exemplified and completed in the course of one individual's existence. Take the caterpillar, the chrysalis, the moth, every change is a marvel which human science cannot explain, yet ordinary intelligence reads and enlarges the parable. Man at first was of the earth-of this we are sure, there was a change-this we also know, then came the spirit by which he soared to God-this we cannot doubt. Science affirms the asserted progress, but of its essential nature knows nothing; Scripture states the progress-“ God formed man . . . breathed into his nostrils the breath of life . . . man became a living soul" (Gen. ii. 7). Science and Scripture agree. Every educated man knows that in all natural advances there was the coming in of novel states, the entering of novel relations, and so often as these came would non-existent and even impossible laws become possible and necessary. There was something fresh in the first formation of crystals, in the first vegetable, in the first quadruped, in the first man. However slowly you bring in a new thing, you do bring it in, and it is new. The combination of inorganic substances into the basis of a living organism was by an appearance of energy in guise of a new force-force of life. Passing from the phenomena of life to those of mind, the region is still more profoundly mysterious; and, whether as to consciousness or volition, we have absolutely no reason, however vague, for classifying either under the head of physics. Physical energies represent a closed curve or cycle continually returning upon itself; the introduction of organic energy carries the line into infinitude, and the curve is as incapable of closure as a parabolic projection. It is also to be observed, as to physical energies, that some are of higher order than others; and from the higher we can obtain the lower; but the reverse is attended by extraordinary difficulties "facilis descensus Averno; noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis: sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras, It is, therefore, unwise and unscientific to endue all matter with the mysteries, qualities, occult powers of mind; and we may count it an evidence of incapacity and scientific impurity Misrepresentation of the Sacred Account. 329 to endow the physical atom with "the promise and potency of all terrestrial life." Those are not less blamable who, knowing that the sacred account is figurative, use their science not for explanation but misrepresentation. Take example "The Hebrew writer presents us with a concrete picture of the creation of man, according to which a homogeneous clay model of the human form is, in some inconceivable way, at once transmuted into the wonderfully heterogeneous combination of organs and tissues, with all their definite and highly specialised aptitudes, of which actually living man is made up. But I suppose there are few scientific writers at the present day who would be found willing to risk their reputation for common sense by attempting to defend such a conception." It is really puerile to charge Moses with the folly of the Negro, who thought that God made a clay model, leaned it against a tree to dry, and then breathed life into it. Why not say that Moses attributed sex to God? for he says-"God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." If we give to the sacred writer's "concrete picture" scientific explanation, the meaning will be generally accepted-" Supposing the molecules of the human body, instead of replacing others and thus renewing a preceding form, to be gathered first hand from Nature and put together in the same relative positions as those which they occupy in the body; that they have the selfsame forces and distribution of forces, the selfsame motions and distribution of motions-would this organised concourse of molecules stand before us as a sentient thinking being? There seems no valid reason to believe that it would not." 2 True science fights false science. Irreligious persons generally impute their own shallow and erroneous views of Scripture to the sacred writers; but advanced scholars who, with piety and prudence, ascertain all that can be ascertained of the way in which man was created, are conscious that true interpretation of the ancient words reveals divinity of meaning. 1 "Cosmic Philosophy,” vol. i. p. 440: John Fiske. 2 "Vitality:" Prof. Tyndall. As to low races of men, ancient and modern, they are the withered foliage of a degenerate stock. Inclemency of climate, barrenness of land, which made existence an exhaustive and losing fight, may have worn out the frame, left neither time nor will for intellectual advance, and rendered the brain of a savage what it is-nearly thirty per cent. less than the brain of an Anglo-Saxon. Dark nations count the white skin superior, and destined to rule. The legends of some savages assert that their ancestors were white people; and the Fetish images of the Congo natives have broad foreheads, white complexions, and hooked noses. Degeneracy lowers both the moral and physical state; as a rule, the worst men are of the worst colour. Malte Brun says-"Our body depends on our intelligence." M. Maire says-" The more the organisation of the animal is perfected, the more the spiritual element produced by the action of the various functions is itself perfected." If we take history and experience, apart from sheer hypothesis, it is more probable that brute men are not a generation advancing to higher life, but a degeneration from life. The marvellously gifted Attic race were the cleverest and most beautiful of men; but, becoming impure, they degenerated. In fact, the corruption of one generation suffices to effect a degeneracy which ends in moral death-mental death -material death. This accounts for the low intelligence of persons long addicted to immorality, the almost impossibility -when any one has put away thought, love, knowledge of God-of quickening sacred reverence in him. The vicious and godless, becoming spiritless and sensual, cease to have a true conception of Divinity. They are the violent, criminal, dangerous classes in our cities, amongst whom the shrewd sharp demagogue is supreme, and to whom the atheist, with the arrogance of a god, asserts—“There is nothing better or greater than myself." To them belong the roughs who inhumanly abuse defenceless women, and from them proceed the hopeless and helpless weaklings who are born paupers, are bred paupers, and die paupers. The greatness of degeneracy receives horrible illustration by this statement of a scientist-"The difference in weight of brain between the Brain of the Highest and Lowest Men. 331 highest and lowest men is far greater, both relatively and absolutely, than that between the lowest man and the highest ape." 1 The assertion is too sensational, and must be corrected: man cannot utterly lose his nature and become a mere brute. The average weight of man's brain is 1400 grammes, of woman's 1250 grammes. Owen found the weight of a gorilla's brain to be 425:19 grammes (15 ozs.). Huxley thinks that the latter may reach 567 grammes. Cuvier's brain weighed 1830 grammes-this is one of the largest known. One of the smallest was that of a Bojeswoman, which only weighed 872 grammes-more than twice that of a gorilla. It is another fact, that savage men, so far from growing up into higher intelligence by means of continual effort to increase their brain-power, actually possess about one-third more brain-power than they use. Their mental property is an inheritance larger than they occupy, and not an acquisition laboriously gained in the past, and so fully used in the present as to win enlargement in the future. To credit low forms of humanity with being the fathers of all that is great and good, ignores the fact that there is "hardly a single point of excellence belonging to the human character, which is not decidedly repugnant to the untutored feelings of human nature." Courage, cleanliness, disinterestedness, self-control, truthfulness, justice, are all a conquest over some natural impulse. Henry More says-"Of a truth, vile epicureanism and sensuality will make the soul of man so degenerate and blind, that he will not only be content to slide into brutish immorality, but please himself in this very opinion that he is a real brute already, an ape, satyr, or baboon; and that the best of men are no better, save that the civilising of them and industrious education have made them appear in a more refined state. . . . But as many as are thus sottish, let them enjoy their own wildness and ignorance; it is sufficient for a good man that he is conscious unto himself, better bred and born." 2 Even those who are better born and bred know that it is easier to lose than increase the good. In the Australian bush, and in the backwoods of America, individuals of the Anglo-Saxon race, possessing the highest feelings and noblest instincts, rapidly fall into comparative barbarism. No Australian language counts beyond four-are Australians the future mathematicians? Some wild tribes live together in herds, do not know the use of fire, every attempt to introduce civilisation has failed, it rather accelerates their destruction. The Austrian missionary, Morlang, who long laboured among the negro tribes on the Upper Nile, says-"Any mission to such savages is absolutely useless. . . these brutal natives are utterly incapable of any feeling of gratitude." He must be hopeful indeed who can believe that this is a generation tending to life. No teacher, no system of culture, has ever raised an ignoble race to the fore-front of human progress. There are no facts on which to base a theory of humanity grounded on brutality planting a paradise. Another argument has been lately put forth--" The sense of original sin would show, according to my theory, not that man has fallen from a high state, but that he was rising in moral culture with more rapidity than the nature of his race could follow." 1 The theory is rather marvellous: we have been growing and growing, for millions and millions of years, very very slowly, and yet we have grown too fast-have outgrown our clothes. After all, we are a new race; and, translated into new conditions, our nature and instinct fail us; new men, made rich, we know not how to behave. Very few will accept the theory that we are too good already, and are rising in moral culture with more rapidity than our nature can follow. The Chinaman has for thousands of years been under "a system of examination notoriously strict and far-reaching; boys of promise are passed on from step to step until they have reached the highest level of which they are capable."2 "Chuan Yuan, the senior classic and senior wrangler thrown into one," ," the best man out of four hundred millions, is so finished and polished that he remains for ever unruffled by any emotion or conviction that anything he does is immoral 'Galton's "Hereditary Genius." 2 Ibid. Ibid. |