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,X
SYSTEMATIC
THEOLOaT.
BY
CHARLES HODGE, D.D.,
PROFESSOR IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY.
YOL. II.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY.
LONDON AND EDINBURGH: T. NELSON AND SONS. 1872.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
Charles Scribner and Company, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
RnrEKsicG, cabibridoe;
■ TBBBOTTPED AND PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
PAET II.
ANTHROPOLOGY. CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN OF MAX.
FAOB
§ 1. Scriptural Doctrine 3
§ 2. Anti- Scriptural Theories 4
Heathen Doctrine of Spontaneous Generation. — Modern Doctrine of Spontaneous Generation . ' 5
Theories of Development. — Lamarck — Vestiges of Creation. — Darwin. — Remarks on the Darwinian Theory. — Atheistic. — Mere Hypothesis 19
Theories of the Universe. — Darwin. — J. J. Murphy. — Owen. — Common Doctrine. — Admitted Difficulties in the way of the Darwinian Theory. — Sterility of Hybrids. — Geographical Dis- tribution ........... 29
Pangenesis ••.......•• 32
§ 3. Antiquity of Man 33
Lake Dwellings. — Fossil Human Remains. — Human Bones found with those of Extinct Animals. — Flint Instruments. — Races of Men. — Ancient Monuments 39
CHAPTER H.
NATURE OF MAN.
§ 1. Scriptural Doctrine 42
Truths assumed in Scriptures. — Relation of the Soul and Body. —
Realistic Dualism 46
§ 2. Trichotomy 47
Anti-Scriptural. — Doubtful Passages 49
§ 3. Realism 51
Its General Character. — Generic Humanity. — Objections to Real- ism. — From Consciousness. — Contrary to Scriptures. — Incon- sistent with Doctrine of the Trinity, and of the Person of Christ 60 §4. Another Form of the Realistic Theory 61
iv CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
CHAPTER m.
ORIGIN OF THE SOUL.
PAflB
§ 1. Theory of Preexistence 65
§ 2. Traducianism 68
§ 3. Creationism 70
Arguments from the Nature of the Soul 71
§ 4. Concluding Remarks 72
CHAPTER IV.
UNITY OK THE HUMAN KACB.
§ 1. Idea of Species 78
General Characteristics. — Definitions 79
§ 2. Evidences of the Identity of Species 82
Organic Structure. — Physiology. — Psychology . . . .85
§3. Application of these Criteria to Man 86
The Evidence Cumulative 88
§ 4. Philological and Moral Argument ....... 88
Brotherhood of Man 90
CHAPTER V.
ORIGINAL STATE OF MAN.
§ 1. Scriptural Doctrine 92
§ 2. Man created in the Image of God 96
§ 3. Original Righteousness 99
§ 4. Dominion over the Creatures 102
§ 5. Doctrine of Romanists 103
§ 6. Pelagian and Rationalistic Doctrine 106
Immanent Dispositions may have Moral Character. — General Judgment of Men on this Point. — Argument fi'om Scriptiu-e, and from the Faith of the Church. — The Character of Dispositions depends on their Nature. — Objections considered. — Pelagians teach that Man was created Mortal 115
CHAPTER VI.
COVENANT OF WORKS.
§ 1. God made a Covenant with Adam 117
§2. The Promise 118
§3. The Condition 119
§ 4. The Penalty 120
§5. The Parties 121
§ 6. The Perpetuity of the Covenant 122
CHAPTER Vn.
THE FALL.
Scriptural Account. — The Tree of Life. — The Tree of Knowledge. —
The Serpent. — The Temptation. — Effects of the First Sin . .123
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. v
CHAPTER YUI.
SIN.
PAOB
§ 1. Nature of the Question 130
§ 2. Philosophical Theories 132
Limitation of Being. — Leibnitz's Theory. — Antagonism. — Schleiermacher's Theory. — The Sensuous Theory. — Selfish- ness 144
Theological Theories.
§3. Doctrine of the Early Church 150
§ 4. Pelagian Theory 152
Arguments against it ........ , 155
§ 5. Augustine's Doctrine . . . . . . . . .157
Philosophical Element of his Doctrine. — Why he made Sin a Negation. — The Moral Element of his Doctrine . . .159
§ 6. Doctrine of the Church of Rome 164
Diversity of Doctrine in the Latin Church. — Semi-Pelagians. — Anselm. — Abelard. — Thomas Aquinas. — The Scotists . . 1 73
Tridentine Doctrine on Original Sin 1 74
The true Doctrine of the Church of Rome . . . . .177
§ 7. Protestant Doctrine of Sin 180
Sin a specific Evil. — Has relation to Law. — That Law the Law of God. — Extent of the Law's Demands. — Sin not confined to Acts of the Will. — Consists in want of Conformity to the Law
of God. — Includes Guilt and Pollution 188
§ 8. Effects of Adam's Sin on his Posterity 192
§ 9. Immediate Imputation 192
Statement of the Doctrine. — Ground of the Imputation of Adam's Sin. — Adam the Federal Head of his Race. — The Representa- tive Principle in the Scriptures. — This Principle involved in other Doctrines. — Argument from Romans v. 12-21. — From
General Consent. — Objections 204
§ 10. Mediate Imputation 205
Origin of the Doctrine in the French Church . — Held by Theolo- gians in other Churches. — Objections. — Theory of Propagation 214
§ 11. Pi-eexistence 214
§ 12. Realistic Theory .......... 216
President Edwards' Theory. — Proper Realistic Theory. — Objec- tions 219
§ 13. Original Sin 227
Its Nature. — Proof of the Doctrine. — From the Universality of Sin. — From the entire Sinfulness of Man. — From the incor- rigible Nature of Sin. — From its early Manifestations. — Eva^ sions of the foregoing Ai'guments. — Declarations of Scripture. — Argument from the necessity of Redemption. — From the necessity of Regeneration. — From Infant Baptism. — From the Universality of Death. — From the common Consent of Christians 249 Objections. — Men responsible only for Voluntary Acts. — Incon-
vi CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
PAOE
sistent ■with the justice of God. — Makes God the Author of Sin.
— Inconsistent with Free Agency 254
§ 14. Seat of Original Sin 254
The whole Soul its Seat 255
§ 15. Inability 257
Doctrine as stated in the Protestant Symbols. — The Nature of the Sinner's Inability ......... 260
Inability not mere Disinclination. — Arises from the want of Spir- itual Discernment. — Asserted only in reference to " Things of the Spirit." — In what sense Natural. — In what sense Moral. — Objections to the popular Distinction between Natural and Moral Ability .265
Proof of the Doctrine 267
The Negative Argument. — Involved in the Doctrine of Original Sin.
— Argument from the Necessity of the Spirit's Influence. — From Experience. — Objections. — Inconsistent with Moral Obligation.
— Destroys the Motives to Exertion. — Encourages Delay . 276
CHAPTER IX.
FREE AGENCY.
§ 1. Different Theories of the Will 280
Necessity. — Contingency. — Certainty ..... 284 § 2. Definition of Terms 288
Will. — Motive. — Cause. — Liberty. — Liberty and Ability. — Self- determination and Self-determination of the Will . . . 294 § 3. Certainty consistent with Liberty ....... 295
Points of Agreement. — Arguments for the Doctrine of Certainty. — From the Foreknowledge of God. — From Foreordination. — From Providence. — From the Doctrines of Grace. — From Con- sciousness. — From the Moi-al Character of Volitions. — From the Rational Nature of Man. — From the Doctrine of Sufficient Cause 306
PART III.
SOTERIOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.
PLAN OF SALVATION.
§ 1. God has such a Plan 313
Importance of knowing it. — Means of knowing it . . . 315
§ 2. Supralapsarianism 316
§ 3. Infralapsarianism 319
§ 4. Hypothetical Redemption 321
Objections to that Scheme 323
§ 5. The Lutheran Doctrine as to the Plan of Salvation .... 324
§ 6. The Remonstrant Doctrine 327
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. vii
PAOE
§ 7. The Wesleyaa Doctrine 329
§ 8. The Augustinian Doctrine 331
Preliminary Remarks. — Statement of the Doctrine. — Proof of the Doctrine 334
Argument from the Facts of Providence. — From the Facts of Scrip- ture 339
The Relation of God to his Rational Creatures. — Man a Fallen Race. — Work of the Spirit. — Election is to Holiness. — Gra- tuitous Nature of Salvation. — Paul's Argument in the Ninth Chapter of Romans. — Argument from Experience . . . 344
Express Declarations of Scripture. — The Words of Jesus . 346 § 9. Objections to the Augustinian Doctrine 349
The Objections shown to bear against the Providence of God. — Founded on our Ignorance. — Same Objections urged against the Teachings of the Apostles 352
CHAPTER n.
COVENANT OF GRACE.
§ 1. The Plan of Salvation is a Covenant 354
§ 2. Different Views of the Nature of that Covenant .... 355 Pelagian View. — Remonstrant View. — Wesleyan Arminian View.
— Lutheran View. — Augustinian Doctrine .... 356 § 3. Parties to the Covenant 357
Disthiction between the Covenant of Redemption and the Covenant
of Grace ... 358
§ 4. Covenant of Redemption 359
§ 5. Covenant of Grace 362
§ 6. Identity of the Covenant under all Dispensations .... 366
Promise of Eternal Life made before the Advent of Christ. — Christ the Redeemer under all Dispensations. — Faith the Condition of Salvation from the Beginning . . . • • • .371 § 7. Different Dispensations . . . . . . . • .373
From Adam to Abraham. — Abraham to Moses. — Moses to Christ.
— The Gospel Dispensation . . . . • • .376
CHAPTER m.
THE PERSON OP CHRIST.
§ 1. Preliminary Remarks 378
§2. Scriptural Facts concerning the Person of Christ . ... . 380 He is truly Man. — He is truly God. — He is one Person . . 380 Proof of the Doctrine. — Proof of the several Points separately. — From the current Representations of Scripture. — From particu- lar Passages of Scripture. — St. John's Gospel i. 1-14 — 1 John i. 1_3. — Romans i. 2-5. — 1 Timothy iii. 16. — Philippians ii. 6-11.
— Hebrews ii. 14 . . . . . . • • • 386
§ 3. The Hypostatical Union 887
Two Natures in Christ. — INIeaning of the Word Nature. — Two Natures united but not confounded. — The Attributes of one
viii CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
FAOB
Nature not transferred to the other. — The Union is a Personal Union ........... 390
§ 4. Consequences of the Ilypostatical Union 392
Communion of Attributes. — The Acts of Christ. — The Man Christ Jesus the Object of Worship. — Christ can sympathize with his People. — The Incarnate Logos the Source of Life. — The Ex- altation of the Human Nature of Christ 397
§5. EiToneous Doctrines on the Person of Christ. — Ebionites. — Gnos- tics. — Apollinarian Doctrine. — Nestorianism. — Eutychianism.
— Monothelite Controversy 404
§ 6. Doctrine of the Reformed Churches 405
§ 7. Lutheran Doctrine 407
Different Views among the Lutherans. — Remarks on the Lutheran
Doctrine 418
§ 8. Later Forms of the Doctrine 418
Socinianism. — Swedenborg. — Dr. Isaac Watts. — Objections to
Dr. Watts' Theory 427
§9. Modern Forms of the Doctrine 428
Pantheistical Christology. — Theistical Christology. — The Doc- trine of Kenosis. — Ebrard ....... 434
Gess 435
Remarks on the Doctrine of Kenosis ...... 437
Schleiermacher's Christology . . • . . . . .441
Objections to Schleiermacher's Theory. — Founded on Pantheisti- cal Principles. — Involves Rejection of the Doctrine of the Trin- ity. — False Anthropology. — Perverts the Plan of Salvation . 450
CHAPTER IV.
THE MEDIATORIAL WORK OF CHRIST.
§ 1. Christ the only Mediator 455
§ 2. Qualifications for the Work 456
§ 3. Threefold Office of Christ 459
CHAPTER V.
PROPHETIC OFFICE.
§ 1. Its Nature 462
§ 2. How Christ executes the Office of a Prophet 463
CHAPTER VL
PRIESTLY OFFICE.
§1. Christ is truly a Priest 464
§ 2. Christ is our only Priest 466
§3. Definition of Terms 468
Atonement. — Satisfaction. — Penalty. — Vicarious. — Guilt. — Re- demption.— E.xpiation. — Propitiation 478
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. IX
a CHAPTER VH.
SATISFACTION OF CHRIST.
PAGE
§ 1. Statement of the Doctrine 480
§ 2. The Sense in which the Work of Christ was a Satisfaction . . 482 § 3. The Doctrine of the Scotists and Remonstrants .... 485
§ 4. Christ's Satisfaction rendered to Justice 489
§ 5. Christ's Work a Satisfaction to Law ...... 493
§ 6. Proof of the Doctrine as above stated 495
Argument from Christ's Priestly Office. — From the Sacrificial Character of His Death. — Proof of the Expiatory Character of the Sacrifices for Sin. — Argument from the Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah. — Passages in the New Testament in which Christ's "Work is set forth as a Sacrifice, Romans iii. 25 ; Hebrews x. 10 ;
1 John ii. 2 ; 1 Peter ii. 24 512
Argument from the Nature of Redemption 516
Redemption from the Penalty of the Law. — From the Law itself.
— From the Power of Sin. — From the Power of Satan. — Final Redemption from all Evil. — Argument from Related Doctrines 520
Argument from Religious Experience of Believers .... 523 § 7. Objections 527
Philosophical Objections. — Objections drawn from the Feelings. — Moral Objections. — Objections urged by the Modern German Theologians .......... 532
Answer to the Theory of these Writers ..... 535
Popular Objections 539
CHAPTER Vin.
FOR WHOM DID CHRIST DIE?
§ 1. State of the Question 544
§2. Proof of the Augustinian Doctrine 546
1. From the Nature of the Covenant of Redemption. — 2. Election.
— 3. Express Declaration of the Scriptures. — 4. From the Special Love of God. — 5. From the Believer's Union with Christ. — 6. From the Litercession of Christ. — 7. Church Doc- trine embraces all the Facts of the Case 553
Objections. — From the Universal Offer of the Gospel. — From cer- tain Passages of Scripture 558
CHAPTER IX.
THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT.
§ 1. The Orthodox View 563
§ 2. Doctrine of some of the Early Fathers 564
§ 3. Moral Theory 566
Objections to that Theory 571
§4. Governmental Theory 573
Remonstrant Doctrine . . . . . . . . .575
X CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLmiE.
PAGE
Supcrnaturalists ........•• 576
Objections to Governmental Theory 578
§ 5. Mystical Theory 581
Early Mystics. — Mystics of the Time of the Reformation. — Osian- der. — Schwenkfeld. — Oetinger. — The Modern Views . . 589
§ 6. Concluding Remarks 589
CHAPTER X.
INTERCESSION OF CHRIST.
§ 1. Christ our Intercessor 592
§2. Nature of his Intercession 593
§ 3. Its Objects ... 594
§ 4. The Intercession of Saints 594
CHAPTER XI.
KINGLY OFFICE OF CHRIST.
§ 1. The Church the Kingdom of God 596
§ 2. Christ truly a King 597
§ 3. Nature of the Kingdom of Christ 599
His Dominion over the Universe. — His Spiritual Kingdom. — His Visible Kingdom. — Nature of that Kingdom . . . 604 § 4. The Kingdom of Glory 608
CHAPTER XII.
THE HUMILIATION OP CHRIST.
§ 1. Includes his Incarnation . . . . . . . . .610
§ 2. His Being made under the Law 612
§ 3. His Sufferings and Death ......... 614
§ 4. His Enduring the Wrath of God 614
§ 5. His Death and Bm-ial ......... 615
The "Descensus ad Inferos." — The Lutheran and Modern Doc- trines of the Humiliation of Christ ...... 621
CHAPTER Xm.
THE EXALTATION OF CHRIST.
§ 1. His Resurrection 626
§ 2. His Ascension 630
§ 3. His Session at the Right Hand of God 635
CHAPTER XIV.
VOCATION.
§ 1. Scriptural Usage of the Word 639
§ 2. External Call 641
§ 3. Common Grace .......... 654
Lutheran Doctrine. — Rationalistic Doctrine. . . . .657
Proof of the Inward Call of the Spirit as distinct from the Truth 660
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. xi
PA08
This Influence may be -without the Word. — The Work of the
Spirit distinct from Providential Efficiency • . . .665 An Influence of the Spirit Common to all Men. — Effects of Com- mon Grace 670
§ 4. Efficacious Grace ......... 675
Why Efficacious. — Not simply ah eventu. — Not from its Congruity 677
The Augustinian Doctrine 680
Statement of the Doctrine. — The Main Principle involved . 682
It is the Almighty Power of God. — Hence 1. It is Mysterious and Peculiar. 2. Distinct from Common Grace. 3. Distinct from Moral Suasion. 4. Acts immediately. In what Sense Physical.
5. It is Irresistible. 6. The Soul is Passive in Regeneration. 7. Regeneration Instantaneous. 8. It is an Act of Sovereign Grace • 688
§5. Proof of the Doctrine 689
1. Common Consent. 2. Analogy. 3. Ephesians iii. 17, 19. 4. General Teachings of Scripture. 5. Nature of Regeneration.
6. Argument from related Doctrines. 7. From Experience . 706
§ 6. Objections 709
§ 7. History of the Doctrine of Grace 710
Doctrine of the Early Church. — Pelagian Doctrine — Semi-Pe- lagian. — Scholastic Period. — Synergistic Controversy. — Con- troversies in the Reformed Church. — Hypothetical Universalism. — Supernaturalism and Rationalism ... . 728
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.
PART II.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.
PART IL — ANTHROPOLOGY.
Having considered the doctrines which concern the nature of God and his relation to the world, we come now to those which concern man ; his origin, nature, primitive state, probation, and apostasy ; which last subject includes the question as to the nature of sin ; and the effects of Adam's first sin upon himself and upon his posterity. These subjects constitute the department of Anthro- pology.
CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN OF MAN.
§ 1. Scriptural Doctrine.
The Scriptural account of the origin of man is contained in Gen- esis i. 26, 27, " And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness : and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him ; male and female created He them." And Gen. ii. 7, " 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."
Two things are included in this account ; first that man's body was formed by the immediate intervention of God. It did not grow ; nor was it produced by any process of development. Sec- ondly, the soul was derived from God. He breathed into man "the breath of life," that is, that life which constituted him a man, a living creature bearing the image of God.
Many have inferred from tliis language that the soul is an ema- nation from the divine essence ; particula spiritus divini in cor- pore inclusa. This idea was strenuously resisted by the Christian
4 PART 11. Cii. I. — ORIGIN OF MAN.
fathers, and rejected by the Church, as inconsistent with the na- ture of God. It assumes that the divine essence is capable of division ; that his essence can be communicated without his attri- butes, and tliat it can be degraded as the souls of fallen men are degraded. (See Delitzsch's " Biblical Psychology " in T. and T. Clark's " Foreign Library," and Auberlen in Herzog's " Encyclo- piidie," article " Geist der Menschen.")
§ 2. Anti- Scrij^tural Theories.
Heathen Doctrine of Spontaneous G-eneration.
The Scriptural doctrine is opposed to the doctrine held by many of the ancients, that man is a spontaneous production of the earth. Many of them claimed to be yr^ycvei?, amoxOov^^, terrigena. The eartli was assumed to be pregnant with the germs of all living organisms, which were quickened into life under favoui'able circum- stances ; or it was regarded as instinct with a productive life to which is to be referred the origin of all the plants and animals living on its surface. To this primitive doctrine of antiquity, mod- ern philosophy and science, in some of their forms, have returned. Those who deny the existence of a personal God, distinct from the world, must of course deny the doctrine of a creation ex nihilo and consequently of the creation of man. The theological view as to the origin of man, says Strauss, " rejects the standpoint of natural philosophy and of science in general. These do not admit of the immediate intervention of divine causation. God created man, not as such, or, ' quatenus infinitus est, sed quatenus per elementa nascentis telluris expllcatur.' This is the view which the Greek and Roman philosophers, in a very crude form indeed, presented, and against which the fathers of the Christian Church earnestly contended, but which is now the unanimous judgment of natural science as well as of philosophy." ^ To the objection that the eartli no longer spontaneously produces men and irrational animals, it is answered that many things happened formerly that do not happen in the present state of the world. To the still more obvious ob- jection tliat an infant man must have perished without a mother's care, it is answered that the infant floated in the ocean of its birth, enveloped in a covering, until it reached the development of a cliild two years old ; or it is said that philosophy can only establish the general fact as to the way in which the human race originated, but cannot be required to explain all the details.
1 Dogmatih, vol. i. p. 680.
§2.] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 5
Modern Doctrine of Spontaneous Greneration.
Although Strauss greatly exaggerates when he says that men of science in our day are unanimous in supporting the doctrine of spontaneous generation, it is undoubtedly true that a large class of naturalists, especially on the continent of Europe, are in favour of that doctrine. Professor Huxley, in his discourse on the " Physi- cal Basis of Life," lends to it the whole weight of his authority. He does not indeed expressly teach that dead matter becomes active without being subject to the influence of previous living matter ; but his whole paper is designed to show that life is the result of the peculiar arrangement of the molecules of matter. His doctrine is that " the matter of life is composed of ordinary matter, differing from it only in the manner in which its atoms are aggregated."^ "If the properties of water," he says, "may be properly said to result from the nature and disposition of its com- ponent molecules, I can find no intelligible ground for refusing to say that the properties of protoplasm result from the nature and disposition of its molecules." ^ In his address before the British Association, he savs that if he could look back far enouo;h into the past he siiould expect to see " the evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter." And although that address is devoted to showing that spontaneous generation, or Abiogenesis, as it is called, has never been proved, he says, " I must cai*efully guard myself against the supposition that I intend to suggest that no such thing as Abiogenesis has ever taken place in the past or ever will take place in the future. With organic chemistry, molecular physics, and physiology yet in their infancy, and every day making pro- digious strides, I think it would be the height of presumption for any man to say that the conditions under which matter assumes the properties we call ' vital,' may not some day be artificially brought together." ^ All this supposes that life is the product of physical causes ; that all that is requisite for its production is " to bring together" the necessary conditions.
Mr. Mivart, while opposing Mr. Darwin's theory, not only maintains that the doctrine of evolution is " far from any necessary opposition to the most orthodox theology," but adds that " the same may be said of spontaneous generation." * As chemists have
1 Lay Sermons and Addresses, London, 1870, p. 144.
2 Jbld. p. 151.
8 Athenceum, September 17, 1870, p. 376.
* Genesis of Species, by St. George Mivart, F. R. S. p. 266.
6 PART n. ch. I. — origin of man.
succeeded in producing urea, which is an animal product, he thinks it not unreasonable that they may produce a fish.
But while there is a class of naturalists who maintain the doctrine of spontaneous generation, the great body even of those who are the most advanced admit that omne vivum ex vivo, so far as science yet knows, is an established law of nature. To demonstrate this is the object of Professor Huxley's important address just referred to, delivered before the British Association in September, 1870. Two hundred years ago, he tells us, it was commonly taken for granted that the insects which made their appearance in decaying animal and vegetable substances were spontaneously produced. Redi, however, an Italian naturalist, about the middle of the seven- teenth century, proved that if such decaying matter were protected by a piece of gauze admitting the air but excluding flies, no such insects made their appearance. " Thus, the hj'pothesis that living matter always arises by the agency of preexisting living matter, took definite shape ; and had henceforward a right to be con- sidered and a claim to be refuted, in each particular case, before the production of living matter in any other way could be admitted by careful reasoners." ^ This conclusion has been more and more definitely settled by all the investigations and experiments which have been prosecuted from that day to this. It has been proved that even the infusorial animalcules, which the most powerful micro- scopes are necessary to detect, never make their appearance when all preexisting living germs have been carefully excluded. These experiments, prosecuted on the very verge of nonentity, having for their subject-matter things so minute as to render it doubtful whether they were anything or nothing, and still more uncertain whether they were living or dead, are reviewed in chronological order by Professor Huxley, and the conclusion to which they lead fully established.^ This is confirmed by daily experience. Meat, vegetables, and fruits are preserved to the extent of hundreds of tons every year. " The matters to be preserved are well boiled in a tin case provided with a small hole, and this hole is soldered up when all the air in the case has been replaced by steam. By this method they may be kept for years, without putrefying, fer- menting, or getting mouldy. Now this is not because oxygen is excluded, inasmuch as it is now proved that free oxygen is not necessary for either fermentation or putrefaction. It is not because
1 AthsTusum, September 17, 1870, p. 374.
* What Dr. Charlton Bastian, who contested the conclusions of Professor Huxley, took to be living organisms, turned out to be nothing but minute follicles of glass.
§ 2.] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 7
the tins are exhausted of air, for Vibriones and Bacteria live, as Pasteur has shown, without air or free oxygen. It is not because the boiled meats or vegetables are not putrescible or fermentable, as those who have had the misfortune to be in a ship supplied with unskilfully closed tins well know. What is it, therefore, but the exclusion of germs ? I think the Abiogenists are bound to answer this question before they ask us to consider new experiments of precisely the same order." ^
But admitting that life is always derived from life, the question still remains, Whether one kind of life may not give rise to life of a different kind ? It was long supposed that parasites derived their life from the plant or animal in which they live. And what is more to the point, it is a matter of familiar experience " that mere pressure on the skin will give rise to a corn " which seems to have a life of its own ; and that tumours are often developed in the body which acquire, as in the case of cancer, the power of multiplication and reproduction. In the case of vaccination, also, a minute par- ticle of matter is introduced under the skin. The result is a vesicle distended with vaccine matter " in quantity a hundred or a thou- sand-fold that which was originally inserted." Whence did it come ? Professor Huxley tells us that it has been proved that " the active element in the vaccine lymph is non-diffusible, and consists of minute particles not exceeding a o o o o of an inch in diameter, which are made visible in the lymph by the microscope. Similar experiments have proved that two of the most destructive of epizo- otic diseases, sheep-pox and glanders, are also dependent for their existence and their propagation upon extremely small living solid particles, to which the title of microzymes is applied." The ques- tion, he says, arises whether these particles are the result of Homogenesis, or of Xenogenesis, i. e., Are they produced by pi-e- existing living particles of the same kind ? or, Are they a modifi- cation of the tissues of the bodies in which they are found ? The decision of this question has proved to be a matter of vast practical importance. Some years since diseases attacked the grape-vine and the silk-worm in France, which threatened to destroy two of the most productive branches of industry in that country. The direct loss to France from the silk-worm disease alone, in the course of seventeen years, is estimated at two hundred and fifty millions of dollars. It was discovered that these diseases of the vine and worm, which were both infectious and contagious, were due to liv- ing organisms, by which they were propagated and extended. It
- Huxley's Address, as reported in the London Aihenaum, September 17, 1870, p. 376.
8 PART II. Ch. I.— ORIGIN OF MAN.
became a matter of the last importance to determine whether these living particles propagated themselves, or whether they were pro- duced by the morbid action of the plant or animal. M. Pasteur, the eminent naturalist, sent by the French government to investi- gate the matter, after laborious research decided that they were independent organisms propagating themselves and multiplying with astonishing rapidity. " Guided by that theory, he has devised a method of extirpating the disease, which has proved to be com- pletely successful wherever it has been properly carried out." ^ Professor Huxley closes his address by saying that he had invited his audience to follow him " in an attempt to trace the path which has been followed by a scientific idea, in its slow progress from the position of a probable hypothesis to that of an established law of nature." Biogenesis, then, according to Huxley, is an established law of nature.^
Professor Tyndall deals with this subject in his lecture delivered in September, 1870, on " The Scientific Uses of the Imagination." He says that the question concerning the origin of life is. Whether it is due to a creative fiat, ' Let life be ? ' or to a process of evolu- tion ? Was it potentially in matter from the beginning? or, Was it inserted at a later period ? However the convictions here or there may be influenced, he says, " the process must be slow which commends the hypothesis of natural evolution to the public mind. For what are the core and essence of this hypothesis ? Strip it naked, and you stand face to face with the notion that not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone the nobler forms of the horse and lion, not alone the
1 London Athenteum, September 17, 1870, p. 378. In view of the facts stated in the text. Professor Huxlej- asks, " How can we over-estimate the value of ihat knowledge of the nature of epidemic and epizootic diseases, and, consequently, of the means of checking or eradi- cating them, the dawn of which has assuredly commenced ? Looking back no further than ten years, it is possible to select three (1863, 1864, and 1869) in which the total number of deaths from scarlet fever alone amounted to ninety thousand. That is the return of
killed, the maimed and disabled being left out of sight The facts which I have
placed before you must leave the least sanguine without a doubt that the nature and causes of this scourge will one day be as well understood as those of the P«5brine (the silk-worm disease) are now ; and that the long-suffered massacre of our innocents will come to an end."
2 In quoting Professor Huxley as an authority on both sides of the question of spontane- ous generation, no injustice is done that distinguished naturalist. He wi-hes to believe that doctrine. His principles lead to that conclusion. But, as a question of scientific fact, he is constrained fo admit that all the evidence is against it. He, therefore, does not believe it, although he thinks it may be true. Hence Mr. Mivart says that Professors Huxley and Tyndall, while they dissent from Dr. Bastian's conclusions in favour of spontaneous genera- tion, ueverilu-less "agree with him in principle, though they limit the evolution of the organic world from the inorganic to a very remote period of the woijil's history." Genesis of Species, p. 266, note.
§2.] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 9
exquisite and wonderful mechanism of the human body, but that the human mind itself — emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena — were once latent in a fiery cloud. Surely the mere statement of such a notion is more than a refutation. I do not think that any holder of the evolution hypothesis would say that I overstate it or overstrain it in any way. I merely strip it of all vagueness, and bring before you, unclothed and unvarnished, the notions by which it must stand or fall. Surely these notions rep- resent an absurdity too monstrous to be entertained .by any sane mind." ^ Professor Tyndall, however, as well as Professor Hux- ley, is on both sides of this question. Materialism, with its doctrine of spontaneous generation, is thus monstrous and absurd, only on tlie assumption that matter is matter. If you only spiritualize matter until it becomes mind, the absurdity disappears. And so do materialism, and spontaneous generation, and the whole array of scientific doctrines. If matter becomes mind, mind is God, and God is everything. Thus the monster Pantlieism swallows up sci- ence and its votaries. We do not forget that the naturalist, after spending his life in studying matter, comes to the conclusion that *' matter is nothing," that the " Supreme Intelligence " is the universe.'-^ Thus it is that those who overstep the limits of human knowledge, or reject the control of primary truths, fall into the abyss of outer darkness.
The way Professor Tyndall puts the matter is this : ^ " These evolution notions are absurd, monstrous, and fit only for the intel- lectual gibbet in relation to the ideas concerning matter which were drilled into us when young. Spirit and matter have ever been presented to us in the rudest contrast ; the one as all-noble, the other as all-vile." If instead of these perverted ideas of mat- ter and spirit, we come " to regard them as equally worthy and equally wonderful ; to consider them, in fact, as two opposite faces of the same great mystery," as different elements, of " what
1 AthencBum, September 24. 1870, p. 409.
2 Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, pp. 363-368. Mr. Wallace thinks that " the highest fact of science, tlie nob'est truth of philosophy," may be found expressed in the following words of an American poetess : —
" God of the Granite and the Rose ! Soul of the Sparrow and tlie Bee ! The mighty tide of Being flows
Through countless channels. Lord, from thee. It leaps to life in grass and flowers.
Through every grade of being runs, While from Creation's radiant towers Its glory flames in Stars and Suns." 8 Athenceum, September 24, 1870, p. 409.
#
10 PART n. Cii. I. — ORIGIN OF MAN.
our mightiest spiritual teacher would call the Eternal Fact of the Universe," then the case would be different. It would no longer be absurd, as Professor Tyndall seems to think, for mind to be- come matter or matter mind, or for the phenomena of the one to be produced by the forces of the other. The real distinction, in fact, between them would be done away. " Without this total revolution," he says, " of the notions now prevalent, the evolution hypothesis must stand condemned ; but in many profoundly thought- ful minds such a revolution has already occurred." We have, then, the judgment of Professor Tyndall, one of the highest au- thorities in the scientific world, that if matter be what all the world believes it to be, materialism, spontaneous generation, and. evolution, or development, are absurdities " too monstrous to be entertained by any sane mind."
We can cite his high authority as to another point. Suppose we give up everything ; admit that there is no real distinction between matter and mind ; that all the phenomena of the universe, vital and mental included, may be referred to physical causes ; that a free or spontaneous act is an absurdity ; that there can be no intervention of a controlling mind or will in the affairs of men, no personal existence of man after death, — suppose we thus give up our morals and religion, all that ennobles man and dignifies his existence, Avhat do we gain ? According to Professor Tyndall, nothing.^ "The evolution hypothesis," he tells us, "does not solve — it does not profess to solve — the ultimate mystery of this universe. It leaves that mystery untouched. At bottom, it does nothing more than ' transpose the conception of life's origin to an indefinitely distant past.' Even granting the nebula and its potential life, the question, ' Whence came they ? ' would still remain to baffle and bewilder us." If we must admit the agency of will, " caprice," as Professor Tyndall calls it, billions of ages in the past, why should it be unphilosophical to admit it now ?
It is very evident, therefore, that the admission of the primary truths of the reason — truths which, in point of fact, all men do admit — truths which concern even our sense perceptions, and involve the objective existence of the material world, necessitates the admission of mind, of God, of providence, and of immortality. Professor Tyndall being judge, materialism, spontaneous generation, the evolution of life, thought, feeling, and conscience out of matter, are absurdities " too monstrous to be entertained by any sane mind," unless matter be spiritualized into mind, — and then everything is God, and God is evervthino-.
1 The London Athenceum, September 24, 1870, pp. 407-409.
§ 2] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 11
Theories of Development.
Lamarck.
Lamarck, a distinguished French naturalist, was the first of modern scientific men who adopted the theory that all vegetables and animals living on the earth, including man, are developed from certain original, simple germs. This doctrine was expounded in his " Zoologie Philosophique," published in 1809. Lamarck admitted the existence of God, to whom he referred the existence of the matter of which the universe is composed. But God having cre- ated matter with its properties, does nothing more. Life, organ- isms, and mind are all the product of unintelligent matter and its forces. All living matter is composed of cellular tissue^ consisting of the aggregation of minute cells. These cells are not living in themselves, but are quickened into life by some ethereal fluid per- vading space, such as heat and electricity. Life, therefore, accord- ing to this theory, originates in spontaneous generation.
Life, living cells or tissues, having thus originated, all the diver- sified forms of the vegetable and animal kingdoms have been pro- duced by the operation of natural causes; the higher, even the highest, being formed from the lowest by a long-continued pro- cess of development.
The principles of Lamarck's theory " are involved in the three following propositions : —
" 1. That any considerable and permanent change in the circum- stances in which a race of animals is placed, superinduces in them a real change in their wants and requirements.
" 2. That this change in their wants necessitates new actions on their part to satisfy those wants, and that finally new habits are thus engendered.
" 3. That these new actions and habits necessitate a greater and more frequent use of particular organs already existing, which thus become strengthened and improved ; or the development of new organs when new wants require them ; or the neglect of the use of old organs, which may thus gradually decrease and finally dis- appear." ^
Vestiges of Creation.
Some thirty years since a work appeared anonymously, entitled " The Vestiges of Creation," in which the theory of Lamarck in its essential features was reproduced. The writer agreed with his
1 William Hopkins, F. R. S. Eraser's Magazine, June, 1860, p. 751.
12 PART II. Ch. I. — origin OF MAN.
predecessor in admitting an original creation of matter ; in referring the origin of life to physical causes ; and in deriving all the genera, species, and varieties of plants and animals by a process of natural development from a common source. These writers differ in the way in which they carry out their common views and as to the grounds which they urge in their support.
The author of the " Vestiges of Creation " assumes the truth of the nebular hypothesis, and argues from analogy tliat as the complicated and ordered systems of the heavenly bodies are the result of physical laws acting on the original matter pervading space, it is reasonable to infer that the different orders of plants and animals have arisen in the same way. He refers to the grada- tion observ^ed in the vegetable and animal kingdoms ; the simpler everywhere preceding the more complex, and the unity of plan being preserved throughout. He lays great stress also on the foetal development of the higher orders of animals. The human foetus, for example, assuming in succession the peculiarities of structure of the reptile, of the fish, of the bird, and of man. This is supposed to prove that man is only a more perfectly developed reptile ; and that the orders of animals differ simply as to the stage they occupy in this unfolding series of life. As the same larva of the bee can be developed into a queen, a drone, or a worker, so the same living cell can be developed into a reptile, a fish, a bird, or a man. There are, however, the author admits, interruptions in the scale ; species suddenlv appearing without due preparation. This he illustrates by a reference to the calculating machine, which for a million of times will produce numbers in regular series, and then for once produce a number of a different order ; thus the law of species that like shall beget like may hold good for an indefinite period, and then sud- denly a new species be begotten. These theories and their authors have fallen into utter disrepute among scientific men, and have no other than a slight historical interest.
Darwin. The new theory on this subject proposed by Mr. Charles Darwin, has, for the time being, a stronger hold on the public mind. He stands in the first rank of naturalists, and is on all sides respected not only for his knowledge and his skill in observation and descrip- tion, but for his frankness and fairness. His theory, however, is substantially the same with those already mentioned, inasmuch as he also accounts for the origin of all the varieties of plants and animals by the gradual operation of natural causes. In his work
§2.] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 13
on the " Origin of Species " he says : " I believe that animals are descended from at most only four or five progenitors ; and plants from an equal or lesser number." On the same page,i however, he goes much further, and says : " Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype ; " and he adds that " all the organic beings, which have ever lived on this earth, may be de- scended from some one primordial form." ^ The point of most importance in which Darwin differs from his predecessors is, that he starts with life, they with dead matter. They undertake to account for the origin of life by physical causes ; whereas he assumes the existence of living cells or germs. He does not go into the question of their origin. He assumes them to exist; which Avould seem of necessity to involve the assumption of a Creator. The second important point of difference between the theories in ques- tion is, that those before mentioned account for the diversity of species by the inward power of development, a vis a tergo as it were, i. e., a struggle after improvement ; whereas Darwin refers the origin of species mainly to the laws of nature operating ah extra^ killing off the weak or less perfect, and preserving the stronger or more perfect. The third point of difference, so far as the author of the " Vestiges of Creation " is conceimed, is that the latter supposes new species to be formed suddenly; whereas Dar- win holds that they arise by a slow process of very minute changes. They all agree, however, in the main point that all the infinite diversities and marvellous organisms of plants and animals, from the lowest to the highest, are due to the operation of unintelligent physical causes.
The Darwinian theory, therefore, includes the following princi- ples : —
First, that like begets like ; or the law of heredity, according to which throughout the vegetable and animal world, the offspring is like the parent.
Second, the law of variation ; that is, that while in all that is essential the offspring is like the parent, it always differs more or less from its progenitor. These variations are sometimes deterio- rations, sometimes indifferent, sometimes improvements ; that is, such as enable the plant or animal more advantageously to exercise its functions.
1 The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, by Charles Darwin, M. A., F. R. S., etc., fifth edition (tenth thousand). London, 1869, p. 572.
2 Ibid. p. 573.
14 PART II. Ch. I.— origin OF MAN.
Third, that as phmts and animals increase in a geometrical ratio, they tend to outrun enormously the means of support, and this of necessity gives rise to a continued and universal struggle for life.
Fourth, in this struggle the fittest survive ; that is, those indi- viduals which have an accidental variation of structure which renders them superior to their fellows in the struggle for existence, survive, and transmit that peculiarity to their offspring. This is " natural selection ; " i. e., nature, without intelligence or purpose, selects the individuals best adapted to continue and to improve the race. It is by the operation of these few principles that in the course of countless ages all the diversified forms of vegetables and animals have been produced.
" It is interesting," says Darwin, " to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with bii'ds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elab- orately constructed forms, so different from each other, and depend- ent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction ; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction ; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse ; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a con- sequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows." ^
Remarks on the Darwinian Theory/,
First, it shocks the common sense of unsophisticated men to be told that the whale and the humming-bird, man and the mosquito, ai'e derived from the same source. Not that the whale was devel- oped out of the humming-bird, or man out of the musquito, but that both are derived by a slow process of variations continued through countless millions of years. Such is the theory with its scientific feathers plucked off; No wonder that at its first promul- gation it was received by thefscientific world, not only with surprise, but also with indignation.^ The theory has, indeed, survived this
1 Or!i/in of Species, p. 579.
2 See Proceedings of the Literary ami Phihsophical Socieli/ of Liverpool during the Fifti- eth Session, 1860-61. This volume contains a paper on Darwin's tiieory b}' tlie president
l6^^\r /
§2.J ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 15
attack. Its essential harmony with the spirit of the age, the real learning^ of its author and advocates, have secured for it an influ- ence which is widespread, and, for the time, imposing.
A second remark is that the theory in question cannot be true, because it is founded on the assumption of an impossibility. It assumes that matter does the work of mind. This is an impossi- bility and an absurdity in the judgment of all men except material- ists ; and materialists are, ever have been, and ever must be, a mere handful among men, whether educated or uneducated. The doctrine of Darwin is, that a primordial germ, with no inlierent intelligence, develops, under purely natural influences, into all the infinite variety of vegetable and animal organisms, with all their complicated relations to each other and to the world around them. He not only asserts that all this is due to natural causes ; and, moreover, that the lower impulses of vegetable life pass, by insen- sible gradations, into the instinct of animals and the higher intelli- gence of man, but he argues against the intervention of mind any- where in the process. God, says Lamarck, created matter ; God, says Darwin, created the unintelligent living cell ; both say that, after that first step, all else follows by natural law. without purpose and without design. No man can believe this, who cannot also believe that all the works of art, literature, and science in the world are the products of carbonic acid, water, and ammonia.
The Atheistic Character of the Theory.
Thirdly, the system is thoroughly atheistic, and therefore cannot possibly stand. God has revealed his existence and his government of the world so clearly and so authoritatively, that any philosophi- cal or scientific speculations inconsistent with those truths are like cobwebs in the track of a tornado. They offer no sensible resist- ance. The mere naturalist, the man devoted so exclusively to the
of the society, the Rev.i H. H. Higgins, in which he says that he considered the paper of M. Agassiz, inserted in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, against Darwin, "to be quite unworthy of so distinguished a naturalist " (p. 42). On a subsequent page he gives a selection from Agassiz's disparaging remarits. The same volume contains a paper from Dr. Collingwood in defence of Agas-iz and his criticism. In the review of the argument he savs he will pass over Agassiz's "caustic remarks upon the confusion of ideas implied in the general term, variability of specieg,'' and also "his categiirical contradictions of manv of Darwin's fundamental statements ; but never was a tlieory more sorel}' beset than is that of Darwin by the repeated asstuilts of such a giant in palaeontology as Agassiz. Statement after statement, by which the whole theory hangs together, is assailed and impugned, — stone after stone of the Darwinian structure trembles before the battering-ram of the champion of species. Out of twelve such reiterated attacks, ten of which are purely palseontological, and stand unchallenged, onlj' one has called for remarks, and th |t one, perhaps, the least important" (p. 87). Agassiz is not a theologian; he opposes the theory as a scientific man and on scientific grounds.
16 PART n. Ch. l — origin of man.
study of nature as to believe in nothing but natural causes, is not able to understand the strength with which moral and religious convictions take hold of the minds of men. These convictions, however, are the strongest, the most ennobling, and the most dangerous for any class of men to disregard or ignore.
In saying that this system is atheistic, it is not said that Mr. Darwin is an atheist. He expressly acknowledges the existence of God ; and seems to feel the necessity of his existence to account for the origin of life. Nor is it meant that every one who adopts the theory does it in an atheistic sense. It has already been remarked that there is a theistic and an atheistic form of the nebu- lar liypothesis as to the origin of the universe ; so there may be a theistic interpretation of the Darwinian theory. Men who, as the Duke of Argyle, carry the reign of law into everything, affirming that even creation is by law, may hold, as he does, that God uses everywhere and constantly physical laws, to produce not only the ordinary operations of nature, but to give rise to things specifically new, and therefore to new species in the vegetable and animal worlds. Such species would thus be as truly due to the purpose and power of God as though they had been created by a word. Natural laws are said to be to God what the chisel and the brush are to the artist. Then God is as much the author of species as the sculptor or painter is the author of the product of his skill. This is a theistic doctrine. That, however, is not Darwin's doc- trine. His theory is that hundreds or thousands of millions of years ago God called a living germ, or living germs, into existence, and that since that time God has no more to do with the universe than if He did not exist. This is atheism to all intents and pur- poses, because it leaves the soul as entirely without God, without a Father, Helper, or Ruler, as the doctrine of Epicurus or of Comte. Darwin, moreover, obliterates all the evidences of the being of God in the world. He refers to physical causes what all theists believe to be due to the operations of the Divine mind. There is no more effectual way of getting rid of a truth than by rejecting the proofs on which it rests. Professor Huxley says that when he first read Darwin's book he regarded it as the death-blow of teleology, ^. e., of the doctrine of design and purpose in nature.^ Biichner, to whom
1 Criticismg on " The Origin of Species;" in Ms Lay Sermons and Addresses, p. 330. •' The teleological argument," he says, " runs thus: An organ or organism is precisely fitted to perform a function or purpose ; therefore it was specially constructed to perform that function. In Paley's famous illustration, the adaptation of all the parts of the watch to the function, or purpose, of showing the time, is held to be evidence that the watch was specially contrived to that end ; on the ground that the only cause we know of, competent to produce such an
§2.] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 17
the atheistical character of a book is a recommendation, says tliat Darwin's " theory is the most thoroughly naturalistic that can be imagined, and far more atheistic than that of his despised {verrn- feneri) predecessor Lamarck, who admitted at least a general law of progress and development ; whereas, according to Darwin, the whole development is due to the gradual summation of innumerable minute and accidental natural operations." ^
Mr. Darwin argues against any divine intervention in the course of nature, and especially in the production of species. He says that the time is coming when the doctrine of special creation, that is, the doctrine that God made the plants and animals each after its kind, will be regarded as " a curious illustration of the blindness of pre- conceived opinion. These authors," he adds, " seem no more startled at a miraculous act of creation than at an ordinary birth. But do they really believe that at innumerable periods in the earth's history certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues?" [This is precisely what Darwin pro- fesses to believe happened at the beginning. If it happened once, it is not absurd that it should happen often.] " Do they believe that at each supposed act of creation one individual or many were produced ? Were all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created as eggs or seed, or as full grown ? And in the case of mammals, were they created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's womb ? " ^
Mr. Wallace devotes the eighth chapter of his work. on " Natural Selection " ^ to answering the objections urged by the Duke of Argyle to the Darwinian theory. He says, " The point on which the Duke lays most stress, is, that proofs of mind everywhere meet us in nature, and are more especially manifest wherever we find 'contrivance' or 'beauty.' He maintains that this indicates the constant supervision and direct interference of the Creator, and cannot possibly be explained by the unassisted action of any combi-
efftct as a watch which shall keep time, is a contris'ing intelligence adapting the means directh' to that end." Suppose, however, he goes on to say, it could be shown that the watch was the product of a structure which kept time poorh'; and that of a structure which was no watch at all, and that of a mere revolving barrel, then " the force of Paley's argu- ment would be gone; " and it would be " demonstrated that an apparatus thoroughly well adapted to a particular purpose might be the result of a method of trial and error worked by unintelligent agents, as well as of the direct application of the means appropriate to that end, by an intelligent agent." This is precisely what he understands Darwin to have accomplished.
1 Seeks Vovlesvngen iiber die Darwin'sche Theorie, etc., by Ludwig Biichner, Zweite Auflage, Leipzig, 1868, p. 125.
2 Origin of Species, p. 571.
^ Wallace cm Natural Selection, p. 264. VOL. II. 2
18 PART II. Ch. L — origin OF MAN.
nation of laws. Now Mr. Darwin's work has for its main object, to show, that all the phenomena of living things — all their won- derful organs and complicated structures ; their infinite variety of form, size, and colour ; their intricate and involved relations to each other, — may have been produced by the action of a few general laws of the simplest kind, — laws which are in most cases mere statements of admitted facts." ^ In opposition to the doctrine that God " applies general laws to produce effects which those laws are not in themselves capable of producing," he says, " I believe, on the contrary, that the universe is so constituted as to be self-regu- lating ; that as long as it contains life, the forms under which that life is manifested have an inherent power of adjustment to each other and to surrounding nature ; and that this adjustment neces- sarily leads to the greatest amount of variety and beauty and enjoyment, because it does depend on general laws, and not on a continual supervision and rearrangement of details." ^
Dr. Gray^ endeavours to vindicate Darwin's theory from the charge of atheism. His arguments, howev^er, only go to prove that the doctrine of development, or derivation of species, may be held in a form consistent with theism. This no one denies. They do not prove that Mr. Darwin presents it in that form. Dr. Gray himself admits all that those who regard the Darwinian theory as atheistic contend for.* He says, " The proposition that things and events in nature were not designed to be so, if logically carried out, is doubtless tantamount to atheism." Again,^ he says, " To us, a fortuitous Cosmos is simply inconceivable. The alternative
is a designed Cosmos If Mr. Darwin believes that the
events which he supposes to have occurred and the results we
1 Wallace on Naiui-al Selection, p. 265. When a man speaks of the "action of law," he must mean by law a permanent, regularly acting force. Yet the laws to which Mr. Wallace refers in the above passage are not forces, but simply rules according to which an agent acts, or, a regHlar, established sequence of events. The laws intended are the law of multi- plication in geometrical progression, the law of limited populations, the law of heredity, the law of variation, the law of unceasing change of physical conditions upon the surftice of the earth, the equilibrium or harmony of nature. There is no objection to these being called laws. But there is the strongest objection to using the word law in different senses in the same argument. If law here mean the rule according to which an agent (in this case God) acts, the Duke of Argyle could agree with eveiy word Mr. Wallace says; if taken in the sense intended by the writer, the passage teaches the direct reverse, namely, that all the world is or contains is due to unintelligent physical forces.
2 Ibid, p 2G8. Mr. Russel Wallace says that he believes that all the wonders of animal and vegetable organisms and life can be accounted for by unintelligent, physical laws. The fact, however, is, as we have already seen, that he believes no such thing. He does not believe that there is any such thing as matter or unintelligent forces; all force is mind force; and the only power operative in the universe is the will of the Supreme Intelligence.
In the October number of the Atlantic Monthly for 1860. * On page 409. 6 On page 416.
§2.] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 19
behold were undirected and undesigned, or if the physicist believes that the natural forces to which he refers phenomena are uncaused and undirected, no argument is needed to show that such belief is atheistic." No argnment, after what has been said above, can be needed to show that Mr. Darwin does teach that natural causes are " undirected," and that they act without design or reference to an end. This is not only explicitly and repeatedly asserted, but argued for, and the opposite view ridiculed and rejected. His book was hailed as the death-blow of teleology.^ Darwin, therefore, does teach precisely what Dr. Gray pronounces atheism. A man, it seems, may believe in God, and yet teach atheism.
The anti-theistic and materialistic character of this theory is still further shown by what Mr. Darwin says of our mental powers. " In the distant future," he says, " I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new founda- tion, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history." ^ Of this prediction he has himself attempted the verification in his recent work on the " Descent of Man," in which he endeavours to prove that man is a developed ape. The Bible says : Man Avas created in the image of God.
It is a mere Hypothesis.
A fourth remark on this theory is that it is a 'mere hypothesis, from its nature incapable of proof. It may take its place beside the nebular hypothesis as an ingenious method of explaining many of the phenomena of nature. We see around us, in the case of domestic animals, numerous varieties produced by the operations of natural causes. In the vegetable world this diversity is still greater. Mr. Darwin's theory would account for all these facts. It accounts, moreover, for the unity of plan on which all animals of the same class or order are constructed ; for the undeveloped organs found rudimentally in almost all classes of living creatures ; for the different forms through which the embryo passes before it reaches maturity. These and many other phenomena may be accounted for on the assumption of the derivation of species. Admitting all this and much more, this does not amount to a proof of the hypoth- esis. These facts can be accounted for in other ways ; while there are, as Darwin himself admits, many facts for which his theory will
1 Three articles in the July, August, and October numbers oH\\^ Atlantic Monthly for the year 1860 were reprinted with the name of Dr. Asa Gray as their author.
2 Origin of Species, p. 577.
20 PART II. Ch. I — origin OF MAN.
not account. Let it be borne in mind what the theory is. It is not that all the species of any extant genus of plants or animals have been derived from a common stock; that all genera and classes of orf^anized beings now living have been thus derived ; but that all organisms from the earliest geological periods have, by a process requiring some ^ve hundred million years, been derived from one primordial germ.^ Nor is this all. It is not only that material organisms have thus been derived by a process of grada- tion, but also that instincts, mental and moral powers, have been derived and attained by the same process. Nor is even this all. We are called upon to believe that all this has been brought about by the action of unintelligent physical causes. To our apprehen- sion, there is nothing in the Hindu mythology and cosmology more incredible than this.
It is hazarding little to say that such a hypothesis as this cannot be proved. Indeed its advocates do not pretend to give proof. Mr. Wallace, as we have seen, says, " Mr. Darwin's work has for its main object, to show that all the phenomena of living things, — all their wonderful organs and complicated structures, their infinite variety of form, size, and colour, their intricate and involved rela- tions to each other, — may have been produced by the action of a few general laws of the simplest kind." Mai/ have been. There is no pretence that this account of the origin of species can be dem- onstrated. All that is claimed is that it is a possible solution. Christians must be very timid to be frightened by a mere " mat/ have been.^''
Mr. Huxley says, " After much consideration, and with assuredly no bias against Mr. Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction that, as the evidence stands, it is not absolutely proven that a group of animals, having all the characters exhibited by species in Nature,
1 Sir William Thompson, of Englanri, had objected to the theory that, according to his calculations, the sun cannot have existed in a solid state longer than five hundred millions of years. To this Mr. Wallace replies, that that period, he thinks long enough to satisfj' the demands of the hypothesis. Mr. .J. .J. Jlurphj^ however, is of a contrary opinion. He says that it is probable that it required at least five hundred years to produce a grej'hound — Mr. Darwin's ideal of symmetry — out of the original wolf-like dog, and that certainh* it would require more than a million times longer period to produce an elephant out of a Protozoon, or even a tadpole. Besides, Sir William Thompson allows in fact only one. and not ^^ce, hundred millions of years for the existence of our earth, in the Trnnsactions of Geological Society of Glasgow, vol. iii., he says: "When, finally, we consider under-ground tempera- ture, we find ourselves driven to the conclusion tjiat the existing state of things on the earth, life on the earth, all geological history showing continuity of life, must be limited within some such period of past lime as cm hundred million years." See Habit and Intelli- gence, by J. J. Murphy, London, 1869, vol. i. p. 3i9.
§ 2.] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 21
has ever been originated by selection, whether artificial or nat- ural." 1
In " Fraser's Magazine " for June and July, 1860, are two papers on the Darwinian theory, written by William Hopkins, F. R. S. In the number for July it is said, " If we allow full weight to all our author's arguments in his chapter on hybridism, we only arrive at the conclusion that natural selection may possibly have produced changes of organization, which may have superinduced the sterility of species ; and that, therefore, the above proposition may be true, though not a single positive fact be adduced in proof of it. And it must be recollected that this is no proposition of secondary importance — a mere turret, as it were, in our author's theoretical fabric, — but the chief corner-stone which supports it. We confess that all the respect which we entertain for the author of these views, has inspired us with no corresponding feeling to- wards this may he philosophy, which is content to substitute the merely possible for the probable, and which, ignoring the responsi- bility of any approximation to rigorous demonstration in the establishment of its own theories, complacently assumes them to be right till they are rigorously proved to be wrong. When New- ton, in former times, put forth his theory of gravitation he did not call on philosophers to believe it, or else to show that it was wrong, but felt it incumbent on himself to prove that it was right." ^
Mr. Hopkins' review was written before Mr. Darwin had fully expressed his views as to the origin of man. He says, the great difficulty in any theory of development is " the transition in pass- ing up to man from the animals next beneath him, not to man con- sidered merely as a physical organism, but to man as an intellectual and moral being. Lamarck and the author of the ' Vestio;es ' have not hesitated to expose themselves to a charge of gross materialism in deriving mind from matter, and in making all its properties and operations depend on our physical organization. .... We believe that man has an immortal soul, and that the beasts of the field have not. If any one deny this, we can have no common ground of argument with him. Now we would ask, at what point of his progressive improvement ditl man acquire this spiritual part of his being, endowed with the awful attribute of
1 Lay Sermons and Re.vieics, p. 323. It is admitted that varieties innumerable have been produced by natural causes, but Professor Huxley says it has not been proved that any one species has ever been thus formed. A fortiori, therefore, it has not been proved that all genera and species, with all their attributes of instinct and intelligence have been thus formed.
2 Frazer^s Magazine, July, 1860, p. 80.
22 PART n. ch. I — origin of man.
immortality ? Was it an ' accidental variety,' seized upon by the power of 'natural selection,' and made permanent? Is the step from the finite to the infinite to be regarded as one of the indefi- nitely small steps in man's continuous progress of development, and effected by the operation of ordinary natural causes ? " ^
The point now in liand, however, is tliat Mr. Darwin's theory is incapable of proof. From the nature of the case, what concerns the origin of things cannot be known except by a supernatural revelation. All else must be speculation and conjecture. And no man under the guidance of reason will renounce the teachings of a well-authenticated revelation, in obedience to human specula- tion, however ingenious. The uncertainty attending all philosoph- ical or scientific theories as to the origin of things, is sufficiently apparent from their number and inconsistencies. Science as soon as she gets past the actual and the extant, is in the region of spec- ulation, and is merged into philosophy, and is subject to all its hal- lucinations.
Theories of the Universe.
Thus we have, —
1. The purely atheistic theory ; which assumes that matter has existed forever, and that all the universe contains and reveals is due to material forces.
2. The theory which admits the creation of matter, but denies any further intervention of God in the world, and refers the origin of life to physical causes. This was the doctrine of Lamarck, and of the author of the '* Vestiges of Creation," and is the theory to which Professor Huxley, notwithstanding his denial of spontaneous generation in the existing state of things, seems strongly inclined. In his address as President of the British Association for the Pro- motion of Science, delivered in September, 1870, he said: "Look- ing back through the prodigious vista of the past, I find no record of the commencement of life, and therefore I am devoid of any means of forming a definite conclusion as to the conditions of its appearance. Belief, in the scientific sense of the word, is a serious matter, and needs strong foundations. To say, therefore, in the admitted absence of evidence, that I have any belief as to the mode in which the existing forms of life have originated, would be using words in a wrong sense. But expectation is permissible, where belief is not ; and if it were given me to look beyond the abyss of genealogically recorded time to the still more remote period when the earth was passing through physical and chemical conditions,
1 Frazer's Magazine, July, 1860, p. 88.
§ 2] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 23
which it can no more see again than a man may recall his infancy, * I should expect t6 be a witness of the evolution of living pi'otoplasm from not living matter. I should expect to see it appear under forms of great simplicity, endowed, like existing fungi, with the power of determining the formation of new protoplasm from such matters as ammonium cai'bonates, oxalates and tai'trates, alkaline and earthy phosphates, and water, without the aid of light." ^ It had been well for the cause of truth, and well for hundreds who have been per- verted by his writings, if Mr. Darwin had recognized this distinc- tion between "scientific belief" needing "strong foundations," and " expectation " founded, as Professor Huxley says in a following sentence, "on analogical reasoning." In the paper already quoted in " Fraser's Magazine," the writer says in reference to Darwin : " We would also further remind him that the philosophical natu- ralist must not only train the eye to observe accurately, but the mind to think logically ; and the latter will often be found the harder task of the two. With respect to all but the exact sci- ences, it may be said that the highest mental faculty which they call upon us to exert is that by which we separate and appreciate justly the possible, the probable^ and the demonstrable.^^ ^
Darwin.
3. The third speculative view is that of Mr. Darwin and his associates, who admit not only the creation of matter, but of living matter, in the form of one or a few primordial germs fi'om which without any purpose or design, by the slow operation of unintelli- gent natural causes, and accidental variations, during untold ages, all the orders, classes, genera, species, and varieties of plants and animals, from the lowest to the highest, man included, have been formed. Teleology, and therefore, mind, or God, is expressly ban- ished from the world. In arguino; against the idea of God's con- trolling with design the operation of second causes. Mi'. Dar- win asks, " Did He ordain that the crop and tail-feathers of the pigeon should vary, in order that the fancier might make his grotesque pouter and fan-tail breeds ? Did He cause the frame and mental qualities of the dog to vary in order that a breed might be formed of indomitable ferocity, with jaws fitted to pin down the bull for man's brutal sport ? But, if we give up the principle in one case, — if we do not admit that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally guided, in order that the greyhound, for in- stance, that perfect image of symmetry and vigour, might be formed,
1 Athenaeum, London, September 17, 18T0, p. 376. 2 Juiy^ iggo, p. 90.
24 PART n. Ch. I. — ORIGIN OF MAN.
no shadow of reason can be assigned for the behef that variations,
ahke in nature and the resuh of the same general laws, which have been the oroundwork through natural selection of the formation of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were intentionally and specially guided. However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief ' that vari- ation has been led along certain beneficial lines,' like a stream ' along definite and useful lines of irrigation.' " ^ In this paragraph man is declared to be an unintended product of nature.
J. J. Murphy.
4. Others ao-ain, unable to believe that unintelligent causes can produce effects indicating foresight and design, insist that there must be intelligence engaged in the production of such effects, but they place this intelligence in nature and not in God. This, as remarked above, is a revival of the old idea of a Demiurgus or Anima mundi. Mr. J. J. Murphy, in his work on " Habit and Intelligence," says, I believe " that there is something in organic progress which mere natural selection among spontaneous varia- tions will not account for. Finally, I believe this something is that orfn-anizins: intelligence which guides the action of the inorganic forces and forms structures which neither natural selection nor any other unintelligent agency could form." ^ What he means by intelHgence and where it resides we learn from the preface to the first volume of his book. "The word intelligence," he says, " scarcely needs definition, as I use it in its familiar sense. It will not be questioned by any one that intelligence is found in none but living beings ; but it is not so obvious tliat intelligence is an attri- bute of all livino; beings, and coextensive with life itself. When I speak of intelligence, however, I mean not only the conscious in- telligence of the mind, but also the organizing intelligence which adapts the eye for seeing, the ear for hearing, and every other part of an organism for its work. The usual belief is, that the organ- izing intelligence and the mental intelligence are two distinct intel- ligences. I have stated the reasons for my belief that they are not distinct, but are two separate manifestations of the same intelli- gence, which is coextensive witli life, though it is for the most part unconscious, and only becomes conscious of itself in the brain of man." ^
1 The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, edit. New York, 1868, vol. ii. pp. 515, 516.
2 Habit and JnleUigence, in their connection with the Laws of Matter and Force. A iseries of Scientific Essays. By Joseph John Murphy. London, 1869, vol. i. pi 348.
8 Ibid. vol. i. p. vi.
§2.] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 25
Owen.
5. Professor Owen, England's great naturalist, agrees with Dar- win in two points : first, in the derivation or gradual evolution of species ; and secondly, that this derivation is determined by the operation of natural causes. " I have been led," he says, " to recog- nize species as exemplifying the continuous operation of natural law, or secondary cause ; and that, not only successively, but pro- gressively ; from the first embodiment of the vertebrate idea under its old ichthyic vestment until it became arrayed in the glorious garb of the human form." ^ He differs from Darwin in that he does not refer the origin of species to natural selection, i. e., to the law of the survival of the fittest of accidental variations ; but to inherent or innate tendencies. " Every species changes, in time, by virtue of inherent tendencies thereto." ^ And in the second place he does not regard these changes as accidental variations, but as designed and carried out in virtue of an original plan. " Species owe as little," he says ^ " to the accidental concurrence of environ- ing circumstances as Kosmos depends on a fortuitous concourse of atoms. A purposive route of development and change, of cor- relation and interdependence, manifesting intelligent will, is as determinable in the succession of races as in the development and organization of the individual. Generations do not vary acciden- tally, in any and every direction ; but in preordained, definite, and correlated courses." *
The Iteign of Laiv Theory.
6. Still another view is that which demands intelligence to ac- count for the wonders of organic life, and finds that intelligence in God, but repudiates the idea of the supernatural. That is, it does not admit that God ever works except through second causes or by the laws of nature. Those who adopt this view are willing to ad- mit the derivation of species ; and to concede that extant species were formed by the modifications of those which preceded them ; but maintain that they were thus formed according to the purpose, and by the continued agency, of God ; an agency ever operative in guiding the operation of natural laws so that they accomplish the designs of God. The difference between this and Professor Owen's theory is, that he does not seem to admit of this continued
1 American Journal of Science, 1869, p. 43.
2 Ibid. p. 52. 3 Ibid. p. 52.
* See Prof. Owen's work on the Anatomy of Vertebrates, the fortieth chapter, which chapter was reprinted in the American Journal of Science for January 1869.
26 PART I. Ch. L — origin OF MAN.
intelligent control of God in nature, but refers everything to the original, preordaining purpose or plan of the Divine Being.
7. Filially, without pretending to exhaust the speculations on this subject, we have what may be called the commonly received and Scriptural doctrine. That doctrine teaches, — (1.) That the uni- verse and all it contains owe their existence to the will and power of God ; that matter is not eternal, nor is life self-originating. (2.) God endowed matter with properties or forces, which He up- holds, and in accordance with which He works in all the ordinary operations of his providence. That is. He uses them everywhere and constantly, as we use them in our narrow sphere. (3.) That in the beoinnins: He created, or caused to be, every distinct kind of plant and animal : " And God said. Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth : and it was so." " And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind : and it was so." This is the Scriptural account of the origin of species. According to this account each species was specially created, not ex nihilo, nor without the intervention of secondaiy causes, but nevertheless originally, or not derived, evolved, or developed from preexisting species. These distinct species, or kinds of plants and animals thus separately originated, are permanent. They never pass from one into the other. It is, however, to be remembered that species are of two kinds, as naturalists distinguish them, namely, natural and artificial. The former are those whicli have their foundation in nature ; which had a distinct origin, and are capable of indefinite propagation. The latter are such distinc- tions as naturalists have made for their own convenience. Of course, it is not intended that every one of the so-called species of plants and animals is original and permanent, when the only dis- tinction between one species and another may be the accidental shape of a leaf or colour of a feather. It is only of such species as have their foundation in nature that originality and permanence are asserted. Artificial species, as they are called, are simply vari- eties. Fertility of offspring is the recognized criterion of sameness of species. If what has been just said be granted, then, if at any time since the original creation, new species have appeared on the earth, they owe their existence to the immediate intervention of God.
Here then are at least seven different views as to the origin of species. How is it possible for science to. decide between them ?
§2.] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 2i
Science has to do with the facts and laws of nature. But here the question concerns the origin of such facts. " Here," says Dr. Gray, " proofs, in the proper sense of the word, are not to be had. We are beyond the region of demonstration, and have only proba- bilities to consider." ^ Christians have a right to protest against the arraying of probabilities against the clear teachings of Scrip- ture. It is not easy to estimate the evil that is done by eminent men throwing tiie weight of their authority on the side of unbelief, influenced by a mere balance of probabilities in one department, to the neglect of the most convincing proofs of a different kind. They treat, for example, the question of the unity of the human race, exclusively as a zoological question, and ignore the testimony of history, of language, and of Scripture. Thus they often decide against the Bible on evidence that would not determine an intelli- gent jury in a suit for twenty shillings.
Admitted Difficulties in the Way of the Darwinian Theory.
One of the great excellences of Mr. Darwin is his candor. He acknowledges that there are grave objections against the doctrine which he endeavours to establish. He admits that if one species is derived by slow gradations from another, it would be natural to expect the intermediate steps, or connecting links, to be every- where visible. But he acknowledges that such are not to be found, that during the whole of the historical period, species have re- mained unchanged. They are now precisely what they were thousands of years ago. There is not the slightest indication of any one passing into another ; or of a lower advancing towards a higher. This is admitted. The only answer to the difficulty thus presented is, that the change of species is so slow a process that no indications can be reasonably expected in the few thou- sand years embraced within the limits of history. When it is fur- ther objected that geology presents the same difficulty, that the genera and species of fossil animals are just as distinct as those now living ; that new species appear at certain epochs entirely dif- ferent from those which preceded ; that the most perfect specimens of these species often appear at the beginning of a geologic period and not toward its close ; the answer is that the records of geology are too imperfect, to give us full knowledge on this subject : that innumerable intermediate and transitional forms may have passed away and left no trace of their existence. All this amounts to an
1 Atlantic Monthly, August, 1860, p. 230.
28 PART II. Ch. I. — ORIGIN OF MAN.
admission that all history and all geology are against the theory ; that they not only do not furnish any facts in its support, but that they do furnish facts which, so far as our knowledge extends, con- tradict it. In reference to tiiese objections from geology, Mr. Dar- win says, " I can answer these questions and objections only on the supposition that the geological record is far more imperfect than most geologists believe. The number of specimens in all our museums is absolutely as nothing compared with the countless gen- erations of countless species which have certainly existed." ^ Nev- ertheless the record, as far as it goes, is against the theory.
With regard to the more serious objection that the theory assumes that matter does the work of mind, that design is accomplished without any designer, Mv. Darwin is equally candid. " Nothing at first," he says, " can appear more difficult to believe than that the more complex organs and instincts have been perfected, not by means superior to, though analogous with, human reason, but by the accumulation of innumerable slight variations, each good for the individual possessor. Nevertheless, this difficult}'', though appearing to our imagination insuperably great, cannot be considered real, if we admit the following propositions, namely, that all parts of the organization and instincts offer at least individual differences, — that there is a struggle for existence leading to the preservation of profitable deviations of structure or instinct, — and, lastly, that gradations in the state of perfection of each oi'gan may have existed, each good of its kind." ^
Again, he says, " Although the belief that an organ so perfect as the eye could have been formed by natural selection, is more than enough to stagger any one ; yet in the case of any organ, if we know of a long series of gradations in complexity, each good for its possessor; then, under changing conditions of life, there is no logical impossibility in the acquirement of any conceivable degree of perfection through natural selection." ^ Mr. Darwin refuses to be staggered by that which he says is enough to stagger any one. Give him a sufficient number of millions of years, and fortuitous complications may accomplish anything. If a rude piece of flint be found in deposits, it is declared to be the work of man, because it indicates design, while such an organ as the eye may be formed by natural selection acting blindly. This, Dr. Gray says in his apology, is, or would be, a strange contradiction.
1 Origin of Species, p. 650. * Ibid. p. 545.
8 Ibid. p. 251.
§2.] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 29
Sterility of Syhrids. The immutability of species is stamped on tlie very face of nature. What the letters of a book would be if all were thrown in confu- sion, the genera and species of plants and animals would be, if they were, as Darwin's theory assumes, in a state of constant variation, and that in every possible direction. All line-marks would be oblit- erated, and the thoughts of God, as species have been called, would be obliterated from his works. To prevent this confusion of " kind," it has been established as a law of nature that animals of different "kinds" cannot mingle and produce something differ- ent from either parent, to be again mingled and confused with other animals of a still different kind. In other words, it is a law of nature, and therefore a law of God, that hybrids should be sterile. This fact Mr. Darwin does not deny. Neither does he deny the weight of the argument derived from it against his theory. He only, as in the cases already mentioned, endeavours to account for the fact. Connecting links between species are missing ; but they may have perished. Hybrids are sterile ; but that may be accounted for in some other way without assuming that it was designed to secure the permanence of species. When a great fact in nature is found to secure a most important end in natui'e, it is fair to infer that it was designed to accomplish that end, and con- sequently that end is not to be overlooked or denied.
Greographieal Distribution.
Mr. Darwin is equally candid in reference to another objection to his doctrine. " Turning to geographical distribution," he says,^ " the difficulties encountered on the theory of descent with modifi- cation are serious enough. All the individuals of the same species, and all the species of the same genus, or even higher group, must have descended from common parents ; and therefore, in however distant and isolated parts of the world they may now be found, they must in the course of successive generations have travelled from some one point to all the others." When it is remembered that this is true of the mollusks and Crustacea, animals whose power of locomotion is very limited, this almost universal distribution from one centre would seem to ba an impossibility. Darwin's answer to this is the same as to the difficulties already mentioned. He throws himself on the possibilities of unlimited duration. Nobody can tell what may have happened during the untold ages of the 1 Origin of Species, p. 547.
30 PART U. Ch. L — origin OF MAN.
past. " Looking to geographical distribution," he says, " if we admit that there has been througli tlie long course of ages much mio-ration from one part of the world to another, owing to former climatal and geographical changes and to the many occasional and unknown means of dispersal, tlien we can understand, on the the- ory of descent with modification, most of the great leading facts in distribution." ^ Every one must see how inconclusive is all such reasoning. If we admit that many unknown things may have happened in the boundless past, then we can understand most, but not all, of the facts which stand opposed to the theory of the deri- vation of species. The same remark may be made in reference to the constant appeal to the unknown effects of unlimited durations. " The chief cause," says Mr. Darwin, " of our natural unwilling- ness to admit that one species has given birth to other and distinct species, is that we are always slow in admitting any great change
of which we do not see the steps The mind cannot possibly
grasp the full meaning of the term of even ten million years ; it cannot add up and perceive the full effects of many slight variations accumulated during an almost infinite number of generations." ^ If we say that the ape during the historic period extending over thousands of years has not made the slightest approximation towards becoming a man, we are told, Ah ! but you do not know what he will do in ten millions of years. To which it is a sufficient reply to ask, How much is ten million times nothing ?
; Ordinary men reject this Darwinian theory with indignation as well as Avith decision, not only because it calls upon them to accept the possible as demonstrably true, but because it ascribes to blind, unintelligent causes the wonders of purpose and design which the world everywhere exhibits ; and because it effectually banishes God from his works. To such men it is a satisfaction to know that the theory is rejected on scientific grounds by the great majority of scientific men. Mr. Darwin himself says, " The several diffi- culties here discussed, namely — that, though we find in our geo- logical formations many links between the species which now exist and which formerly existed, we do not find infinitely numerous fine transitional forms closely joining them all together ; the sudden manner in which several whole groups of species first appear in our European formations ; the almost entire absence, as at present known, of formations rich in fossils beneath the Cambrian strata, — are all undoubtedly of the most serious nature. We see this in the fact tliat tlie most eminent palEeontologists, namely, Cuvier,
1 Origin of Species, p. 564. ^ J^^'i- V- 570.
§ 2.] ANTI-SCRIPTURAL THEORIES. 31
Agassiz, Barrande, Pictet, Falconer, E. Forbes, etc., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, etc., have unanimously, often vehemently, maintained the immutability of species." ^
In 1830 there was a prolonged discussion of this subject in the Academie des Sciences in Paris, Cuvier taking the side of the permanence of species, and of creation and organization gov- erned by final purpose ; while GeofFroy St. Hilaire took the side of the derivation and mutability of species, and " denied," as Professor Owen says, " evidence of design, and protested against the deduction of a purpose." The decision was almost unani- mously in favour of Cuvier ; and from 1830 to 1860 there was scarcely a voice raised in opposition to the doctrine which Cuvier ad- vocated. This, as Biichner thinks, was the triumph of empiricism, appealing to facts, over philosophy guided by " Apriorische Spec- ulationen." Professor Agassiz, confessedly the first of living nat- uralists, thus closes his review of Darwin's book : " Were the transmutation theory true, the geological record should exhibit an uninterrupted, succession of types blending gradually into one another. The fact is that throughout all geological times each period is characterized by definite specific types, belonging to defi- nite genera, and these to definite families, referable to definite orders, constituting definite classes and definite branches, built upon definite plans. Until the facts of nature are shown to iiave been mistaken by those who have collected them, and that they have a different meaning from that now generally assigned to them, I shall therefore consider the transmutation theory as a scientific mistake, untrue in its facts, unscientific in its method, and mis- chievous in its tendency." ^ If species, then, are immutable, their
1 Origin of Species, ]>. 383. In an earlier edition of his work he included Professor Owen's name in this list, which he now omits, and he also withdraws that of Lyell; addinjif to the passage above quoted the words, " But Sir Charles Lyell now gives the support of his high authority to the opposite side." Professor Owen, as shown above, although now admitting the mutability of species, is very far from adopting Mr. Darwin's theory. The essential element of that theory is the denial of teleology; the assertion that species owe their origin to ihe unintelligent operation of natural causes. This Owen distinctly denies. "Assum- ing, then," he sa\'s, " that Paheolkerium did ultimately become Equus, I gain no conception of the operation of the etJective force by personifying as ' Nature ' the aggregate of beings which compose the universe, or the laws which govern these beings, b}- giving to my per- sonification an attribute which can properly be predicated only of intelligence, and by sav- ing, ' Nature has selected the mid-hoof and rejected the others.' " American Journal of Science, second series, vo'. xlvii. p. 4L As to Sir Charles Lyell, unless he has become a new man since the publication of the ninth edition of his Principles of Gcdogy in 1853, he is as far as I'nifessor Owen from adi)))ting the Darwinian theory; although he may admit, ill a certa'n sense, tiie derivation of species.
2 American Journal, July, 18G0, p. 154.
32 PART n. Ch. l — origin of man.
existence must be due to the agency of God, mediate or immediate, and in either case so exercised as to make them answer a thought and purpose in the divine mind. And, more especially, man does not owe his origin to the gradual development of a lower form of irrational life, but to the energy of his Maker in whose image he was created.
Pangenesis.
Mr. Darwin refers, in the " Origin of Species,"^ to " tlie hypoth- esis of Pangenesis," which, he says, he had developed in another work. As this hypothesis is made subservient to the one under consideration, it serves to illustrate its nature and gives an insight into the character of the writer's mind. Mr. Mivart says that the hypothesis of Pangenesis may be stated as follows : " That each living organism is ultimately made up of an almost infinite number of minute particles, or organic atoms, termed ' gemmules,' each of which has the power of reproducing its kind. Moreover, that these particles circulate freely about the organism which is made up of them, and are derived from all parts of all the organs of the less remote ancestors of each such organism durino; all the states and stages of such several ancestors' existence ; and therefore of the several states of each of such ancestors' organs. That such a com- plete collection of gemmules is aggregated in each ovum and sper- matozoon in most animals, and each part capable of reproducing by gemmation (budding) in the lowest animals and plants. There- fore in many of such lower organisms such a congeries of ancestral gemmules must exist in every part of their bodies, since in them every part is capable of reproducing by gemmation. Mr. Darwin must evidently admit this, since he says, ' It has often been said by naturalists that each cell of a plant has the actual or potential capacity of reproducing the whole plant ; but it has this power only in virtue of containing gemmules derived from every part.' " ^ These gemmules are organic atoms ; they are almost infinite in number ; they are derived from all the organs of the less remote ancestors of the plant or animal ; they are stored in every ovum or spermatozoon ; they are capable of reproduction. But reproduction, as involving the control of physical causes to accom- plish a purpose, is a work of intelligence. These inconceivably numerous and minute gemmules are, therefore, the seats of intelli- gence. Surely this is not science. Any theory which needs the support of such a hypothesis must soon be abandoned. It would
1 Page 196.
2 Genesis of Species, by St. George Mivart, F. K. S. London, 1871, chap. x. p. 208.
\
§3.] ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 83
be far easier to believe in fairies forming every plant, than in these gemmules.
Finally, it may be noticed that Mr. Wallace, although advocating the doctrine of " Natural Selection," contends that it is not appli- cable to man ; that it will not account for his original or present state ; and that it is impossible, on Mr. Darwin's theory, to account for man's physical organization, for his mental powers, or for his moral nature. To this subject the tenth chapter of his work is devoted.
§ 3. Antiquity of Man.
"Anthropologists are now," as we are told, " pretty well agreed that man is not a recent introduction into the earth. All who have studied the question, now admit that his antiquity is very great; and that, though we have to some extent ascertained the mini- mum of time during which he must have existed, we have made no approximation towards determining that far greater period dur- ing which he may have, and probably has, existed. We can with tolerable certainty affirm that man must have inhabited the earth a thousand centuries ago, but we cannot assert that he positively did not exist, or that there is any good evidence against his having existed, for a period of ten thousand centuries." ^
On this it may be remarked, first, that it is a historical fact that nothing is less reliable than these calculations of time. A volume might be filled with examples of the mistakes of naturalists in this matter. The world has not forgotten the exultation of the enemies of the Bible when the number of successive layers of lava on the sides of Mount Etna was found to be so great as to require, as was said, thousands upon thousands of yeai's for their present condition. All that has passed away. Mr. Lyell calculated that two hundred and twenty thousand years w^ere necessary to account for changes now iroino; on on the coast of Sweden. Later geologists reduce the time to one tenth of that estimate. A piece of pottery was dis- covered deeply buried under the deposits at the mouth of the Nile. It was confidently asserted that the deposit could not have been made during the historic period, until it was proved that the article in question was of Roman manufacture. Sober men of science, therefore, have no confidence in these calculations requiring thou- sands of centuries, or even millions of years, for the production of effects subsequent to the great geological epochs.
The second remark in reference to this great antiquity claimed for the human race, is that the reasons assigned for it are, in the
1 (Vallace cm Natural Selection, p. 303.
VOL. II. 3
34 PART 11. Ch. I. — origin OF MAN.
judgment of the most eminent men of science, unsatisfactory. The facts urged to prove that men have lived for an indefinite number of ages on the earth, are, (1.) The existence of villages built on piles, now submerged in lakes in Switzerland and in some other places, which, it is assumed, are of great antiquity. (2.) The discovery of human remains in a fossil state in deposits to which geologists assign an age counted by tens, or hundreds, of thousands of years. (3.) The discovery of utensils of different kinds made of flint, in connection with the remains of extinct animals. (4.) The early separation of men into the distinct races in which they now exist. On this point Sir Charles Lyell says : " Natural- ists have long felt that to render probable the received opinion that all the leading varieties of the human family have originally sprung from a single pair (a doctrine against which there appears to me to be no sound objection), a much greater lapse of time is required for the slow and gradual formation of races (such as the Caucasian, Mongolian, and Negro) than is embraced in any of the popular systems of chronology." The Caucasian and the Negro are dis- tinctly marked in the Egyptian monuments to which an antiquity of three thousand years is ascribed. We must, therefore, he argues, allow " for a vast series of antecedent ages " to account for the gradual formation of these distinct races. ^ In addition to all these arguments, it is contended that monuments and records exist which prove the existence of man on the earth long before the period assigned to his creation in the Bible.
Lake Dioellings.
In many of the lakes of Switzerland piles have been discovered worn down to the surface of the mud, or projecting slightly above it, which once supported human habitations. These are so numer- ous as to render it evident that whole villages were thus sustained over the surface of the water. These villages, " nearly all of them," are " of unknown date, but the most ancient of" them "certainly belonged to the age of stone, for hundreds of implements resembling those of the Danish shell-mounds and peat mosses have been dredged up from the mud into which the piles were driven." Numerous bones of no less than fifty-four species of animals have been dug up from these localities, all of which, Avitli one exception, are still living in Europe. The remains of several domesticated
1 Principles of Geology, by Sir Charles Lyell, F. R. S., ninth edition, Boston, 1853, p. 660. Also, The Geoloyical Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, by the same writer, Philadelphia, 1863, p. 385.
§3.] ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 35
animals, as the ox, sheep, goat, and dog, are included in the number.^
There is evidently in all this no proof of great antiquity. Even as late as during the last century, similar huts, supported on piles, were to be seen. All the animal remains found are of extant species. There is nothing to show that these lake dwellings were even as old as the time of the Romans. The fact relied upon is the absence of metal, and the presence of stone implements. Hence, it is inferred that these villao-es belonged to the " Stone Age." To this succeeded the " Bronze Age," and to that the Age of Iron. Sir Charles Lyell informs us that the Swiss geolo- gists, as represented by M. Morlot, assign " to the bronze age a date of between three thousand and four thousand years, and to the stone period an age of five thousand to seven thousand."^
It is, however, a mere arbitrary speculation that there ever was a stone age. It is founded on the assumption that the original condition of man was one of barbarism, from which he elevated himself by slow degrees ; during the first period of his progress he used only implements of stone ; then those of bronze ; and then those of iron ; and that thousands of years elapsed before the race passed from one of these stages of progress to another. Hence, if remains of men are found anywhere in coimection with stone implements, they are referred to the stone age. According to this mode of reasoning, if in an Indian village flint arrow-heads and hatchets should be found, the inference Avould be that the whole world was in barbarism when those implements were used. Ad- mittincr that at the time the lake dwellinos were inhabited, the people of Switzerland, and even all the people of Europe, were unacquainted with the iise of the metals, that would not prove that civilization was not at its height in Egypt or India. Moreover, the assumption that the original state of man was one of barbarism, is not only contrary to the Bible and to the convictions of the great body of the learned, but, as is believed, to the plainest historical facts.
Fossil Human Remains.
Much more weight in this discussion is attached to the discovery of human remains in the same localities and under the same circum- stances with those of animals now extinct. From this it Is inferred that man must have lived when those animals still inhabited the earth. These human remains are not found in any of the ancient fossiliferous rocks. The Scriptural fact that man was the last of
1 Antiquity of Man, chap. ii. p. 17. ^ Ibid. p. 28.
86 PART n. Ch. l — origin of man.
the living creatures which proceeded from the hand of God, stands unimpeaclied by any scientific fact. A nearly perfect human skel- eton was found imbedded in a limestone rock on the island of Guadaloupe. That rock, however, is of modern origin, and is still in process of formation. The age assigned to this fossil is only about two hundred years. A fragment of conglomerate rock was obtained at the depth of ten feet beloAV the bed of the river Dove, in Enixland, containing silver coins of the reign of Edward the First. This shows that it does not require many years to form rocks, and to bury them deeply under the surface. The remains on which stress is laid are found only in caverns and buried under deposits of peat or of earthy matter. Geologists seem to be agreed as to the fact that human bones have been found in certain caves in France, Belgium, and England intimately associated with the remains of animals now living, and with those of a few of the extinct races.
Tiie fact being admitted, the question is, How is it to be ac- counted for ? This juxtaposition is no certain proof of contempora- neousness. These caverns, once the resort of wild beasts, became to men places of concealment, of defence, of worship, or of sepul- ture, and, therefore, as Sir Charles Lyell himself admits, " It is not on the evidence of such intermixtures that we ought readily to admit either the high antiquity of the human race, or the recent date of certain lost species of quadrupeds." ^
In immediate connection with the passage just referred to, Lyell sugirests another method by which the remains of animals belong- incr to very different ages of the world might become mixed to- gether. That is, "open fissures" which "serve as natural pit- falls." He quotes the following account from Professor Sedgwick of a chasm of enormous but unknown depth, Avhich "is surrounded by grassy shelving banks, and many animals, tempted toward its brink, have fallen down and perished in it. The approach of cattle is now prevented by a strong lofty wall ; but there can be no doubt that, during the last two or three thousand years, great masses of bony breccia must have accumulated in the lower parts of the great fissure, which probably descends through the whole thickness of the scar-limestone to the depth of perhaps five or six hundred feet." To this Lyell adds, " When any of these natural pit-falls happen to communicate with lines of subterranean caverns, the bones, earth, and breccia may sink by their own weight, or be washed into the vaults below." ^
1 Principles of Geology, ninth edition, p. 740.
2 Joid. pp. 740, 741.
§3.] ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 37
There is a third way in which this intermingling of the bones of animals of different ages may be accounted for. With legard to the remarkable caverns in the province of Liege, Sir Charles Lyell says that Dr. Schmerling, the naturalist, by whom they had been carefully and laboriously examined, did not think they were " dens of wild beasts, but that their organic and inorganic contents had been swept into them by streams communicating with the sur- face of the country. The bones, he suggested, may often have been rolled in the beds of such streams before they reached their underground destination." ^ It is clear, therefore, that no conclu- sive argument to prove that man was contemporary with certain extinct animals can be drawn from the fact that their remains have in some rare instances been found in the same localities.
Human Bones found deeply buried.
Still less weight is to be attached to the fact that human bones have been found deej>ly buried in the earth. Every one knows that great changes have been made in the earth's surface within the historic period. Such changes are produced sometimes by the slow operation of the causes which have buried the foundations of such ancient cities as Jerusalem and Rome far beneath the present surface of the ground. At other times they have been brought about by sudden catastrophes. It is not surprising that human remains should be found in peat-bogs, if as Sir Charles Lyell tells us, " All the coins, axes, arms, and other utensils found in British and French mosses, are Roman ; so that a considerable portion of tlie peat in Euro])ean peat-bogs is evidently not more ancient than the age of Julius Caesar." ^
The data by which the rate of deposits is determined are so uncertain that no dependence can be placed upon them. Sir Charles Lyell says, " the lowest estimate of the time required " for the formation of the existing delta of the Mississippi, is more than one hundred thousand years. ^ According to the careful examina- tion made by gentlemen of the Coast Survey and other United States officers, the time during which the delta has been in progress is four thousand four hundred years.* Since the memory of man, or, since fishing-liuts have been built on the coasts of Sweden, there has been such a subsidence of the coast that " a fishing-hut having
1 Antiquity of Man, p. 64. 2 Principles of Geology, p. 721.
3 Antiquity of Man, p. 43.
^ See Report upon the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River, etc., by Captain A. A. Humphrej's, and Lieutenant H. L. Abbott, Corps of Topographical Engineers, U. S. Army, 1861,"p. 435.
38 PART n. ch. l — origin of man.
a rude fire-place within, was struck, in digging a canal, at a depth of sixty feet." ^ " At the earthquake in 1819 about the Delta of the Indus, an area of two thousand square miles became an inland sea, and the fort and village of Sindree sunk till the tops of the houses were just above the water. Five and a half miles from Sindree, parallel with this sunken area, a region was elevated ten feet above the delta, fifty miles long and in some parts ten broad." ^ While such changes, secular and paroxysmal, gradual and sudden, have been in operation for thousands of years, it is evident that the intermincvlincr of the remains of recent with those of extinct races of animals furnishes no proof that the former were contem- poraneous with the latter.
Flint Implements.
Quite as much stress has been laid on the discovery of certain implements made of flint under deposits which, it is contended, are of such age as prove that man must have existed on the earth for ages before the time assigned in the Bible for his creation. To this argument the same answer is to be o-'ven. First, that the presence of the works of human art in such deposits is no proof that men were contemporaneous with such deposits ; in view of the upheavals and displacements which all geologists admit are of frequent occurrence in the history of our globe. And secondly, the facts themselves are disputed, or differently interpreted by men of science of equal authority'. This is especially true of the flint arrows, beads, and axes found in the valley of the Somme in France.^ Lyell is confident that the argument from them is con- clusive. Later examinations, however, have led others to a differ- ent conclusion. This is a question for scientific men to decide among themselves, and which they alone are competent to decide. So long, however, as men of the highest rank as naturalists maintain that science knows of no facts inconsistent with the Scriptural ac- count of the origin of man, the friends of the Bible are under no obligation to depart from the generally received interpretation of the Scriptures on this subject. Professor Guyot, as all who know him or have heard his public lectures, are vvell aware, teaches that there are no known facts which may not be accounted for on the assumption that man has existed seven or eight thousand years on this earth. It is well known also that this doctrine, until very
1 Dana's Manual of Geology, p. 586. 2 idid. p. 588.
* To these Lyell devotes the seventh and eighth chapters of his work on the Antiquity of Man.
§3.] ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 39
recently, was universal among scientific men. Cuvier was so con- vinced on this point that he could hardly be brought to look at what purported to be the fossil remains of man. This conviction on his part, was not a prejudice ; nor was it due to a reverence for the Bible. It was a scientific conviction founded on scientific evidence. The proofs from all sources of the recent origin of man were considered such as to preclude the possibility of his being contemporaneous with any of the extinct races of animals. And even those who were led to admit that point, were in many cases disposed to regard the fact as proving not the antiquity of man, but the existence to a much later period than generally supposed, of animals now extinct. The occurrence of human relics with the bones of extinct animals, " does not seem to me," says Prestwich, " to necessitate the carrying of man back in past time, so much as the bringing forward of the extinct animals toward our own time." 1 The fact that the monuments of human art cannot pre- tend to a higher antiquity than a few thousand years, renders it utterly incredible that man has existed on the earth hundreds of thousands or, as Darwirr supposes, millions of years.
Argument from the Races of Men and from Ancient Monuments.
Another argument is founded on the assumption that the differ- ence between the Caucasian, Mongolian, and negro races, which is known to have been as distinctly marked two or three thousand years before Christ as it is now, must have required countless ages to develop and establish. To this it is obvious to answer. First, that differences equally great have occurred in domestic animals within the historic period. Secondly, that marked varieties are not unfrequently produced suddenly, and, so to speak, accidentally. Thirdly, that these varieties of race are not the effect of the blind operation of physical causes, but by those causes as intelligently guided by God for the accomplishment of some wise purpose. Animals living in the arctic regions are not only clothed in fur for their protection from the cold, but the color of their clothing changes with the season. So God fashions the different races of men in their peculiarities to suit them to the regions which they inhabit. Dr. Livingstone, the great African traveller, informs us that the negro type, as it is popularly conceived of, occurs very rarely in Africa, and only in districts where great heat prevails in connection with great moisture. The tribes in the interior of that continent differ greatly, he says, both in hue and contour.
1 Quoted by Professor Dana, Manual of Geology, p. 582.
40 PART n. Ch. I — origin of man.
The idea that it must have taken countless ages for men to rise from the lowest barbarism to the state of civilization indicated by the monuments of Egypt, rests on no better assumption. The earliest state of man instead of being his lowest, was in many respects his highest state. And our own experience as a nation shows that it does not require millenniums for a people to accom- plisli greater works tlian Egypt or India can boast. Two hundred years ago this country was a wilderness from the Atlantic to the Pacific. What is it now ? According to Bunsen it would require a hundred thousand years to erect all these cities, and to build all these railroads and canals.
It is further urged as a proof of the great antiquity of man that the monuments and monumental records of Egypt prove that a nation existed in the highest state of civilization at the time of, or immediately after, the flood. The chronology of the Bible, it is argued, and the chronology of Egypt are thus shown to be irrecon- cilable.
In reference to this difficulty it may be remarked, that the cal- culations of Egyptologists are just as precarious, and in many in- stances just as extravagant as those of geologists. This is proved by their discrepancies. It may be said, however, that even the most moderate students of Egyptian antiquities assign a date to the reign of Manes and the building of the pyramids inconsistent with the chronology of the Bible. To this it may be replied that the chronology of the Bible is very uncertain. The data are for the most part facts incidentally stated ; that is, not stated for the purposes of chronology. The views most generally adopted rest mainly on the authority of. Archbishop Usher, who adopted the Hebrew text for his guide, and assumed that in the genealogical tables each name marked one generation. A large part, however, of Biblical scholars adopt the Septuagint chronology in preference to the Hebrew ; so that instead of four thousand years from the creation to the birth of Christ, we have nearly six thousand years. Besides it is admitted, that the usual method of calculation founded on the genealogical tables is very uncertain. The design of those tables is not to give the regular succession of births in a given line, but simply to mark the descent. This Is just as well done if three, four, or more generations be omitted, as if the whole list were com- plete. Tliat this is the plan on which these genealogical tables are constructed is an admitted fact. " Thus in Genesis xlvi. 18, after recording the sons of Zilpah, her grandsons and her great-grand- sons, the writer adds, ' These are the sons of Zilpah .... and
§3.] ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 41
these she bare unto Jacob, even sixteen souls.' The same thing recurs in the case of Bilhah, verse 25, ' she bare these unto Jacob: all the souls were seven.' Compare, verses 15, 22. No one can pretend tliat the author of this register did not use the term understandingly of descendants beyond the first generation. In like manner, according to Mattliew i. 11, Josias begat his grandson Jeclionias, and verse 8, Joram begat iiis great-great- grandson Ozias. And in Genesis x. 15-18, Canaan, the grand- son of Noah, is said to have begotten several whole nations, the Jebusite, the Amorite, the Girgasite, the Hivite, etc.. etc. Noth- ing can be plainer, therefore, than that in the usage of the Bible, ' to bear ' and ' to beget ' are used in a wide sense to indicate descent, without restricting this to the immediate offspring." ^
The extreme uncertainty attending all attempts to determine the chronology of the Bible is sufficiently evinced by the fact that one hundred and eighty different calculations have been made by Jew- ish and Christian authors, of the length of the period between Adam and Christ. The longest of these make it six thousand nine hundred and eighty-four, and the shortest three thousand four hundred and eighty-three years. Under these circumstances it is very clear that the friends of the Bible have no occasion for uneasi- ness. If the facts of science or of history should ultimately make it necessary to admit that eight or ten thousand years have elapsed since the creation of man, there is nothing in the Bible in the way of such concession. The Scriptures do not teach us how long men have existed on the earth. Their tables of genealogy were in- tended to pi'ove that Christ was the son of David and of the Seed of Abraham, and not how many years had elapsed between the creation and the advent.^
1 The Pentateuch Vindicated from the Aspersions of Bishop Colenso, by William Henry Green, Professor in the Theological Seminary, Princeton, N. J. New York, 1863, p. 132.
2 Herzog's Encyklopadie, article " Zeitrechnung," which quotes the Benedictine work VArt de verifier les Dates. T. i., pp. xxvii.-xxxvi.
CHAPTER II.
NATURE OF MAN.
§ 1. Scripture Doctrine.
The Sci'iptures teach that God formed the body of man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into him the breath of hfe and he became nTI tt'C3, a living soul. According to this account, man consists of two distinct principles, a body and a soul : the one ma- terial, the other immaterial ; the one corporeal, the other spiritual. It is involved in this statement, first, that the soul of man is a substance ; and, secondly, that it is a substance distinct from the body. So that in the constitution of man two distinct substances are included.
The idea of substance, as has been before remarked, is one of tlie primary truths of the reason. It is given in the consciousness of every man, and is therefore a part of the universal faith of men. We are conscious of our thoughts, feelings, and volitions. We know that these exercises or phenomena are constantly changing, but that there is something of which they are the exercises and manifestation. That something is the self which remains unchanged, which is the same identical something, yesterday, to-day, and to- morrow. The soul is, therefore, not a mere series of acts ; nor is it a form of the life of God, nor is it a mere unsubstantial force, but a real subsistence. Whatever acts is, and what is is an entity. A nonentity is nothing, and nothing can neither have power nor pro- duce effects. The soul of man, therefore, is an essence or entity or substance, the abiding subject of its varying states and exercises. The second point just mentioned is no less plain. As we can know nothing of substance but from its phenomena, and as we are forced by a law of our nature to believe in the existence of a substance of which the phenomena are the manifestation, so by an equally strin- gent necessity we are forced to believe that where the phenomena are not only different, but incompatible, there the substances are also different. As, therefoi-e, the phenomena or properties of matter are essentially different from those of mind, we are forced to conclude that matter and mind are two distinct substances ; that
§ 1.] SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE. 43
the soul is not material nor the body spiritual. " To identify mat- ter with mind," says Cousin, in a passage before quoted, " or mind with matter : it is necessary to pretend that sensation, thought, volition, are reducible, in the last analysis, to solidity, extension, figure, divisibihty, etc. ; or that solidity, extension, figure, etc., are reducible to sensation, thought, will." ^ It may be said, therefore, despite of materialists and idealists, that it is intuitively certain that matter and mind are two distinct substances ; and such has been the faith of the great body of mankind. This view of the nature of man which is presented in the original account of his creation, is sustained by the constant representations of the Bible.
Truths on this Subject assumed in Scripture.
The Scriptures do not formally teach any system of psychol- ogy, but there are certain truths relating both to our physical and mental constitution, which they constantly assume. They assume, as we have seen, that the soul is a substance ; tliat it is a substance distinct from the body ; and that there are two, and not more than two, essential elements in the constitution of man. Tliis is evident, (1.) From the distinction everywhere made between soul and body. Thus, in the original account of the creation a clear distinction is made between the body as formed from the dust of the earth, and the soul or principle of life which was breathed into it from God. And in Gen. iii. 1,9, it is said, " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." As it was only the body that Avas formed out of the dust, it is only the body that is to return to dust. In Eccles. xii. 7, it is said, " Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Is. X. 18, " Shall consume .... both soul and body." Daniel says (vii. 15), " I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body." Our Lord (Matt. vi. 25) commands his disciples to take no thought for the body; and, again (Matt. x. 28), "Fear not tliem whicli kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul : but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Sucli is the constant representation of the Scriptures. The body and soul are set forth as distinct substances, and the two together as constituting the whole man. (2.) There is a second class of passages equally decisive as to this point. It consists of those in which the body is represented as a garment which is to be laid aside ; a tabernacle or house in which the soul dwells, which it may leave and return to. Paul, on a certain occasion, did not
1 Elements' of Psychology, Henry's trauslation, N. Y. 1856, p. 370.
44 PART n. Ch. tl — nature of man.
know whether he was in the body or out of tlie body. Peter says he thought it meet as long as he was in this tabernacle to put his brethren in remembrance of the truth, " knowing," as he adds, ''that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle." Paul, in 2 Cor. V. 1, says, " If our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God." In the same connection, he speaks of being unclothed and clothed upon with our house which is from heaven ; and of being absent from the body and present with the Lord, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. To the Philippians (i. 23, 24) he says, " I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be witii Christ ; which is far better ; nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." (3.) It is the common belief of mankind, the clearly revealed doctrine of the Bible, and part of the faith of the Church universal, that the soul can and does exist and act after death. If this be so, then the body and soul are two distinct substances. The former may be disorganized, reduced to dust, dispersed, or even annihilated, and the latter retain its con- scious life and activity. This doctrine was taught in the Old Testament, where the dead are represented as dwelling in Sheol, whence they occasionally reappeared, as Samuel did to Saul. Our Lord says that as God is not the God of the dead but of the living, his declaring himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, proves that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now alive. Moses and Elijah conversed with Christ on the Mount. To the dying thief our Lord said, " To-day shalt thou " (that in which his personality resided) " be with me in Paradise." Paul, as we have just seen, desired to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. He knew that his conscious personal existence was to be continued after the dissolution of his body. It is unnecessary to dwell on this point, as the continued existence of tiie soul in full conscious- ness and activity out of the body and in the interval between death and the resurrection, is not denied by any Christian Church. But if this be so it clearly proves that the soul and body are two distinct substances, so that the former can exist independently of the latter.
Relation of the Soul and Body.
Man, then, according to the Scriptures, is a created spirit in vital union with a material organized body. The relation between these two constituents of our nature is admitted to be mysterious. That is, it is incomprehensible. We do not know how the body acts on the mind, or how the mind acts on the binly. These facts,
§1.] SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE. 45
however, are plain, (1.) That the relation between the two is a vital union, in such a sense as that the soul is the source of life to the body. When the soul leaves the body the latter ceases to live. It loses its sensibility and activity, and becomes at once subject to the chemical laws which govern unorganized matter, and by their operation is soon reduced to dust, undistinguishable from the earth whence it was originally taken. (2.) It is a fact of consciousness that certain states of the body produce certain corresponding states of the mind. The mind takes cognizance of, or is conscious of, the impressions made by external objects on the organs of sense belong- ing to the body. The mind sees, the mind hears, and the mind feels, not directly or immediately (at least in our present and normal state), but through or by means of the appropriate organs of the body. It is also a matter of daily experience that a healthful con- dition of the body is necessary to a healthful state of the mind ; that certain diseases or disorders of the one produce derangement in the operations of the other. Emotions of the mind affect the body ; sliame suffuses the cheek ; joy causes the heart to beat and the eyes to shine. A blow on the head renders the mind uncon- scious, i. e., it renders the brain unfit to be the organ of its activity ; and a diseased condition of the brain may cause irregular action in the mind, as in lunacy. All this is incomprehensible, but it is undeniable. (3.) It is also a fact of consciousness that, while cer- tain operations of the body are independent of the conscious volun- tary action of the mind, as the processes of respiration, digestion, secretion, assimilation, etc., there are certain actions dependent on the will. We can will to move ; and we can exert a greater or less degree of muscular force. It is better to admit these simple facts of consciousness and of experience, and to confess that, while they prove an intimate and vital union between the mind and body, they do not enable us to comprehend the nature of that union, than to have recourse to arbitrary and fanciful theories which deny these facts, because we cannot explain them. This is done by the advo- cates of the doctrine of occasional causes, which denies any action of the mind on the body or of the body on the mind, but refers all to the immediate agency of God. A certain state of the mind is the occasion on which God produces a certain act of the body ; and a certain impression made on the body is the occasion on which God produces a certain impression on the mind. Leibnitz's doctrine of a preestablished harmony is equally unsatisfactory. He denied that one substance could act on another of a different kind ; that matter could act on mind or mind on matter. He proposed to
46 PART II. Ch. II. — nature OF MAN.
account for the admitted correspondence between the varying states of the one and those of tlie other on the assumption of a prearrange- ment. God had foreordained that the mind should have the per- ception of a tree whenever the tree was presented to the eye, and that the arm should move whenever the mind had a volition to move. But he denied any causal relation between these two series of events.
Realistic Dualism.
The Scriptural doctrine of the nature of man as a created spirit in vital union with an organized body, consisting, therefore, of two, and only two, distinct elements or substances, matter and mind, is one of great importance. It is intimately connected with some of the most important doctrines of the Bible ; with the constitution of the person of Christ, and consequently with the nature of his re- deeming work and of his relation to the children of men; with the doctrine of the fall, original sin, and of regeneration ; and with the doctrines of a future state and of the resurrection. It is because of this connection, and not because of its interest as a question in psychology, that the true idea of man demands the careful investiiTfvtion of the theologian.
The doctrine above stated, as the doctrine of the Scriptures and of the Church, is properly designated as realistic dualism. That is, it asserts the existence of two distinct res, entities, or substances ; the one extended, tangible, and divisible, the object of the senses ;• the other unextended and indivisible, the thinking, feeling, and willing subject in man. This doctrine stands opposed to materialism and idealism, which although antagonistic systems in other respects, agree in denying any dualism of substance. The one makes the mind a function of the body ; the other makes the body a form of the mind. But, according to the Scriptures and all sound philoso- phy, neither is the body, as Delitzsch ^ says, a precipitate of tiie mind, nor is the mind a sublimate of matter.
The Scriptural docti'ine of man is of course opposed to the old heathen doctrine which represents him as the form in which nature, der Naturgeist, the anima mundi, comes to self-consciousness ; and also to the wider pantheistic doctrine according to which men are the highest manifestations of the one universal principle of being and life ; and to the doctrine which represents man as the union of the impersonal, universal reason or Aoyo?, with a living corporeal organization. According to this last mentioned view, man con- sists of the body (a-Qifia), soul (iA"X^)» ^"^ Xoyos, or the impersonal
1 Biblische Psycholoffie, p. 64.
§2.] TRICHOTOMY. 47
reason. This is very nearly the Apollinarian doctrine as to the constitution of Christ's person, applied to all mankind.
§ 2. Trichotomy.
It is of more consequence to remark that the Scriptural doctrine is opposed to Trichotomy, or the doctrine that man consists of three distinct substances, body, soul, and spirit ; o-Ji/Aa, i/^^x'?- and TTi'cvfjia ; corpus, anima, and animus. This view of the nature of man is of tlie more importance to the theologian because it has not only been held to a greater or less extent in the Church, but also because it has greatly influenced the form in which other doctrines have been presented ; and because it has some semblance of sup- port from the Scriptures tliemselves. The doctrine has been held in different forms. The simplest, the most intelligible, and the one most commonly adopted is, that the body is the material part of our constitution ; the soul, or i/'^x^;, is the principle of animal life ; and the mind, or Trviv/xa, the principle of our rational and immortal life. When a plant dies its material organization is dissolved and the principle of vegetable life which it contained disappears. When a brute dies its body returns to dust, and the i/'ux^, or principle of an- imal life by which it was animated, passes away. When a man dies his body returns to the earth, his t/'^xv ceases to exist, his Trvevjxa alone remains until reunited with the body at the resurrec- tion. To the TTi/eu/^a, which is peculiar to man, belong reason, will, and conscience. To the i/'vx»? which we have in common with the brutes, belong understanding, feeling, and sensibility, or, the power of sense-perceptions. To the aw/j-a belongs what is purely material.^ According to another view of the subject, the soul is neither the body nor the mind ; nor is it a distinct subsistence, but it is the resultant of the union of the irvevfj^a and croifxa? Or accordino- to De- litzsch,^ there is a dualism of being in man, but a trichotomy of sub- stance. He distinguishes between being and substance, and main- tains, (1.) that spirit and soul (Tri/eC/xa and «/'uxr/) are not verschiedene Wesen, but that they are verschiedene Substanzen. He says that the rt;jn tiTD, mentioned in the history of the creation, is not the coinpositum resulting from the union of the spirit and body, so that the two constituted man. But it is a tertium quid, a third substance which belongs to the constitution of his nature. (2.) But secondly, this third principle does not pertain to the body ; it is not the higher
1 Aucjust Hahn, Lchrbuch c/es christlicheti Glaubens, p. 324.
2 Giischel in Herzojj's Enn/Mo/mlie, Article " Seele." 8 BiblUche /\'>ychol,igie, § 4, p. 128.
48 PART II. CH.n. — NATURE OF MAN.
attributes or functions of the body, but it pertains to the spirit and is produced by it. It sustains the same relation to it tliat breatii does to the body, or effulgence does to light. He says that the i/'^x'? (soul) is the a-n-avyaafjia of the irvtv^a and the bond of its union with
the body.
Trichotomy anti-Seriptural.
In opposition to all the forms of trichotomy, or the docti-ine of a threefold substance in the constitution of man, it may be remarked, (1.) That it is opposed to the account of the creation of man as given in Gen. ii. 7. According to that account God formed man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life, and he became •n'^n It\^3 ^. e., a being (n^n tt7?:3 ia—itt'S) i" whom is a living soul. There is in this account no intimation of anything more than the material body formed of the earth and the living principle derived from God. (2.) This doctrine (trichotomy) is opposed to the uniform usage of Scripture. So far from the tt7D3, ^^X'h cmima, or soul, being distinguished from the n^n, TTvevfxa, animus, or mind as either originally different or as derived from it, these words all designate one and the same thing. They are constantly interchanged. The one is substituted for the other, and all that is, or can be predicated of the one, is predicated of the other. The Hebrew ttJCD, and the Greek '/'^x^, mean breath, life, the living principle ; that in which life and the whole life of the subject spoken of resides. The same is true of n^~) and Trvev/xa, they also- mean breath, life, and living principle. The Scriptures therefore speak of the ttf23 or ^^xn not only as that which lives or is- the principle of life to the body, but as that which thinks and feels, which may be saved or lost, which survives the body and is immortal. The soul is the man himself, that in which his identity and personality I'eside. It is the Ego. Higher than the soul there is nothing in man. Therefore it is so often used as a synonym for self. Every soul is every man ; my soul is I ; his soul is he. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul. It is the soul that sins (Lev. iv. 2) ; it is the soul that loves God. We are commanded to love God, «v oXy ry i^vxy- Hope is said to be the anchor of the soid, and the word of God is able to save the soul. The end of our faith is said to be (1 Peter i. 9), the salvation of our souls ; and John (Rev. vi. 9 ; xx. 4), saw in heaven the souls of them that were slain for the word of God. From all this it is evident that the word i/'^x^/, or soul, does not designate the mere animal part of our nature, and is not a substance different from the 7rv£v/xa, or spirit. (3.) A third remark on this subject is that all
§2.]
TRICHOTOMY. 49
the words above mentioned, w^:}, mi, and ni2tr3 in Hebrew, if/vxn and TrreC/xa in Greek, and soul and spirit in English, are used in the Scriptures indiscriminately of men and of irrational animals. If the Bible ascribed only a (/"^XV to brutes, and both ^vxv and mev/xa to man, there would be some ground for assuming that the two are essentially distinct. But such is not the case. The living principle in the brute is called both trrf^p and mi, ^^XV and -n-vevfia. That principle in the brute creation is irrational and mortal ; in man it is rational and immortal. " Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of tlie beast that goeth downward to the earth ? " Eccles. iii. 21. The soul of the brute is the immaterial principle which constitutes its life, and which is endowed with sen- sibility, and that measure of intelligence which experience shows the lower animals to possess. The soul in man is a created spirit of a higher order, wliicii has not only the attributes of sensibility, memory, and instinct, but also the higher powers which pertain to our intellectual, moral, and religious life. As in the brutes it is not one substance that feels and another that remembers ; so it is not one substance in man that is the subject of sensations, and another substance which has intuitions of necessary truths, and which is endowed with conscience and with the knowledge of God. Phi- losophers speak of world-consciousness, or the immediate cognizance which we have of what is without us ; of self-consciousness, or the knowledge of what is within us ; and of God-consciousness, or our knowledge and sense of God. These all belong to one and the same immaterial, rational substance. (4.) It is fair to appeal to the testimony of consciousness on this subject. We are conscious of our bodies and we are conscious of our souls, i. e., of the exer- cises and states of each ; but no man is conscious of the '/'"x^/ as dis- tinct from tlie -irvevixa, of the soul as different from the spirit. In other words consciousness reveals the existence of two substances in the constitution of our nature ; but it does not reveal the exist- ence of three substances, and therefore the existence of more than two cannot rationally be assumed.
Doubtful Passages Explained.
(5.) The passages of Scriptures which are cited as favouring the opposite doctrine may all be explained in consistency with the cur- rent representations of Scripture on the subject. When Paul says to the Thessalonians, " I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ " (1 Thessalonians v. 23), he only uses a periphrasis for
VOL. II. 4
50 PART II. Cii. II. — NATURE OF MAN.
the wliole man. As when in Luke i. 46, 47, the virgin says, " Mv soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hatli rejoiced in God my Saviour," soul and spirit in this passage do not mean different tilings. And when we are commanded " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind " (Luke x. 27), we have not an enumeration of so many distinct substances. Nor do we distinguish between the mind and heart as separate entities when we pray that both may be enlightened and sanctified ; we mean simply the soul in all its aspects or faculties. Again, when in Heb. iv. 12, the Apostle says that the word of God pierces so as to penetrate soul and spirit, and the joints and marrow, he does not assume that soul and spirit are different substances. The joints and marrow are not different substances. They are both material ; they are different forms of the same substance ; and so soul and spirit are one and the same substance under different aspects or relations. We can say that the word of God reaches not only to the feelings, but also to the conscience, without assuming that the heart and conscience are distinct entities. ■ Much less is any such distinction implied in Phil. i. 27, " Stand fast in one spirit Qv ivl Trrcu/zaTt), with one mind (/^ta •/'vxj})," There is more difficulty in explaining 1 Cor. xv. 44. The Apostle there distinguishes between the arwfjia if/v)(^LK6v and the a-wfjLa iruevfjiaTiKov ; the former is that in which the i/'wx'? is the animating principle ; and the latter that in which the irvev/xa is the principle of life. The one we have here, the other we are to have hereafter. This seems to imply that the i/'ux^; exists in "this life, but is not to exist hereafter, and therefore that the two are separable and distinct. In this ex- planation we might acquiesce if it did not contradict the general representations of the Scriptures. We are constrained, therefore, to seek another explanation which will harmonize with other por- tions of the word of God. The general meaning of the Apostle is plain. We have now gross, perishable, and dishonorable, or un- sightly bodies. Hereafter we are to have glorious bodies, adapted to a higher state of existence. The only question is, why does he call the one psychical, and the other pneumatic ? Because the word ^vxy, although often used for the soul as rational and im- mortal, is also used for the lower form of life which belongs to irra- tional animals. Our future bodies are not to be adapted to those principles of our nature which we have in common with the brutes, but to those which are peculiar to us as men, created in the image of God. The same individual human soul has certain suscepti- bilities and powers which adapt it to the present state of exist-
§3.] REALISM. 61
ence, and to the earthly house in which it now dwells. It has animal appetites and necessities. It can hunger and thirst. It needs sleep and rest. But the same soul has higher powers. The earthly body is suited to its earthly state ; the heavenly body to its heavenly state. There are not two substances i^^^x^ ^"d TrveS/xa, there is but one and the same substance with different susceptibili- ties and powers. In this same connection Paul says, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. Yet our bodies are to inherit that kingdom, and our bodies are flesh and blood. The same material substance now constituted as flesh and blood is to be so changed as to be like Christ's glorious body. As this representa- tion does not prove a substantial difference between the body which now is and that which is to be hereafter, so neither does what the Apostle says of the crw/Aa \pv)(LK6v and the o-tU/xa Tri/eu/xariKoj/ prove that the ^^X"! ^"<^ TTvevfjia are distinct substances.
This doctrine of a threefold constitution of man being adopted by Plato, was introduced partially into the early Church, but soon came to be regarded as dangerous, if not heretical. Its being held by the Gnostics that the TrvevfjLa in man was a part of the divine essence, and incapable of sin ; and by the Apollinarlans that Christ had only a human awy-a and ^vxy^ but not a human nvivfia, the Church rejected the doctrine that the i/'^X'? ^"^ TrveC/xa were distinct substances, since upon it those heresies were founded. In later times tlie Semi-Pelagians taught that the soul and body, but not the spirit in man were the subjects of original sin. All Prot- estants, Lutheran and Reformed, were, therefore, the more zealous in maintaining that the soul and spirit, ^vxn and 7rveDyu,a, are one and the same substance and essence. And this, as before remarked, has been the common doctrine of the Church.^
§ 3. Realism. Its Greneral Character. There is still another view of the nature of man which, from its extensive and long-continued influence, demands consideration. According to this view, man is defined to be, The manifestation of the general principle of humanity in union with a given corporeal organization. This view has been held in various forms wiiich cannot here be severally discussed. It is only the theory in its more general features, or in the form in which it has been commonly presented, that our limits permit us to examine. It necessarily
1 See G. L. Hahn, Theohgie des N. T. Olshausen, De Trichotomia Naturm Humnnce, a Novi Ttstnmenti Scriptoribas recepta. Ackermatin, Sludlen und Kriliken, 1839, p. 882. J. T. Beck, Umriss d. bMischen Scdenlehre, 1843.
52 PART n. Ch. II.— nature of man.
assumes tliat 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, inde- pendently 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 indi- vidual 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 some- thing 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 ni tne 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 mdividuals only the revelations or individualizations of a general substance which is the species or genus ? According to the early and genuine realists, and accord- ing to the modern speculative philosophers, tlie 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."^ Precisely, as just stated, as magnetism is antecedent to the mag- net. The magnet is only an individual piece of iron in and through which generic magnetism is manifested. Thus the realist says, "Etsi i-ationalitas non esset in aliquo, tamen in natura remaneret."®
1 History of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 77.
2 Sliedd's Kssays. Boston, 1867, p. 259, note, and his History of Christi ii. p. 117.
8 Cousin, FragmenU Phihsophiques, Paris, 1840, p. 167.
§ 3.] REALISM. 6S
Cousin quotes the complaint of Anselm against Roscelin and other nominalists, " de ne pas comprendre comment plusieurs hommes ne sont qu'un seul et meme homme, — nondum intelliget quomodo plures homines in specie sint unus homo."^ The doctrine of his " Monologium " and " Proslogium " and " Dialogus de veritate," Cousin says, is " que non-seulement il j a des individus humains, mais qu'il y a en autre le genre humain, I'humanite, qui est une, comme il admettait qu'il y a un temps absolu que les durees partic- ulidres manifestent sans le constituer, une vdrite une et subsistante par elle-meme, un type absolu du bien, que tons les biens particu- liers supposent et r^fldchissent plus ou moins imparfaitement,"'' He quotes Abelard as stating the doctrine which he opposed, in the following words : " Homo quaedam species est, res una essen- tialiter, cui adveniunt formse qunedam et efficiunt Socratem : illam eamdem essentialiter eodem modo informant form* facientes Plato- nem et castera individua hominis ; nee aliquid est in Socrate, prjeter 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 I'essence des choses ; " according to the other, " I'essence des individus est dans le genre auquel ils se rapportent ; en tant qu' individus ils ne sont que des accidents."* 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 sabstance 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 perso7i or individual." ^
I Cousin's Fragments Philosophiques, Paris, 1840, p. 146. 2 Jhidem.
3 Ibid. p. 167. 4 jbid. p. 171,
* Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 78. « Jbid. p. 80.
54 PART n. Ch. n.— nature of man.
Generic Humanity.
AVliat God created, therefore, was not an individual man, but the species Jiomo^ or generic humanity, — an intelligent, rational, and voluntar}^ essence ; individual men ai'e the manifestations of this substance numerically and specifically one and the same, in connection with their several corporeal organizations. Their souls are not intlividual 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 some- what 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 crea- tion." ^ 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, paiticularly 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 multi- tude 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 tiie same in all, and that all have been derived from a common source. And to say that mankind are a unit because the}' 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, Bibliutheca Sacra, 1857, p. 861.
§3.] REALISM. • 55
genera and species are substances of whicli 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 whicli it is the manifestation. If, therefore, the forces are numerically the same, the substance must be numer- ically 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 o/^oowo-iot, 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 6/aoi-, but not ofx-oova-ioi. In support of this view and in opposi- tion 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 manifesta- tions ; so that all vegetables, all animals, and man himself, are but different forms of one and the same numerical livins: 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, pan- »;heism is demonstrably false, because it contradicts the intuitive convictions of our moral and religious nature. It is not enough.
66 PART II. Ch. n. — nature of man."
therefore, that a theory be possible or conceirable. 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 dii*ectly teaches the doctrine in question. Nor does it teach anything which necessitates its adoption. On the contrary, it teaches much that is irrecon- cilable with it.
Not Supported hy 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 sep- arate 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
§ 3.] REALISM. 57
the Bible teaches any such doctrine it teaches something outside of the teachings of consciousness, and something to which those teachings, in the judgment of the vast majority of men, even the most enhghtened, are directly opposed.
Realism Contrary to the Teachings of Scripture.
4. The Scriptures not only dp not teach the doctrine in question, but they also teach what is inconsistent with it. We have already seen that it is a clearly revealed doctrine of the Bible, and part of the faith of the Church universal, that the soul contin- ues to exist after death as a self-conscious, individual person. This fact is inconsistent with the theory in question. A given plant is a material organization, animated by the general principle of vegetable life. If the plant is destroyed the principle of vegetable life no longer exists as to that plant. It may exist in other plants ; but that particular plant ceased to exist when the material organization was dissolved. Magnetism continues to exist as a force in nature, but any particular magnet ceases to be when it is melted, or volatilized. In like manner, if a man is the manifestation of a generic life, or of humanity as an essence common to all men, then when his body dies the man ceases to exist. Humanity continues to be, but the individual man no longer exists. This is a difficulty which some of the advocates of this theory endeavour to avoid* by giving up what is essential to their own docti'ine. Its genuine and con- sistent advocates admit it in its full force. The anti-Christian portion of them acknowledge that their doctrine is inconsistent with the personal immortality of man. The race, they say, is immortal, but individual men are not. The same conclusion is admitted by those who hold the analogous pantheistic, or naturalistic doctrines. If a man is only the modus existendi, a form in which a common substance or life reveals itself, it matters not whether that substance be humanity, nature, or God, when the form, the material organism, is destroyed, the man as a man ceases to exist. Those advocates of the doctrine who cling to Christianity, while they admit the difficulty, endeavour to get over it in diffiirent ways. Schleiermacher admits that all philosophy is against the doctrine of the personal existence of man in a future state. His whole sys- tem leads to the denial of it. But he says that the Christian must admit it on the authority of Christ. Olshausen, in his commentary on the New Testament, says, when explaining 1 Cor. xv. 19, 20, and verses 42-44, that the Bible knows nothing of the immortality of the soul. He pronounces it to be a heathen idea. A soul with-
58 PART II. Ch. II.— nature OF MAN.
out a body loses its individuality. It ceases to be a person, and of course loses self-consciousness and all that is connected with it. As, however, the Scriptures teach that men are to exist hereafter, he says their bodies must also continue to exist, and the only existence of the soul during the interval between death and the resurrection, ■which he admits, is in connection ({. e., vital union) with the disin- tegrated particles of the body in the grave or scattered to the ends of the earth. This is a conclusion to which his doctrine legiti- mately leads, and which he is sufficiently candid to admit. Dr. Nevin, a disciple of Schleiermacher, has to grapple with the same difficulty. His book entitled " The Mystical Presence," is the clearest and ablest exposition of the theology of Schleiermacher which has appeared in our language, unless Morell's " Philosophy of Religion " be its equal. He denies ^ all dualism between the soul and body. They are " one life." The one cannot exist without the other. He admits that what the Bible teaches of the separate existence of the soul between death and the resurrection, is a difficulty " which it is not easy, at present, to solve." He does nut attempt to solve it. He only says that the difficulty is " not to reconcile Scripture with a psychological theory, but to bring it into harmony with itself." This is no solution. It is a virtual admission that he cannot reconcile the Bible with his psy- chological ■ theory. The doctrine that man is a modus existendi of a generic humanity, or the manifestation of the general principle of humanity, in connection with a given corporeal organization, is inconsistent with the Scriptural doctrine of the separate existence of the soul, and therefore must be false.
Inconsistent with the Doctrine of the Trinity.
5. This theory is inconsistent with the Scriptural doctrine of the Trinity. It necessitates the conclusion that the Father, Son, and Spirit are no more one God than Peter, James, and John are one man. The persons of the Trinity are one God, because the Godhead is one essence ; but if humanity be one essence numeri- cally the same in all men, then all men are one man in the same sense that the Father, Son, and Spirit are one God. This is a reductio ad ahsurdum. It is clearly taught in Scripture and uni- versally believed in the Church that the persons of the Trinity are one God in an infinitely higher sense than that in which all men are one man. The precise diffi?rence is, that the essence common to the j^ersons of the Godhead is numerically the same ;
1 Page 171.
§3.] REALISM. 59
whereas the essence common to all men is only specifically the same, i. e., of the same kind, although numerically different. The theory which leads to the opposite conclusion must therefore be false. It cannot be true that all mankind are one essence, substance, or organic life, existing or manifesting itself in a multitude of individ- ual persons. This is a difficulty so obvious and so fatal that it could not fail to arrest the attention of realists in all ages and of every class. The great point of dispute in the Council of Nice between the Arians and orthodox was, whether the persons of the Trinity are ofxoi- or ofjioova-toL, of a like or of the same essence. If 6/xoovcrioi, it was on both sides admitted that they are one God ; because if the same in substance they are equal in power and glory. Now it is expressly asserted that all men are not ofx-oc- but oixoovaLoi, and therefore, by parity of reasoning, they must constitute one man in the same sense as there is one God, and all be equal in every attri- bute of their nature.^ Of course it is admitted that there is a legitimate sense of the word in which all men may be said to be 6fj.oov(TLoi, when by 6/aos (jame^ is meant similar, or of a like kind. In this sense the Greeks said that the bodies of men and of other animals were consubstantial, as all were made of flesh ; and that angels, demons, and human souls, as spiritual beings, are also o/xooxjo-tot. But this is not the sense in which the word is used by realists, when speaking either of the persons of the Trinity or of men. In both cases the word same means numerical oneness ; men are of the same numerical essence in the same sense in which the Father and the Son and the Spirit are the same in substance. The difference, it is said, between the two cases does not relate to identity of essence, which is the same in both, but is found in this, that " the whole nature or essence is in the divine person ; but the human person is only a part of the common human nature. Gen- eration in the Godhead admits no abscission or division of substance ; but generation in the instance of the creature implies separation or division of essence. A human person is an individualized portion of humanity."^ It must, however, be remembered that humanity is declared to be a spiritual substance. It is the same in nature with the soul, which is called an individualized portion of human nature, possessing consciousness, reason, and will. But, if spirit- ual, it is indivisible. Divisibility is one of the primary properties of matter. Whatever Is divisible is material. If therefore human- ity, as a generic substance, admits of " abscission and division," it
1 See History of Cliristian Doctrine, by Dr. Shedd, vol. ii. p. 120.
2 Jbid. vol. i. p. .343, no(e.
60 PART II. Ch. n. — nature of man.
must be material. A part of reason, a piece of consciousness, or a fra£;ment of will, are contradictory, or unintelligible forms of expression. If humanity is of the same essence as the soul, it no more admits of division than the soul. One part of a soul cannot be holy and another unholy ; one part saved and the other lost. The objection to the theory under consideration, that it makes the relation between individual men identical with that between the persons of the Trinity, remains, therefore, in full force. It is not met by the answer just referred to, which answer supposes mind to be extended and divisible.
Realism Inconsistent with what the Bible teaches of the Person and
Work of Christ.
6. It is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the doctrine in question with what the Scriptures teach of the person and work of Christ. According to the Bible, the Son of God became man by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul. According to the realistic doctrine, he did not assume a reasonable soul, but generic humanity. What is this but the whole of humanity, of which, according to the advocates of this doctrine, individual men are the portions. Human nature as a generic life, humanity as a substance, and a whole substance, was taken into personal union with the Son of God. The Logos became incarnate in the race. This is certainly not the Scriptural doctrine. The Son of God became a man ; not all men. He assumed an individual rational soul, not the general principle of humanity. Besides this, it is the doctrine of those who adopt this theory that humanity sinned and fell in Adam. The rational, moral, voluntary substance called human nature, is, or at least was, an agent. The sin of Adam was the sin not of an individual, but of this generic substance, which by that sin became the subject both of guilt and of depravity. By reason of this sin of human nature, the theory is, that all individual men, in their successive generations, in whom this nature is revealed, or in whom, as they express it, it is individualized, came into the world in a state of guilt and pollution. We do not now refer to the numerous and serious difficulties connected with this theory as a method of accounting for original sin. We speak of it only in its relation to Christ's person. If human nature, as a generic life, a substance of which all men partake, became both guilty and pol- luted by the apostasy ; and that generic humanity, as distinguished from a newly created and holv rational soul, was assumed by the Son of God, how can we avoid the conclusion that Clulst was, in
§4.] ANOTHER FORM OF REALISM. 61
his human nature, personally guilty and sinful ? This is a legiti- mate consequence of this theory. And this consequence being not only false but blasphemous, the theory itself must be false. As the principle that humanity is one substance, and all men are o/xoouortot ill the sense of partaking of the same numerical essence, involves consequences destructive of the Scriptural doctrines of the Trinity and of the person of Christ, so it might easily be shown that it overthrows the common faith of the Protestant churches on the doctrines of justification, regeneration, the sacraments, and the Church. It is enough for our present purpose to remark that, as a historical fact, the consistent and thorough-going advocates of this doctrine do teach an entirely different method of salvation. Many men adopt a principle, and do not carry it out to its legitimate consequences. But others, more logical, or more reckless, do not hesitate to embrace all its results. In the works of Morell and of Dr. Nevin, above referred to, the theological student may find a fearless pressing of the genuine principle of realism, to the utter overthrow of the Protestant, and, it may be added, of the Christian faith.
7. Other objections to this theory may be more appropriately considered when we come to speak of the several doctrines to which it is applied. It is sufficient in the conclusion of the present discussion to say that what is said to be true of the genus homo, is assumed to be true of all genera and species in the animal and veg- etable worlds. The individual in all cases is assumed to be only the manifestation or modus existendi of the generic substance. Thus there is a bovine, an equine, and a feline substance, having an ob- jective existence of which all oxen, all horses, and all animals of the cat-race, are the manifestations. And so of all species, whether of plants or animals. This is almost inconceivable. Compared to this theory, the assumption of a naturgeist, or anima mundi, or of one universal substance, is simplicity itself. That such a theory should be set forth and made the foundation, or rather the con- trolling principle of all Christian doctrines, is most unreasonable and dangerous. This realistic doctine, until recently, has been as much exploded as the eternal ideas of Plato or the forms of Aris- totle.
§ 4. Another form of the Realistic Theory.
There is, however, another phase of this doctrine, which it is necessary to mention. The doctrine that genera and species are real substances existing prior to individuals, and independent of them, is the old, genuine, and most intelligible form of Realism.
62 PART II. Ch. it. — nature OF MAN.
It was expressed in the schools by saying that Universalia are anti' rem. Tiie other form of the doctrine asserts that the Universalia are in re. That is that the universals exist only in the individuals ; and that the individuals alone are real. " L'identite des individus," says Cousin ^ in his exposition of this form of the doctrine, " d'un meme genre ne vient pas de leur essence meme, car cette essence est diffdrente en chacun d'eux, niais de certains dldments qui se retrouvent dans tous ces individus sans aucune diffdrence, indiffer- enter. Cette nouvelle theorie differe de la premiere en ce que les universaux ne sont plus I'essence de I'etre, la substance meme des choses ; mais elle s'en rapproche en ce que les universaux existent reellement, et qu'existant dans plusieurs individus sans diflPerence? ils forment leur identite et par la leur genre." Again, ^ he says, " Le principe de la nouvelle thdorie est que I'essence de chaque chose est leur individuality, que les individus seuls existent, etqu'il n'y a point en dehors des individus d'essence appelees les universaux, les especes et les genres ; mais que I'individu lui-meme contient tout cela, selon les divers points de vue sous lequels on le considere."^ Thus Socrates as an individual man has his own essence, which, with its peculiarities, makes him Socrates. Neglect those pecidiar- ities and consider him as rational and mortal, then you have the idea of species ; neglect rationality and mortality, and consider him as an animal, then you have the idea of the genus ; neglect all these forms (" relictis omnibus formis"), and you have oidy the idea of substance. According to this view " les especes et les genres, les plus elevds comme les plus infdrieurs, sont les individus eux- memes, considdrds sous divers point de vue." * This, according to the plain sense of the terms, amounts to the common doctrine. In- dividuals alone exist. Certain individuals have some distinguish- ing properties or attributes in common. They constitute a par- ticular species. These and other individuals of different species have other properties common to them all, and they constitute a genus, and so orders, and classes, until we get to the highest cate- gory of being, which includes all. But if all beings are assumed to be one substance, which substance with certain added qualities or accidents constitutes a class, with certain other additions, an order, with still further modifications, a genus, a species, an indi- vidual, then we have the old theory back again, only extended so as to have a pantheistic aspect.
1 Fraffvients PhUosoplilques, p. 162. ^ Jbid, p. 168.
8 See the exposition by Ab^lard himself quoted on page 170 of Cousin. * Cousin, Fracjmtnts Philosophiques, p. 183.
§4.] ANOTHER FORM OF REALISM. 63
Some scientific men, instead of defining species as a group of in- dividuals having certain characteristics in common, say with Pro- fessor Dana, that it " corresponds to the specific amount or con- dition of concentred force, defined in the act or law of creation ;" or with Dr. Morton, that it is " a primordial organic form ; " or with Agassiz, that it is an original immaterial principle which de- termines the form or characteristics of the individuals constituting a distinct group. These are only different modes of accounting for the fact that all the individuals of a given species have certain char- acteristics or fundamental qualities in common. To such state- ments there is no objection. But when it is assumed that these original primordial forms, as in the case of humanity, for exam- ple, are by the law of propagation transmitted from generation to generation, so as to constitute all the individuals of the species essentially one, that is, one in essence or substance, so that the act of the first individual of the species (of Adam, for example) be- ing the act of the substance numerically the same in all the mem- bers of that species, is the act of each individual member, then something essentially new is added to the above given scientific definition of species, and we return to the original and genuine form of Realism in its most offensive features. It would be easy to show, (1st.) that generation or the law of propagation both in plants and in animals is absolutely inscrutable ; as much so as the nature of matter, mind, or life, in themselves considered. We can no more tell what generation is, than what matter is, or what mind is. (2d.) That it is therefore unreasonable and dangerous to make a given theory as to the nature of generation or the law of propa- gation the basis for the explanation of Christian doctrines. (3d.) That whatever may be the secret and inscrutable process of propa- gation, it does not involve the transmission of the same numerical essence, so that a progenitor and his descendants are one and the same substance. This assumption is liable to all the objections already urged against the original form of the realistic doctrine. The theory is moreover destitute of all evidence either fi-om expe- rience or analogy. There is no conceivable sense in which all the oaks now on the earth are identical as to their substance with the oaks originally created. And there is no conceivable sense in which we and all mankind are identically the same substance with Adam. If a thousand candles are successively lighted from one candle tht'y do not thereby become one candle. There is not a communication of the substance of the first to the second, and of the second to the others in their order, so as to make it in any
64 PART n. Ch. n.— nature of man.
sense true that the substance of the first is numerically the same with that of all the others. The simple fact is that by the laws of matter ordained by God, the state in which a lighted candle is, pro- duces certain changes or movements in the constituent elements of the wick of another candle when the two are brought into contact, which movements induce other movements in the constituent parti- cles of the surrounding atmosphere, which are connected with the evolution of light and heat. But there is no communication of substance involved in the process. An acorn which falls from an oak to-day, is composed not of the same particles of matter from which the original acorn was formed, but of matter of the same kind, and arranged in the same way. It may be said to be im- bued with chemical and vital forces of the same kind with the original acorn, but not with numerically the same forces. So of all plants and animals. We are of the same nature with Adam in the same sense that all animals of one species are the same. The sameness does not consist in numencal identity of essence or of vital forces, or of reason or will, but in the sameness of kind and community of origin.
Besides the origin and the nature of man, there are tM^o other questions, which are more or less involved in what the Scriptures teach concerning mankind, and which demand attention before we turn to the moral and religious condition of the race. The first of these concerns the Origin of the Soul, and the second the Unity of the Race.
CHAPTER III.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SOUL.
§ 1. Theory of Preexistence.
Three theories have been advanced as to the origin of the soul. First, that of the Preexistence of the soul ; secondly, that of Tra- duction, or the doctrine that the soul of the child is derived from the soul of the parent ; thirdly, that of immediate Creation, or the doctrine that the soul is not derived as the body is, but owes its existence to the creative power of God,
The doctrine of the preexistence of the soul has been presented in two forms. Plato held that ideas are eternal in the divine mind ; that these ideas are not mere thoughts, but living entities ; that they constitute the essence and life of all external things ; the universe and all it contains are these ideas realized, clothed in matter, and developed in history. There was thus an ideal, or in- telligible world, anterior to the world as actually existing in time. What Plato called ideas, Aristotle called forms. He denied that the ideal was antei'ior to the actual. Matter is eternal, and all things consist of matter and form — by form being meant that which gives character, or determines the nature of individual things. As in other respects, so also in this, the Platonic, or Aristo-Platonic philosophy, had much influence on Christian The- ology. And some of the fathers and of the schoolmen approached more or less nearly to this doctrine of the preexistence, not only of the soul, but of all things in this ideal world. St. Bernard, in his strenuous opposition to nominalism, adopted the Platonic doc- trine of ideas, which he identified with genera and species. These ideas, he taught, were eternal, although posterior to God, as an effect is in the order of nature after its cause. Providence applies the idea to matter, which becomes animated and takes form, and thus ("du monde intelligible est sorti le monde sensible ") "ex mundo intelligibili muudus sensibilis perfectus natus est ex perfecto." ^ Among modern writers, Delitzsch comes nearest to this Platonic doctrine. He says, " Es giebt nach der Schrift eine Priiexistenz
1 Cousin, Fragments Philosophiques, pp. 172-176.
VOL. II. 5
fiB PART II. Cii. ni. — ORIGIN OF THE SOUL.
des Meiisclien und zwar elne ideale ; . . . . eine Priiexistenz .... vermdge welcher Mensch und Mensclilieit nicht bios eiii fenizu- kiinftiges Object gottliclier Voraussicht, sondeiu ein gegenwiirtiges
Object gottlicher Anschauung sind im Spiegel derWeisheit
Nicht bios Philosopliie and falschberiihmte Gnosis, sondern auch die Sclirift weiss und spricht von einer gottlichen Idealwelt, zu welcher sich die Zeitwelt wie die geschichtliche Verwirklichuno; eines ewio-en Grundrisses verhalt.^ That is, " There is accordino; to the Scriptures, an ideal preexistence of man ; a preexistence in virtue of which man and humanity are contemplated by the divine om- niscience not merely as objects lying far off in the future, but as present in the mirror of his wisdom. Not only philosophy and the so called Gnosis, but also the Scriptures recognize and avow a divine ideal world to which the actual world stands related as the historical development of an eternal conception." It is doubtful, however, whether Delitzsch meant much more by this than that the omniscience of God embraces from eternity the knowledge of all things possible, and that his purpose determined from eternity the futurition of all actual events, so that his decree or plan as existing in the divine mind is realized in the external world and its history. The mechanist has in his mind a clear conception of the machine which he is about to make. But it is on]y by a figure of speech that the machine can be said to preexist in the artist's mind. This is very different from the Platonic and Realistic theory of preexist- ence.
Origen's Doctrine.
Preexistence, as taught by Origen, and as adopted here and there by some few philosophers and theologians, is not the Platonic doctrine of an ideal-world. It supposes that the souls of men had a separate, conscious, personal existence in a previous state ; that having sinned in that preexistent state, they are condemned to be born into this world in a state of sin and in connection with a material body. This doctrine was connected by Origen with his theory of an eternal creation. The present state of being is only one epoch in the existence of the human soul. It has passed through innumerable other epochs and forms of existence in the past, and is to go through other innumerable such epochs in the future. He held to a metempsychosis very similar to that taught by Orientals both ancient and modern. But even without the encumbrance of this idea of the endless transmutation of the soul, the doctrine itself has never been adopted in the Church. It
1 Biblische Psychologie, p. 23.
§1.] THEORY OF PREEXISTENCE. 67
may be said to have begun and ended with Origen, as it was rejected both by the Greeks and Latins, and has only been advo- cated by individual writers from that day to this. It does not pre- tend to be a Scriptural doctrine, and therefore cannot be an object of faith. The Bible never speaks of a creation of men before Adam, or of any apostasy anterior to his fall, and it never refers the sinfulness of our present condition to any higher source than the sin of our first parent. The assumption that all human souls were created at the same time that the soul of Adam was created, and remain in a dormant, unconscious state until united to the bodies for which they were designed, has been adopted by so few as hardly to merit a place in the history of theological opinion.
It is a far more important question, whether the soul of each man is immediately created, or, whether it is generated by the parents. The former is known, in theology, as "Creationism," the latter as " Traducianism." The Greek Church from the first took ground in favour of creationism as alone consistent with the true nature of the soul. Tertullian in the Latin Church was almost a materialist, at least he used the language of materialism, and held that the soul was as much begotten as the body. Jerome opposed that doctrine. Augustine was also very adverse to it ; but in his controversy with Pelagius on the propagation of sin, he was tempted to favour the theory of traduction as affording an easier explanation of the fact that we derive a corrupt nature from Adam. He never, however, could bring himself fully to adopt it. Cre- ationism became subsequently the almost universally received doc- trine of the Latin, as it had always been of the Greek, Church. At the time of the Reformation the Protestants as a body adhered to the same view. Even the Form of Concord, the authoritative symbol of the Lutheran Church, favours creationism. The body of the Lutheran theologians of the seventeenth century, however, adopted the theory of traduction. Among the Reformed the reverse was true. Calvin, Beza, Turrettin, and the great majority of the Reformed theologians were creationists, only here and there one adopted the ex traduce theory. In modern times discussion on this point has been renewed. Many of the recent German theo- logians, and such as are inclined to realism in any form, have become more or less zealously the advocates of traducianism. This, however, is far from being the universal opinion of the Ger- mans. Perhaps the majority of the German philosophers agree with Giinther : ^ " Traducianism has its functions in respect to the
1 Viivschule der Speculativen Theologie, vol. ii. 181.
68 PART I. Ch. m. — origin of the soul.
animal life of man ; on the other hand, the province of Creation- ism is with the soul ; and it would travel out of its province if it extended the immediate creative action of God to that animal life, which is the principle of his body's existence." ^
§ 2. Traducianism.
I What is meant by the term traduction is in general sufficiently clear from the signification of the word. Traducianists on the one hand deny that the soul is created ; and on the other hand, they affirm that it is produced by the law of generation, being as truly derived from the parents as the body. The whole man, soul and
, body, is begotten. The whole man is derived from the substance of his progenitors. Some go further than others in their assertions on this subject. Some affirm that the soul is susceptible of " ab- scission and division," so that a portion of the soul of the parents is communicated to the child. Others shrink from such ex- pressions, and yet maintain that there is a true derivation of the one from the other. Both classes, however, insist on the numer- ical identity of essence in Adam and all his posterity both as to soul and as to body. The more enlightened and candid advocates of traducianism admit that the Scriptures are silent on the subject. Augustine had said the same thing a thousand years ago. " De re obscurissima disputatur, non adjuvantibus divinarum scriptura- rum certis clarisque documentis." The passages cited in support of the doctrine teach nothing decisive on the subject. That Adam begat a son in his own likeness, and after his own image, and called his name Seth, only asserts that Seth was like his father. It sheds no light on the mysterious process of generation, and does not teach how the likeness of the child to the parent is secured by physical causes. When Job asks, " Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? " and when our Lord says, " That which is born of the flesh is flesh," the fact is asserted that like begets like ; that a corrupt nature is transmitted from parent to child. But that this can be done only by the transmission of numerically the same substance is a gratuitous assumption. More stress is laid on certain facts of Scripture which are assumed to favour this theory. That in the creation of the woman no mention is made of God's having breathed into her the breath of life, is said to imply that her soul as well as her body was derived from Adam. Silence, however, proves nothing. In Gen. i. 27, it is simply said, ''• God created man in his own image," just as it is said that He created
1 Wilberforce On the Incarnation, p. 47.
§ 2.] TRADUCIANISM. 69
" every creeping thing tliat creepeth upon the earth." Nothing is there said of his breathing into man the breath of life, i. e., a principle of rational life. Yet we know that it was done. Its not being expressly mentioned in the case of Eve, therefore, is no proof that it did not occur. Again, it is said, that God's resting on the Sabbath, implies that his creating energy was not after- wards exerted. This is understood to draw the line between the immediate creation and the production of effects in nature by second causes under the providential control of God. The doc- trine of creationism, on the other hand, assumes that God con- stantly, now as well as at the beginning, exercises his immediate agency in producing something out of nothing. But, in the first place, we do not know how the agency of God is connected with the operation of second causes, how far that agency is mediate, and how far it is immediate ; and in the second place, we do know that God has not bound himself to mere providential direction ; that his omnipresent power is ever operating through means and without means in the whole sphere of history and of nature. Of all arguments in favor of traducianism the most effective is that derived from the transmission of a sinful nature from Adam to his posterity. It is insisted that this can neither be explained nor jus- tified unless we assume that Adam's sin was our sin and our guilt, and that the identical active, intelligent, voluntary substance which transgressed in him, has been transmitted to us. This is an argument which can be fully considered only when we come to treat of original sin. For the present it is enough to repeat the remark just made, that the fact is one thing and the explanation of the fact is another thing. The fact is admitted that the sin of Adam in a true and important sense is our sin, — and that we de- rive from him a corrupt nature ; but that this necessitates the adoption of the ex traduce doctrine as to the origin of the soul, is not so clear. It has been denied by the vast majority of the most strenuous defenders of the doctrine of original sin, in all ages of the Church. To call creationism a Pelagian principle is only an evidence of ignorance. Again, it is urged that the doctrine of the incarnation necessarily involves the truth of the ex traduce theory. Christ was born of a woman. He was the seed of the woman. Unless both as to soul and body derived from his human mother, it is said, He cannot truly be of the same race with us. The Lutheran theologians, therefore, say : " Si Christus non assumjisis- set animam ab anima Marias, animam humanam non redemisset.^ This, however, is a simple non sequitur. All that is necessary is
70 PART IL Ch. m.— ORIGIN^ OF THE SOUL.
tliat Christ should be a man, a son of David, in the same sense as any other of the posterity of David, save only his miraculous conception. He was formed ex suhstantia matris suce in the same sense in which every child born of a woman is born of her substance, but what that sense is, his birth does not determine. The most plausible argument in favour of traducianism is the undeniable fact of the transmission of the ethnical, national, family, and even parental, peculiarities of mind and temper. This seems to evince that there is a derivation not only of the body but also of the soul in which these peculiarities inhere. But even this argument is not conclusive, because it is impossible for us to determine to what proximate cause these peculiarities are due. They may all be referred, for what we know, to something peculiar in the physical constitution. Tiiat the mind is greatly influenced by the body cannot be denied. And a body having the physical peculiarities belonging to any race, nation, or family, may determine within certain limits the character of the soul.
§ 3. Creationism.
The common doctrine of the Church, and especially of the Reformed theologians, lias ever been that the soul of the child is not generated or derived from the parents, but that it is created by the immediate agency of God, The arguments generally urged in favour of this view are, —
1. That it is more consistent with the prevailing representations of the Scriptures. In the original account of the creation there is a marked distinction made between the body and the soul. The one is from the earth, the other from God. This distinction is kept up throughout the Bible. The body and soul are not only represented as different substances, but also as having different origins. The body shall return to dust, says the wise man, and the spirit to God who gave it. Here the origin of the soul is represented as different from and higher than that of the body. The former is from God in a sense in which the latter is not. In like manner God is said to form " the spirit of man within him " (Zech. xii. 1) ; to give " breath unto the people upon " the earth, " and spirit to them that walk therein." (Is. xlii. 5.) This language nearly agrees with the account of the original creation, in which God is said to have breathed into man the breath of life, to indicate that the soul is not earthy or material, but had its origin immediately from God. Hence He is called " God of the spirits of all flesh." (Num. xvi. 22.) It could not well be said that He is
§3.] CREATIONISM. 71
God of the bodies of all men. The relation in which the soul stands to God as its God and creator is very different from that in which the body stands to Him. And hence in Heb. xii. 9, it is said, " We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence : shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live ? " The obvious antithesis here presented is between those who are the fathers of our bodies and Him who is the Father of our spirits. Our bodies are derived from our earthly parents, our souls ai'e derived from God. This is ^ in accordance with the familiar use of the word flesh, Avhere it is contrasted, either expressly or by implication, with the soul. Paul speaks of those who had not " seen his face in the flesh," of " the life he now lived in the flesh." He tells the Philippians that it was needful for them that he should remain " in the flesh ; " he speaks of his " mortal flesh." The Psalmist says of the Messiah, " my flesh shall rest in hope," which the Apostle explains to mean that his flesh should not see corruption. In all these, and in a multitude of similar passages, flesh means the body, and "fathers of our flesh " means fathers of our bodies. So far, thei-efore, as the Scriptures reveal anything on the subject, their authority is against tradacianism and in favour of creationism.
Argument from the Nature of the Soul. 2. The latter doctrine, also, is clearly most consistent with the nature of the soul. The soul is admitted, among Christians, to be immaterial and spiritual. It is indivisible. The traducian doctrine denies this universally acknowledged truth. It asserts that the soul admits of "separation or division of essence."-^ On the same ground that the Church universally rejected the Gnostic doctrine of emanation as inconsistent with the nature of God as a spirit, it has, with nearly the same unanimity, rejected the doctrine that the soul admits of division of substance. This is so serious a difficulty that some of the advocates of the ex traduce doctrine endeavour to avoid it by denying that their theory assumes any such separation or division of the substance of the soul. But this denial avails little. They maintain that the same numerical essence which constituted the soul of Adam constitutes our souls. If this be so, then either humanity is a general essence of which individual men are the modes of existence, or what was wholly in Adam is distributively, partitively, and by separation, in the multitude of his descendants. Derivation of essence, therefore, does imply, and is generally
1 Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine, vol. i. p. 343, note.
72 PART n. ch. ni. — origin of the soul.
admitted to imply, separation or division of essence. And this must be so if numerical identity of essence in all mankind is assumed to be secured by generation or propagation.
3. A third argument in favour of creationism and against tra- ducianism is derived from the Scriptural doctrine as to the person of Christ. He was very man ; He had a true human nature ; a true body and a rational soul. He was born of a woman. He was, as to his flesh, the son of David. He was descended from the fathers. He was in all points made like as we are, yet without sin. This is admitted on both sides. But, as before remarked in reference to realism, this, on the theory of traducianism, necessitates the conclusion that Christ's human nature was guilty and sinful. We are partakers of Adam's sin both as to guilt and pollution, because the same numerical essence which sinned in him is com- municated to us. Sin, it is said, is an accident, and supposes a substance in which it inheres, or to which it pertains. Community in sin supposes, therefore, community of essence. If we were not in Adam as to essence we did not sin in him, and do not derive a corrupt nature from him. But, if we were in him as to essence then his sin was our sin both as to guilt and pollution. This is the argument of traducianists repeated in every form. But they insist that Christ was in Adam as to the substance of his human nature as truly as we were. Tiiey say that if his body and soul were not derived from the body and soul of his virgin mother he was no true man, and cannot be the redeemer of men. What is true of other men must, consequently, be true of Him. He must, therefore, be as much involved in the guilt and corruption of the apostasy as other men. It will not do to affirm and deny the same thing. It is a contradiction to say that we are guilty of Adam's sin because we are partakers of his essence, and that Christ is not guilty of his sin nor involved in its pollution, although He is a partaker of his essence. If participation of essence involve community of guilt and depravity in the one case, it must also in the other. As this seems a legitimate conclusion from the traducian doctrine, and as this conclusion is anti-Christian, and false, the doctrine itself cannot be true.
§ 4. Concluding Remarks.
Such are the leading arguments on both sides of this question. In reference to this discussion it may be remarked, —
1. That while it is incumbent on us strenuously to resist any doctrine which assumes the divisibility, and consequent materiality, of the human soul, or which leads to the conclusion that the human
§4.] CONCLUDING REMARKS. 73
natui'e of our blessed Lord was contaminated with sin, yet it does not become us to be wise above that which is written. We may confess that generation, the production of a new individual of the human race, is an inscrutable mystery. But this must be said of the transmission of life in all its forms. If theologians and philosophers would content themselves with simply denying the creation of the soul ex nihilo, without insisting on the division of the substance of the soul or the identity of essence in all human beings, the evil would not be so great. Some do attempt to be thus moderate, and say, with Frohschammer,^ " Gfenerare is nicht ein traducere, sondern ein secundares, ein creatUrliches creare.'^ They avail themselves of the analogy often referred to, " cum flamma accendit flammara, neque tota flamma accendens transit in accensam neque pars ejus in eam descendit : ita anima parentum generat animam filii, ei nihil de- cedat." It must be confessed, however, that in this view the theory loses all its value as a means of explaining the propagation of sin.
2. It is obviously most unreasonable and presumptuous, as well as dangerous, to make a theory as to the origin of the soul the ground of a doctrine so fundamental to the Christian system as that of original sin. Yet we see theologians, ancient and modern, boldly asserting that if their doctrine of derivation, and the consequent numerical sameness of substance in all men, be not admitted, then original sin is impossible. That is, that nothing can be true, no matter how plainly taught in the word of God, which they cannot explain. This is done even by those who protest against introducing philosophy into theology, utterly unconscious, as it would seem, that they themselves occupy, quoad hoc, the same ground with the rationalists. They will not believe in hereditary depravity unless they can explain the mode of its transmission. There can be nol , such thing, they say, as hereditary depravity unless the soul of the \ child is the same numerical substance as the soul of the parent. ^ That is, the plain assertions of the Scriptures cannot be true unless the most obscure, unintelligible, and self-contradictory, and the least generally received philosophical theory as to the constitution
of man and the propagation of the race be adopted. No man has a right to hang the millstone of his philosophy around the neck of the truth of God.
3. There is a third cautionary remark which must not be omitted. The whole theory of traducianism is founded on the assumption that God, since the original creation, operates only through means. Since the " sixth day the Creator has, in this world, exerted no
1 UtOtr dtn Urqjruiiy Jtr Seelen, Muiiicli, 1854, p. 82, note 1.
74 PART n. Ch. m. — origin of the soul.
strictly creative energy. He rested from the work of creation upon the seventh day, and still rests." ^ The continued creation of souls is declared by Delitzsch ^ to be inconsistent with God's relation to the world. He now produces only mediately, i. e., throu<>-h the operation of second causes. This is a near approach to the mechanical theory of the universe, which supposes that God, havino- created the world and endowed his creatures with certain faculties and properties, leaves it to the operation of these second causes. A continued superintendence of Providence may be admitted, but the direct exercise of the divine efficiency is denied. What, then, becomes of the doctrine of regeneration? The new birth is not the effect of second causes. It is not a natural effect produced by the influence of the truth or the energy of the human will. It is due to the immediate exercise of the almighty power of God. God's relation to the world is not that of a mechanist to a machine, nor such as limits Him to operating only through second causes. He is immanent in the world. He sustains and guides all causes. He works constantly through them, with them, and without them. As in the operations of writing or speaking there is with us the union and combined action of mechanical, chemical, and vital forces, controlled by the presiding power of mind ; and as the mind, while thus guiding the operations of the body, constantly exercises its creative energy of thought, so God, as immanent in the world, constantly guides all the operations of second causes, and at the same time exercises uninteiTuptedly his creative energy. Life is not the product of physical causes. We know not that its origin is in any case due to any cause other than the immediate power of God. If life be the peculiar attribute of immaterial substance, it may be produced agreeably to a fixed plan by the creative energy of God whenever the conditions are present under which He has purposed it should begin to be. The organi- zation of a seed, or of the embryo of an animal, so far as it consists of matter, may be due to the operation of material causes guided by the providential agency of God, while the vital principle itself is due to his creative power. There is nothing in this derogatory to the divine character. There is nothing in it contrary to the Scriptures. There is nothing in it out of analogy with the works and working of God. It is far preferable to the theory which either entirely banishes God from the world, or restricts his operations to SI eoncursus with second causes. The objection to creationism that
1 Shedd's Hklory of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 13. '■' Delitzsch's Biblische Psychohgie, p. 79.
§4.] CONCLUDING REMARKS. 75
it does away with the doctrine of miracles, or that it supposes God to sanction every act with which his creative power is connected, does not seem to have even plausibility. A miracle is not simply an event due to the immediate agency of God, for then every act of conversion would be a miracle. But it is an event, occurring in the external world, which involves the suspension or counteracting