assumes that humanity, human nature as a general principle or a form of life, exists antecedently (either chronologically or logically) to individual men. "In the order of nature," says Dr. Shedd, "mankind exists before the generations of mankind; the nature is prior to the individuals produced out of it." It exists, also, independently and outside of them. As magnetism is a force in nature existing antecedently, independently, and outside of any and all individual magnets; and as electricity exists independently of the Leyden jars in which it may be collected or through which it is manifested at present; as galvanism exists independently of any and all galvanic batteries; so humanity exists antecedently to individual men and independently of them. As an individual magnet is a given piece of soft iron in which the magnetic force is present and active, and as a Leyden jar is simply a coated jar in which electricity is present, so an individual man is a given corporeal organization in which humanity as a general life or force is present. To the question what is human nature, or humanity generically considered, there are different answers given. It is said to be a res, an essence, a substance, a real objective existence. It is something which exists in time and space. This is the common mode of statement. The controversy between realists and nominalists, in its original and genuine form, turned upon this point. The question which for ages occupied to so great an extent the attention of all philosophers, was, What are universals? What are genera and species? What are general terms? Are they mere words? Are they thoughts or conceptions existing in the mind? Are the things expressed by general terms real objective existences? Do individuals only exist; so that species and genus are only classes of individuals of the same kind; or are individuals only the revelations or individualizations of a general substance which is the species or genus? According to the early and genuine realists, and according to the modern speculative philosophers, the species or genus is first, independent of and external to the individual. The individual is only "a subsequent modus existendi; the first and antecedent mode [in the case of man] being the generic humanity of which this subsequent serial mode is only another aspect or manifestation."2

Precisely, as just stated, as magnetism is antecedent to the magnet. The magnet is only an individual piece of iron in and through which generic magnetism is manifested. Thus the realist says, "Etsi rationalitas non esset in aliquo, tamen in natura remaneret.' 1 History of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 77.

3

2 Shedd's Essays, Boston, 1867, p. 259, note, and his History of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 117.

8 Cousin, Fragments Philosophiques, Paris, 1840, p. 167.

Cousin quotes the complaint of Anselm against Roscelin and other nominalists, "de ne pas comprendre comment plusieurs hommes ne sont qu'un seul et même homme, - nondum intelliget quomodo plures homines in specie sint unus homo."1 The doctrine of his "Monologium" and "Proslogium" and "Dialogus de veritate," Cousin says, is "que non-seulement il y a des individus humains, mais qu'il y a en autre le genre humain, l'humanité, qui est une, comme il admettait qu'il y a un temps absolu que les durées particulières manifestent sans le constituer, une vérité une et subsistante par elle-même, un type absolu du bien, que tous les biens particuliers supposent et réfléchissent plus ou moins imparfaitement." 2 He quotes Abélard as stating the doctrine which he opposed, in the following words: "Homo quædam species est, res una essentialiter, cui adveniunt formæ quædam et efficiunt Socratem illam eamdem essentialiter eodem modo informant formæ facientes Platonem et cætera individua hominis; nec aliquid est in Socrate, præter illas formas informantes illam materiam ad faciendum Socratem, quin illud idem eodem tempore in Platone informatum sit formis Platonis. Et hoc intelligunt de singulis speciebus ad individua et de generibus ad species." According to one theory, “les individus seuls existent et constituent l'essence des choses;" according to the other, "l'essence des individus est dans le genre auquel ils se rapportent; en tant qu' individus ils ne sont que des accidents." 4 All this is sufficiently plain. That which constitutes the species or genus is a real objective existence, a substance one and the same. numerically as well as specifically. This one general substance exists in every individual belonging to the species, and constitutes their essence. That which is peculiar to the individual, and which distinguishes it from other individuals of the same species, is purely accidental. This one substance of humanity, which is revealed or manifested in all men, and which constitutes them men, "possesses all the attributes of the human individual; for the individual is only a portion and specimen of the nature. Considered as an essence, human nature is an intelligent, rational, and voluntary essence; and accordingly its agency in Adam partakes of the corresponding qualities." "Agency," however, supposes "an agent; and since original sin is not the product of the individual agent, because it appears at birth, it must be referred to the generic agent, i. e., to the human nature in distinction from the human person or individual.” 99 6

1 Cousin's Fragments Philosophiques, Paris, 1840, p. 146. 8 Ibid. p. 167.

Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 78.

2 Ibidem.

4 Ibid. p. 171.

• Ibid. p. 80.

Generic Humanity.

What God created, therefore, was not an individual man, but the species homo, or generic humanity, an intelligent, rational, and voluntary essence; individual men are the manifestations of this substance numerically and specifically one and the same, in connection with their several corporeal organizations. Their souls are not individual essences, but one common essence revealed and acting in many separate organisms.

This answer to the question proposed above, What is human nature generically considered, which makes it an essence or substance common to all the individuals of the race, is the most common and the most intelligible. Scientific men adopt a somewhat different phraseology. Instead of substances, they speak of forces. Nature is defined to be the sum of the forces operating in the external world. Oxygen is a force; magnetism, electricity, etc., are forces. "A species is . . . . based on a specific amount or condition of concentred force, defined in the act or law of creation." Humanity, or human nature, is the sum of the forces which constitute man what he is. The unity of the race consists in the fact that these forces are numerically as well as specifically the same in all the individuals of which it is composed.

The German theologians, particularly those of the school of Schleiermacher, use the terms life, law, and organic law. Human nature is a generic life, i. e., a form of life manifested in a multitude of individuals of the same kind. In the individual it is not distinct or different from what it is in the genus. It is the same organic law. A single oak may produce ten thousand other oaks; but the whole forest is as much an inward organic unity as any single tree.

These may be convenient formulas to prevent the necessity of circumlocutions, and to express a class of facts; but they do not convey any definite idea beyond the facts themselves. To say that a whole forest of oaks have the same generic life, that they are as truly one as any individual tree is one, means simply that the nature is the same in all, and that all have been derived from a common source. And to say that mankind are a unit because they have the same generic life, and are all descended from a common parent, either means nothing more than that all men are of the same species, i. e., that humanity is specifically the same in all mankind; or it means all that is intended by those who teach that 1 Professor James D. Dana, Bibliotheca Sacra, 1857, p. 861.

genera and species are substances of which the individual is the mere modus existendi. As agency implies an agent, so force, which is the manifestation of power, supposes something, a subject or substance in which that power resides. Nothing, a nonentity, can have no power and manifest no force. Force, of necessity, supposes a substance of which it is the manifestation. If, therefore, the forces are numerically the same, the substance must be numerically the same. And, consequently, if humanity be a given amount and kind of concentred force, numerically and not merely specifically the same in all men, then are men óμoovσio, partakers of one and the same identical essence. The same remarks apply to the term life. Life is a predicable, not an essence. It supposes a subject of which it is predicable. There can be no life unless something lives. It is not a thing by itself. If, therefore, the generic life of man means anything more than the same kind of life, it must mean that that which lives in all men is identically the same numerical substance.

Objections to Realism.

According to the common doctrine, the soul of every man is an individual subsistence, of the same kind but not of the same numerical substance as the souls of his fellow-men, so that men are opo, but not oμoovvio. In support of this view and in opposition to the doctrine that "all men are one man," or, that human nature is numerically one and the same essence of which individual men are the modes of manifestation, it may be remarked, —

1. That the latter doctrine is a mere philosophical hypothesis. It is a simple assumption founded on what is possible. It is possible that the doctrine in question may be true. So in itself it is possible that there should be an anima mundi, a principle of life immanent in the world, of which all living organisms are the different manifestations; so that all vegetables, all animals, and man himself, are but different forms of one and the same numerical living substance; just as the multitudinous waves of the sea in all their infinite diversity of size, shape, and hue, are but the heavings of one and the same vast ocean. In like manner it is possible that all the forms of life should be only the various manifestations of the life of God. This is not only possible, but it is such a simple and grand idea that it has fascinated the minds of men in all ages, so that the prevailing hypothesis of philosophers as to the constitution of the universe has been, and still is, pantheistic. Nevertheless, pantheism is demonstrably false, because it contradicts the intuitive convictions of our moral and religious nature. It is not enough,

therefore, that a theory be possible or conceivable. It must have the support of positive proof.

2. Such proof the doctrine under consideration does not find in the Bible. It is simply a hypothesis on which certain facts of the Scriptures may be explained. All men are alike; they have the same faculties, the same instincts and passions; and they are all born in sin. These and other similar facts admit of an easy explanation on the assumption that humanity is numerically one and the same substance of which individuals are only so many different manifestations; just as a thousand different magnets reveal the magnetic force which is the same in all, and therefore all magnets are alike. But as the facts referred to may be explained on divers other assumptions, they afford no proof of this particular theory. It is not pretended that the Bible directly teaches the doctrine in question. Nor does it teach anything which necessitates its adoption. On the contrary, it teaches much that is irreconcilable with it.

Not Supported by Consciousness.

3. The hypothesis under consideration derives no support from consciousness. We are conscious of our own existence. We are (in one sense) conscious of the existence of other men. But we are not conscious of a community of essence in ourselves and all other men. So far from this being the common interpretation which men put on their consciousness, it is diametrically opposed to it. Every man believes his soul to be a distinct, individual substance, as much as he believes his body to be distinct and separate from every other human body. Such is the common judgment of men. And nothing short of the direct assertion of the Bible, or arguments which amount to demonstration, can rationally be admitted to invalidate that judgment. It is inconceivable that anything concerning the constitution of our nature so momentous in its consequences, should be true, which does not in some way reveal itself in the common consciousness of men. There is nothing more characteristic of the Scriptures, and there are few things which more clearly prove its divine origin, than that it takes for granted and authenticates all the facts of consciousness. It declares us to be what we are revealed to ourselves as being in the very constitution and present condition of our nature. It recognizes the soul as rational, free, and responsible. It assumes that it is distinct from the body. All this we know from consciousness. But we do not know that the essence or substance of our soul is numerically the same as the substance of the souls of all men.

If