an
intrusion into the realm of fiction, which clearly belongs to Mr.
Kipling in his wonderful jungle stories.
Again in his book on "Man and His Ancestor," (p. 67.) Prof. Morris
gives us a full description of this unseen and purely hypothetical
ancestor as follows: "It was probably much smaller than existing
man, little if any more than four feet in height, and not more
than half the weight of man. Its body was covered, though not
profusely, with hair; the hair of the head being woolly or frizzly
in texture and the face provided with a beard. The face was not
jet black, like a typical African, but of a dull brown color; the
hair being somewhat similar in color. The arms were long and lank,
the back being much curved, the chest flat and narrow, the abdomen
protruding, the legs rather short and bowed, the walk a waddling
motion somewhat like that of the gibbon. It had deep set eyes,
greatly protruding mouth with gaping lips, huge ears and general
"ape-like aspect." Prof. John Fiske thought it was much more than a
million years since man diverged from the brute. During an active
geologic age before the cave-man appeared on the scene, "a being
erect upon two legs and having the outward resemblance of a man
wandered hither and thither upon the face of the earth." (_Destiny
of Man_, p. 55.)
We read all this with astonishment that anyone could penetrate the
dim vista of millions of years ago and transcribe such a detailed
and circumstantial account of what then existed. It reads like a
picture from life. Yet not only was the writer not there, but no one
else was present, for this was the father of us all, according to
Evolution.
We are told that, given time enough, all this series of changes
from the primeval cell to the modern philosopher or scientist is
possible. But time for this is limited by the age of the earth. For
Lord Kelvin has stated that only a few million years are possible
on any calculation and this would all be needed for the change from
ape to man to say nothing of the interminable ages necessary for the
change from the protozoa to the fish and then to land animals and so
on to mammals and up to the ape.
The after life of the ape-man is described with the same
circumstantiality as the coming to manhood's estate. Dr. Robert
Patterson combines the various features of Evolution's description
and this creature's history in the following extract: "It is a
fearful and wonderful picture they give us of the origin of marriage
from the battles of baboons, of the rights of property established
by terrible fights for groves of good chestnuts, of the beginning
of morals from the instincts of brutes, and of the dawnings of
religion, or rather of superstition, from the dreams of these
animals; the result of the whole being that civilization and society
and law and order and religion are all simply the evolution of the
instincts of the brutes and that there is no necessity for the
invoking any supernatural interference to produce them." (_Fables of
Infidelity._)
It is here we meet the "theistic" account of the origin of man.
It was to this creature we are told God imparted a soul or spirit
supernaturally. For this strange creature was the Adam of theistic
Evolution. Eve they say nothing about. Nor are we told how or when
the soul was imparted, whether in a single animal, a pair, or a
herd; whether awake or asleep. Nor are we told what they did next,
or how the soul-ape got along with the rest of the species. Nor are
we told what particular state, or act, or habit, entitled him to the
new nature he received. It seems as if the ability to "stand on the
hind legs and throw things with the fore limbs," which Prof. Clodd
tells us was the "making of a man," scarcely entitled him to such a
divine inheritance as an immortal soul.
This also was the Adam who fell according to the theistic
evolutionist, though how such a creature could "fall" seems
difficult to conceive. It was this thing whose sin, Paul tells us,
brought death on the whole race. It was this who is a type of
Christ who is "the Second Adam." Out and out Evolution has but a
fraction of the difficulties, either physical or spiritual, to face
that this make-shift compromise "theistic" theory has before it. It
is not surprising that the thorough-going evolutionist rejects this
strange compound of fiction and theology.
We appeal to the common, every-day man of fair judgment: Which
takes more faith, or if preferred, credulity, the accepting of
that strange, complex, unauthenticated account of man's origin or
the simple and, with an omnipotent God in mind, entirely possible
account of the Bible? "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the
ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man
became a living soul." Which is the more noble, the more satisfying
to our desires for a high and divine origin as well as high and
divine destiny?
6. THE MISSING LINK.
The Missing Link is the great desideratum of Evolution, for the
evolutionist indignantly disclaims the present apes or monkey as
ancestors. He tells us the connecting link was a creature superior
to these. But of which he is unable to show any specimen. It is
purely mythical. We have the remains of millions of animals
reaching through all the ages and why is this particular specimen
wanting?
Dr. Rudolph Virchow, the great discoverer of the germ theory, has
for thirty years, according to Haeckel, "opposed the theory of man's
descent from the brute." (_Last Link_, p. 27.) He himself says: "The
intermediate form is unimaginable save in a dream.... We cannot
teach or consent that it is an achievement that man has descended
from the ape or other animal." (_Homiletic Review_, January, 1901.)
Dr. Friedrich Pfaff, professor of natural sciences in the University
of Erlangen, writes on the question as follows: "Nowhere in the
older deposits is an ape that approximates more closely to man,
or man that approximates more closely to an ape, or perhaps a man
at all. The same gulf which is found to-day between man and the
ape goes back with undiminished breadth and depth to the tertiary
period. This fact alone is sufficient to make its unintelligibleness
clear to every one who is not penetrated by the conviction of the
infallibility of the theory of the gradual transmutation of and
progressive development of all organized creatures. If, however,
we now find one of the most man-like apes (gibbon) in the tertiary
period, and this species is still in the same low grade, and side
by side with it, at the end of the ice period, man is found in the
same high grade as to-day, the ape not having approximated more
nearly to man, and modern man not having become further removed from
the ape than the first man, every one who is in a position to draw
a right conclusion can infer, that the facts contradict a theory
of constant progression, development and ceaselessly increasing
variation from generation to generation, as surely as it is possible
to do." (_Age and Origin of Man_, Am. Tr. Soc., p. 52.)
From time to time the discovery of the "missing link" is announced
and telegraphed through the civilized world, only to be remanded to
its place among the remains of brutes or men. We will consider the
instances of such as they have been presented:
1. The Calaveras Skull now in the California State Museum. This has
been shown recently to be a hoax. It was placed in a mine shaft 150
feet deep, by Mr. R. C. Scribner, a storekeeper at the mine, as a
practical joke. This he lately acknowledged to the Rev. W. H. Dyer,
of Los Angeles, a clergyman of the Episcopal church.
2. The Neanderthal Skull. This was found in 1856 in Prussia. It had
narrow receding forehead and thick ridges over the eyes. It was
claimed by the evolutionists as from two to three hundred thousand
years old. Dr. Meyer of Bonn examined the evidence, and found it
to be the skull of a Cossack killed in 1814. Many other scientists
agreed with him. (_Bible Science and Faith_, p. 278.)
3. The Colorado specimen. Prof. Stephen Bowers of the Mineralogical
and Geological Survey of California, gives this account of another
such discovery: "A few years ago the newspapers contained an account
of the discovery of a skeleton in Colorado, by a Columbia College
professor, which he was pleased to call the 'missing link' between
man and the apes. He gave this remarkable creature an antiquity of
a million and a half of years. The friable bones were carefully
wrapped in cotton and shipped east. But scarcely had the learned
professor gotten away with his prize when certain cowboys came
forward and claimed the bones to be that of a pet monkey which they
buried but a dozen years previously."
4. The late find of skeletons at Croatia, Austria, is heralded as
the discovery of a connecting link. But these are skeletons of men
and not of brutes. They are degraded men and nothing is better known
than the possibility of degeneracy in man. We have degenerates now
with all the peculiarities of these low specimens, retreating brows
and jaws and flat faces. Degeneracy does not prove evolution. While
the shape of these skulls is low and long it has not been shown that
their cubical capacity is much less than that of normal man.
5. The Pithecanthropus Erectus. This is the most popular relic
with Evolution. It consists of a piece of a skull from the eyes
upward, a leg bone and two teeth. These were found in Java by Dr.
von Eugene Du Bois in 1891. The cubic measurement of the skull is
60 inches, the same as that of an idiot, that of a normal man being
90 inches, and of an ape 30. These specimens were found at separate
places and times. The skull is too small for the thigh bone. The age
of the strata in which they were found is uncertain. Authorities
are divided as to the nature of these. Haeckel admits that the
belief that this is the missing link is strongly combatted by some
distinguished scientists. At the Leyden congress, it was attacked by
the illustrious pathologist Rudolph Virchow.
The assumptions based upon this specimen and necessary for evidence
are as follows: First, that it is as old as claimed, a hundred
thousand years at least, or a million as stated by some. Second,
that these bones belong to the same individual. Third, that they are
the remains of a full-grown individual. Fourth, that they are the
remains of a human or semi-human being. Fifth, that they are not
the remains of an idiot whose capacity the brain represents.
With all these unproven assumptions, and against the opinion of many
of the finest scientists in Europe, Haeckel and some evolutionists
have declared this is the missing link. They place this piece of
a skull of one creature upon this leg of another and insert these
teeth belonging to a third, all so far separated in life that they
probably did not even know each other, and rechristen the whole
"Pithecanthropus Erectus," which may be freely translated "The ape
that walked like a man," being thus the first that arrived at that
point which Prof. Clodd tells us was "the making of a man." And this
specimen is Haeckel's _Last Link_, and this he says demonstrates the
truth of Evolution.
The evidence of bones and other remains is now generally suspected.
It has been found that even in the case of recent remains, as in
criminal trials, experts are often unable to decide whether they are
human or brute, recent or remote, and what part of the frame they
occupied. It is said that Wallace, the great cotemporary with Darwin
in the promotion of the theory, now admits there is no evidence of
an evolutionary link between man and the lower animals.
7. THE ARGUMENT FROM THE BRAIN.
The brain forms the principal difference between man's body and the
brute's. The brain is especially used as proof by the evolutionist.
It is the organ of mind. Its size corresponds with the intellectual
state of the creature. It is the theory of Evolution that there was
an increase in the size of the brain in some of the man-apes of that
day, although none such is seen now.
Prof. Edward Clodd thus describes these supposed brain changes after
the Ice Age: "The changes by which he met these new conditions were
in a very small degree physical. They were almost wholly mental. The
principal physical change was in the growth of the brain and the
expansion of the cranium, giving rise to a less bestial physiognomy
and an advanced mental power." (_Man and His Ancestor_, p. 181.)
How could man adapt himself by increasing the size of his brain?
Why should the passing away of the ice age increase the size
of the brain? However, he disposes of the whole matter, after
arguing through pages of supposition and assumption, by stating,
"The absence of facts forces us to confine ourselves largely to
suggestions and probabilities." (_Making of a Man_, p. 188.) But
probabilities are not science and we have a right to ask from those
claiming to be scientists actual facts and not guesses, for so
great an assertion as the descent of man from the brute.
The capacity of the ape brain is 30, of the human 90 cubic inches.
There is no evidence of change in either the ape or the man. The
prehistoric man has as good a head on his shoulders as his modern
descendants. Bruner says the most ancient skulls even exceed
ours. Dr. Pfaff says the stone age men are equal to the present
generation. So if education does not increase the size of man's
brain, why should the new tricks of Prof. Clodd's ancient "arboreal
creature" enlarge that individual's brain 200 per cent? On the
other hand, the ape of to-day and the ape of 3,000 years ago as
mummied and preserved in Egypt are the same. The big-brained ape
of Evolution has unaccountably disappeared and even his skull is
missing.
8. MAN'S MIND AND CONSCIOUSNESS.
Evolution claims that all man's faculties have been derived from the
brute, as was his physical frame. It is fair to say that this is
met at the door by the protest of some of the greatest scientists,
themselves sympathetic with Evolution.
Prof. John Fiske wrote on the origin of mind: "We can say when mind
came on the scene of evolution, but we can say neither whence nor
why.... It is not only inconceivable how mind should have been
produced from matter, but it is inconceivable that it should have
been produced from matter." (_Darwinism_, pp. 63, 69.) Prof. Dana
has said, "The present teaching of geology is that man is not of
nature's making.... Independently of such evidences, man's high
reason, his unsatisfied longings, aspirations, his free will, all
afford the fullest assurance that he owes his existence to the
special act of the Infinite Being whose image he bears." (_Geologic
Story_, p. 290.)
Prof. George H. Howison writes on this theme: "To make evolution
the ground of the existence of mind in man, is destructive to the
reality of the human person and therefore, of the entire world of
moral good and of unqualified truth." (_Limits of Evolution_, p. 6.)
Lord Kelvin, the most eminent living scientist, wrote in a letter to
the London Times, "Every action of human free will is a miracle to
physical and chemical and mathematical science."
9. LANGUAGE.
Evolution has long tried to create an argument for the derivation of
man's speech from the cries of animals. This is met however by the
philologist with positive denial. Prof. Max Mueller says: "There is
one barrier which no one has yet ventured to touch,--the barrier of
language. Language is our Rubicon and no brute will dare to cross
it.... No process of Natural Selection will ever distill significant
words out of the notes of birds and animals." (_Lessons on the
Science of Language_, pp. 23, 340, 370.)
False claims have been made for the languages of savage people and
ancient races. Darwin said that the people of Terra del Fuego were
the lowest in the scale, so far as discovered, and their language
correspondingly crude. But further investigation shows that they
have 32,430 words; over twice as many as Shakespeare used. The
language of some of the tribes of the Congo is described by a
missionary as more complex than Greek. The history of languages
shows the same want of evidence for an evolutionary origin. The
oldest forms are the most complex. Modern Greek and Latin are
simpler than the ancient forms. English is an improvement in this
respect on the old Anglo Saxon, whose grammatical forms it has
largely cast off and reduced the language to greater simplicity.
A scientist is now endeavoring to ascertain the speech of monkeys.
He has ascertained that these animals have different sounds for
different wants, a fact as to other creatures that he could have
ascertained by a visit to the nearest poultry yard. The hen has as
many calls as the monkey, and as many meanings too. Her call for
food is one sound. Her cry of alarm at a passing hawk is another,
and her brood perfectly understands all, and without previous
education. All animals and birds, and many insects too, have sounds
with meaning in them, but language is another matter.
10. PREHISTORIC MAN.
The remains of early races form an argument used by Evolution. These
remains are found in many places in caves and are accompanied by
tools of stone and vessels of pottery and the remains of animals.
These degraded peoples are pointed to by Evolution as man in a state
of development.
If the preceding arguments were well founded this would appear
reasonable enough. But in view of the fallacious character of the
prior reasoning, we must halt at this claim. There are many and
conclusive reasons for rejecting this unproven claim. For it is
unproven. It is only inference and assumption.
1. These men of the cave do not necessarily represent man in a
course of progress, for we find to-day the same classes of people
with their stone tools and pottery and living as prehistoric
man lived. There to-day exist men in every stage of the supposed
progress from the cave man to the highest in civilization. Such
remains could be had in any burial place of these savage peoples.
Prehistoric man, so-called, is still with us and we can interview
him as to his state and history.
2. We have seen that modern man has not developed in brain capacity
above prehistoric man. It is also true that he has not developed
physically. Dana tells us that the skeleton found at Mentone
compares favorably with the best modern men. Indeed we have
degenerated in many respects. We have almost lost the sense of
smell as compared with savage peoples or even animals. Our teeth
are certainly not improving. If we are to find perfect specimens
we do not look at the most advanced classes but to the reverse.
Those who live to extreme old age are generally in the lowly ranks.
But why has physical development ceased at all? Why are there not
some superior beings by this time? But alas, there are no marks
or indications of wings or halos on either the great saints or
scientists of the day.
We are told that while physical evolution has ceased among men,
evolution now works along mental lines of progress. This is a
radical shifting of the ground of evolution, for heretofore all
this has been not only omitted but discarded. If evolution is
anything, it is physical. Nor does Evolution give any account of
the causes of the stoppage of physical development and the change
to mental evolution. We will also show later that this supposed
progress has not been such as claimed.
11. ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
Evolution asserts that a vast antiquity for man has been proven
by remains that have been found. It is commonly said that these
remains are hundreds of thousands of years old. But the claims for
these vast periods are now being greatly reduced and generally
discredited. Dr. Zahm says of these speculations: "We could not
give a better illustration of the extremes to which the unguided
human intellect is subject than the vacillating and extravagant
notions of the antiquity of man." (_Bible Science and Faith_, p.
315.) The age of the peat beds of Abbeville, in France, in which
human remains were found, was once estimated at 20,000 years. The
estimate has been reduced to a fifth of that age. The remains of the
animals found with man are supposed to prove his extreme antiquity.
The remains of the mammoth were once cited as such proof. But the
mammoth has been found in such a state of preservation that its
flesh has been fed to the dogs.
The enormous ages which have been credited to these remains are well
illustrated by the discovery of a skeleton at New Orleans while
digging for the gas works. From the depth of the stratum in which
it was found it was estimated by scientists at the age of 57,000
years. Soon after, the gunwale of the skeleton's Kentucky flat boat
was found in the same stratum, and the age therefore of the remains
was reduced from 57,000 to 50 years. The evidences from peat bogs,
stalagmite formations, stone, iron and bronze tools are all now
considered unreliable by scientists. So many exposures of mistakes
in the estimate of age from these have been made, that the whole is
looked upon with suspicion. Instance after instance might be given.
It has been claimed that we can arrange these past races in an
ascending order as they worked in stone, bronze, or iron, in their
successive history. This is a false theory. We have all these "ages"
existing to-day. On the other hand, Dr. Livingstone found no stone
age in Africa. Dr. Schliemann found in the ruins of Troy the bronze
age below the stone age. The early Egyptians used bronze, the
later ones stone tools. In the Chaldean tombs all these are found
together. Europe had the metal age while America had the stone age.
(_Creation and Evolution._ Prof. Townsend.)
These prehistoric races to which Evolution points us as representing
man in his early state, do not represent that early world. They are
found at the outer limits of the world and not at the acknowledged
center whence man came. They are, in short, what we find to-day
at the outlying regions of earth. They therefore, are exceptional
peoples and not representative of the world at that time, or now.
The dynasties of Egypt were once cited against the Bible narrative,
but these have been reduced to moderate figures. A thousand years
was taken off by one discoverer recently from the age of the
middle kingdom. There is a question whether the Egyptian dynasties
were successive or in some cases contemporary. There is also the
well-known fact that the Egyptians had years of varying length.
They often counted dynasties by years of three months and also of
a month! Dr. Flinders Petrie lately discovered in the tombs of the
kings, preceding the first dynasty of Egypt at Abydos, Grecian
pottery of Mycean clay, and this in a tomb estimated to date from
5,400 B. C.! (_Atlantic Monthly_, October, 1900.)
The same kind of estimating is now being done from the Assyrian
tablets and their records. We must remember these old kings were
great boasters and liars, too. We don't know the basis of their
calculations. Perhaps Assyria also had three month years. If their
method was like Egypt's, and they were connected as we know by much
intercourse and literature, we may expect like inaccuracy. The
ancient dates given in the inscriptions found in Nuffar recently,
are already suspected by scholars. The date for the temple uncovered
there was 3,200 B. C. This number is the product of forty multiplied
by eighty; evidently a round number for eighty generations, and not
at all a careful or exact chronological statement.
However, let us compare the two accounts, the Bible and the
Assyrian. The one precise in statement, accurate in ten thousand
points as demonstrated, with us for thousands of years, trusted and
tried. The other inexact, mythical in its legends, having all the
marks of inaccuracy, just discovered, made by people we know nothing
of and having no character to speak of, and full of vain boastings
and absurd claims. Which is the true and which the false? Let the
jury decide. We will abide the verdict.
Prof. A. H. Sayce of Oxford, writes: "The light that has come
from the remnants of the past has been fatal to the pretenses of
critical skepticism. The discoveries of Abydos have discredited
its methods and results. They have shown that where they can be
tested they prove to be absolutely worthless. It is only reasonable
to conclude that methods and results, that thus break down under
the test of monumental discovery, must equally break down in other
departments of history where no such test can be applied. It is
not the discoveries of the higher critics, but the old traditions
which have been confirmed by archaeological discovery." (_Homiletic
Review_, March, 1901.) This statement is made by one of the most
able archaeologists and semitic scholars in the world.
The age of man on earth has much testimony from science agreeing
with the Bible account. From many the following are cited:
Dr. J. A. Zahm, the distinguished scholar, says, "I am disposed to
attribute to man an antiquity of about ten thousand years. It seems
likely that the general consensus of chronologists will ultimately
fix on a date which shall be below rather than above ten thousand
years as the nearest approximate to the age of our race." (_The
Bible, Science and Faith_, p. 311.) He quotes many other authorities.
Prof. Winchell tells us, "The very beginnings of our race are still
almost in sight." (_Sketches of Creation._) Dawson thinks man has
been on earth about seven thousand years. Geology agrees that man
did not exist before the ice age. The stone age is fixed at about
seven thousand years ago by others.
Professor George Frederick Wright tells us, "The glacial period did
not close more than ten thousand years ago. This shortening of our
conception of the ice age renders glacial man a comparatively modern
creature. The last stage of the excessive unstability of the earth
was not so very long ago and continued down to near the introduction
of man." (_Bibliotheca Sacra_, April, 1902.)
S. R. Pattison, F. G. S., tells us, "Science shows to us a number of
converging probabilities which point to man's first appearance along
with great animals about 8,000 years ago." (_Age and Origin of Man
Geologically Considered, Am. Tr. Soc._, p. 29.)
Dr. Friedrich Pfaff, professor of natural science in Erlangen, thus
sums up the evidence from geology as to man: "(1) The age of man
is small, extending only to a few thousand years. (2) Man appeared
suddenly: the most ancient man known to us is not essentially
different from the now living man. (3) Transitions from the ape to
the man, or the man to the ape, are nowhere found. The conclusion we
are led to is that the Scripture account of man, which is one and
self-consistent, is true.... This account of man we accept by faith,
because it is revealed by God, is supported by adequate evidence,
solves the otherwise insoluble problems, not only of science and
history, but of inward experience, and meets our deepest need....
The more it is sifted and examined the more well founded and
irrefragable does it prove to be." (_Age and Origin of Man_, Am. Tr.
Soc., pp. 55-56.)
12. SAVAGE RACES.
Evolution delights to compare savage peoples alternately with
present civilized races and with the brute. Prof. Conn says, "There
is a greater difference between a Newton and a Hottentot, than
between the Hottentot and the orang-outang." He fails to notice, or
state, that the first is a difference of degree only, and the latter
a difference of kind. It would be possible to develop a Hottentot
into a philosopher, but no attempt is ever dreamed of, to change an
orang-outang into a Hottentot. On the other hand, the lowest savages
have under culture shown their human inheritance of faculties beyond
the brute. Two pigmies taken to Italy learned to speak Italian in
two years with fluency. They showed themselves superior to many
European children, and one became proficient in music. The skill of
this race with poisoned arrows, pits for game, and cultivation of
various kinds, is well known.
The savage races show the opposite of evolution. They are races in
ruins. Max Mueller says, "What do we know of savage tribes beyond
the last chapter in their history? They may have passed through
ever so many vicissitudes, and what we consider as primitive may
be for all we know a relapse into savagery, or corruption of what
was something more rational and intelligible in former ages."
This estimate of this great scholar is attested by facts. Where
to-day is the Hindu race that could build the Taj Mahal? What Greek
race to-day could reproduce the architecture or statuary of their
ancestors? The ruins of all eastern and many western lands point to
fallen races as well as ruined structures. The world's history is
that of the fall of great nations such as Egypt, Babylonia, Greece,
Rome, in all of which are sad examples of architecture and peoples
alike in decay.
13. THE ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY.
History is appealed to to show the progress of man and his
continuance in the evolutionary line since his origin in the brute.
Our present civilization is pointed to and compared with the past
and we are told that this is the result of evolution.
Some remarks of a preliminary kind are called for here. It is to be
remembered that history does not cover a very long period, that the
record is often broken, and that the facts are often very uncertain.
Large sections of the world we know historically nothing or little
of, such as Asia and Africa. We must remember that progress is
confined mostly to Europe and America and these form but a third
of the population of the world. Also that European progress is a
comparatively recent matter. We are now considering the entire
history of the race and must take in these vast outside regions
to arrive at correct conclusions. To judge the entire progress
of mankind from a short-sighted view of a limited portion is as
unscientific as it is unscriptural.
We must also remember that Europe owes its progress to the influence
of Christianity. For to-day it is the Christian nations only that
have progress and the most Christian have the most progress. No
fact is better seen or proven. Lange states, "Among human tribes
left to themselves, the higher man never comes out of the lower.
Apparent exceptions do ever, on close examination, confirm the
universality of the rule in regard to particular peoples, while the
claim, as made for the world's general progress, can only be urged
in opposition by ignoring the supernal aids of revelation that have
ever shown themselves directly or collaterally on the human path."
(_Commentary on Genesis_, p. 355.) We have seen that so far as
present savage races are concerned they have made no progress, and
semi-civilized races, such as the Egyptians, Chinese and Hindus have
retrograded.
We need also to consider the vast and great civilizations which
existed in remote antiquity as is now revealed by archaeology. The
recent discoveries in Assyria and Babylonia and Egypt show vast
empires of culture as well as national extension and power, and that
their earlier culture was the greatest. So Prof. Hilprecht, of the
University of Pennsylvania, testifies of Babylonia: "The flower of
Babylonian art is found at the beginning of Babylonian history."
(_Recent Researches in Bible Lands_, p. 88.) Horace Bushnell tells
us, "All great ruins are but a name for greatness in ruins."
It is to Egypt we must go for the earliest records of human
civilization. Here the account of Prof. Sayce, of Oxford, gives
us the facts: "The earliest culture and civilization to which
the monuments bear witness was in fact already perfect. It was
full-grown. The organization of the country was complete. The arts
were known and practiced. Egyptian culture as far as we know at
present has no beginning." (_Recent Researches in Bible Lands_, pp.
101, 102.) "The older the culture, the more perfect it is found to
be. The fact is a very remarkable one, in view of modern theories of
development and of the evolution of civilization out of barbarism.
Whatever may be the reason, such theories are not borne out by the
discoveries of archaeology. Instead of the progress one should
expect, we find retrogression and decay. Is it possible the Biblical
view is right after all and that civilized man has been civilized
from the outset?" (_Homiletic Review_, June, 1902.) Prof. Flinders
Petrie tells us that the Great Pyramid bears on its stones the marks
of the solid and tubular drill, edged with stone as hard as diamond,
and cutting one-tenth of an inch at a revolution, and showing no
sign of wear. They had also straight and circular saws. The same
building reveals scientific and astronomical knowledge equal in
some respects to modern science.
Not only were the past civilizations great, but, in many respects,
far above the present. So that the race has even fallen from higher
levels. Lecky thus writes of the Greeks: "Within the narrow limits
and scant populations of the Greek states, arose men, who in almost
every conceivable form of genius, in philosophy, in epic, dramatic
and lyric poetry, in written and spoken eloquence, in statesmanship,
in sculpture, in painting, and probably in music, attained the
highest levels of human perfection." (_History of European Morals_,
p. 408.) Galton says of the same civilization: "The millions of
Europe, breeding as they have for two thousand years, have never
produced the equal of Socrates and Phidias. The average ability of
the Athenian race is, on the lowest possible estimate, nearly two
grades higher than our own; that is, about as much as our race is
above the African negro." (_Hereditary Genius_, p. 320.)
It does seem as if such testimony of these great scholars should
make us not only chary of the theory which claims ever upward
and onward progress, but also more modest in our boasted modern
progress and position. Prof. Frederick Starr of the Anthropological
department of Chicago University, says that the American race is
reverting to the Indian state. He bases this on measurements of
faces of 5,000 children. This is a dismal outlook. It is not what
Evolution has promised us. The followers of Evolution have reason to
be indignant at such a turn in its course. However, we may comfort
them and ourselves with the hope that if Evolution fails us we have
other resources.
EVOLUTION AND RELIGION.
Consciousness of God and the hereafter is the great distinction
between man and brute. This is the basis of all religion. Of this
Evolution gives the origin in the dreams of animals.
According to that department of the evolutionary theory popularly
called Higher Criticism, all religion, including Israel's and
Christianity, was derived from fetishism and from that it developed
to animism, and so to polytheism and finally monotheism. But the
lowest savages have, according to anthropology, the belief in a
Supreme Being. Andrew Lang says, "It is among the lowest savages
that the Supreme Beings are regarded as eternal, moral, powerful."
(_Making of Religion_, p. 206.) Fetishism and animism are processes
of decay, says Dr. John Smith, quoting Hartmann, DeRouge, Renouf,
Lang and others. (_Integrity of Scripture_, p. 68.) Traces of
monotheism are found in China, India, Egypt and elsewhere. In all
nations is this decay found save in one, Israel.
It is further found that mankind had an original theistic religion
common to the race, which is just what the Bible teaches. All the
evidence is to the effect that the further back we go, the purer the
religions are found to be. The earliest Romans were more pure in
religion than the later people. The early Greeks more so than the
more recent. The early handwritings give a purer and more theistic
religion than the later books. Dr. Jacob Chamberlain thus sums up
the evidence for the Hindu Vedas: "They all teach the Godhead is
one, that he is good, that man is in a state of sin, not at peace
with the Holy One, that man is in need of holiness and purity, that
there can be no harmony between sinful man and a holy God unless
sin is in some way expiated and expurgated, and that this is the
greatest and most worthy end of existence." (_Northfield Echoes_,
August, 1900, p. 256.)
The ruins of Assyria and Egypt point to a religion resembling that
of the Israelites. So far is this noticed that some have said
that Moses copied much of what he taught Israel from them. This
conclusion is not necessary. The fact is that man had a deposit of
truth at the beginning, and all men had the same. Both Moses and
Egypt and Assyria therefore, had much of what survived from that
early revelation. The fact here stated agrees with the Bible account
and not with Evolution.
"The study of the mythology and philosophy of the heathen world
does not show an evolutionary progress to a higher state, but
the reverse." (Francis M. Bruner in _The Evolution Theory_.)
Christianity has not been a development of these religions, for
it is and was, antagonistic to them at every point. It was an
opposing force introduced suddenly and utterly at variance in every
particular with all about it.
Sir M. Monier said in an address in 1887: "There can be no greater
mistake than to force these non-christian writings into conformity
with some scientific theory of development, and then point to
the Christian's Holy Bible as the crowning product of religious
evolution. So far from this, these non-christian books are all
developments in the wrong direction. They begin with some flashes of
true light and end in utter darkness."
EVOLUTION AND ETHICS.
Evolution has a system or systems of Ethics. It traces the beginning
of the sense of right and wrong to the instincts of animals, such as
the parental instinct, the recognition of marital rights, and the
right to respective properties such as nests and burrows. So that
the animal, or man, came to see that it was best on all accounts to
be good to oneself and others. So Mr. Spencer's definition of right
is the happiness of oneself, one's offspring and others. Acts are
good or bad as they increase happiness or misery. He ignores the
moral instinct and exalts expediency and utility. This is the level
of the uncivilized or savage races.
Dr. James Thompson Bixby of Leipsic, makes humanity the goal of
Evolution's ethics. "The test of what is morally good is the
tendency of the given motive to help forward the progress of the
race toward the ideal humanity." (_Ethics of Evolution_, p. 212.)
Every Bible believer will see how far short these fall of the
standard of holiness and happiness the Bible places before us. But
when or where did any people ever aim to help forward the "ideal
perfection of humanity" who did not have the mighty impulse which
the Bible, and only the Bible, gives to that object? There is not
even the sense of brotherhood necessary for the motive. To point
natural man to that is to ask him to act outside his nature.
The law of the Struggle for Existence never taught Christian ethics.
The self-sacrificing Christian has something which never came from
Evolution. The Cross is the final test of Evolution. By it that
theory and all other false theories are weighed in the balances
and found wanting. The struggle for existence is the law of self
and is the antithesis of the Cross, which is the very opposite of
the struggle for existence. Nor is the struggle for existence the
law of the lower creature. That law is to bring forth fruit, to
propagate their species. That is the plant's goal; when it has so
done it retires or dies. The little bird will struggle more fiercely
for its young than for its food, or even for its life, which it
imperils often to save its brood. Below the unfallen creation and
regenerated humanity is the unregenerated selfish man. Not Evolution
but Revolution can create Christian ethics. History does not present
an instance of progress in ethics save as aided by the Bible.
EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.
In undertaking to account for man, Evolution must account for the
fact of Christian experience. Conversion revolutionizes a man. It
turns him against his natural likes and dislikes. He even turns
against himself and the selfish becomes unselfish. This is not
development, for that operates according to the nature of the thing.
Develop a wolf and you may get a dog. Develop man from the savage
state and you may have the condition of the Greek in the highest
state of culture and yet in the lowest state of vice. Introduce
Christian experience and you have Christianity with all the
civilization which proceeds and flows from it.
There is no such consistent body of testimony for any fact, science
or truth as there is for Christian experience. It is the same in
all ages, in all lands and in all classes of society, and in all
circumstances of life. This evidence is perfectly legitimate and
must be considered by the student of human life and character.
Let Evolution then account for Conversion which changes man's
inner nature, and gives a life which lives contrary to natural
human instincts and conduct; and Christian hopes which yearn for
deliverance from sin and self and long for the highest spiritual
state and hasten to meet the holy and all-seeing God.
The missions of our great cities as well as those of the foreign
field are full of witnesses for the transforming effect of Christian
experience. The author of this book can vouch for the following
from personal knowledge. A business man in Illinois became addicted
partly from use in disease to alcohol and the use of morphine and
also cocaine. He used all these and in excessive quantities; as
much as forty grains of morphine in a day. He tried seven "cures."
He visited Europe to consult specialists. He spent in all over
$15,000 in seeking a cure and all in vain. By the persuasions of
Christians he was led to seek relief in prayer and experienced what
Christians call conversion and was immediately delivered from all
his appetites. The author of this saw him three months after and
found him a sober man and without any desire for drink or drugs.
He saw him again a year after and he was still rejoicing in full
deliverance. Since beginning this book, a correspondence was had
to verify the case still further, and he is reported as follows:
"In January, 1899, his weight was 113 pounds. In January, 1901,
his weight was 183 pounds. He is an official member of a prominent
church, a director of the Young Men's Christian Association and a
great worker in both." No evolution can account for such a change.
It is as great a miracle as cleansing the leper.
Prof. George Romanes of Oxford, was, it is said, brought back from
infidelity to faith by the letters of a Japanese missionary friend,
dealing with experimental and practical religion. Evolution asks
for facts. Here are facts, and they tell not of Evolution but of
Regeneration.
EVOLUTION AND CHRIST.
Evolution cannot account for Christ. Without entering here on
an argument for His divinity, we simply present him and ask the
evolutionist to account for such a character and life. Let us listen
to what the enemies of Christianity say of Christ.
Renan said: "The incomparable man to whom the universal conscience
has decreed the title of the Son of God, and that with justice....
Between thee and God there will be no longer any distinction."
Jean Paul Richter said: "The holiest among the mighty, the mightiest
among the holy, He lifted with pierced hands empires off their
hinges and turned the stream of centuries out of its channel and
still governs the ages." (Dr. Liddon's _Bampton Lectures_.)
Rousseau testified as follows: "What sweetness, what purity in his
morals! What force, what persuasion in his instructions! His maxims
how sublime! His discourses, how wise and profound! such presence
of mind, such beauty and precision in his answers, such empire over
his passions! It would be much harder to conceive that a number of
men should have joined together to fabricate this book than that a
single person should furnish out the subject to its authors. Jewish
writers would never have fallen into that style, and the gospel has
such strong and such inimitable marks of truth that the inventor
would be more surprising than the hero." (_Emilius and Sophia_, or
An Essay on Education, pp. 79, 80, 81.)
Thomas Paine: "The morality that he preached and practiced was of
the most benevolent kind. It has never been excelled." (_Age of
Reason_, p. 5.)
Robert Ingersoll, to M. D. Landon, in a letter giving permission to
print his speeches: "In using my speeches do not use any assault
I may have made on Christ which I foolishly made in my earlier
life. I believe Christ was the perfect man. 'Do unto others' is the
perfection of religion and morality. It is the _summum bonum_."
(_Homiletic Review_, November, 1899, p. 475.)
Theodore Parker: "Shall we be told such a man never lived--the whole
story is a lie? Suppose that Plato and Newton never lived, that
their story is a lie? But who did their works and thought their
thoughts? It takes a Newton to forge a Newton. What man could have
fabricated Jesus? None but a Jesus." (_Discourses on Religion_, pp.
362-3.)
Napoleon Bonaparte: "Everything in Jesus Christ astonishes me. His
spirit overawes me. Between him and whoever else in the world there
is no possible line of comparison. I search in vain in history to
find the similar to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the
Gospel. In him we find a moral beauty before unknown, and an idea of
the Supreme superior even to that which creation suggests."
To say that Jesus was an evolution of that age, as some
evolutionists do say, and that we may look for even a greater in the
future, is to be guilty not only of blasphemy but of gross ignorance
as to the age in which Jesus came. There was nothing in that age to
give rise to such a character. He came as a flash of lightning in a
dark sky, or, according to the Bible figure, as the rising of the
sun in the world's night.