clearly come into play." Man is, as yet, the most advanced in organisation; intellect has come into play, but nature is not exhausted. Life is on an upward path; and if this theory be true, surely, as intellect has come out of nonintellect, or a physical combination, what shall be the ultimate product of intellect, and which of them shall Natural Selection preserve? Without wasting time on conjecture, we may ask whether perfection shall be reached by a mollusc before it has come to the human platform. Is

gradual advancement" to carry all life-structures onward to the organised condition which man has reached, and shall distinctions cease? If this general improvement should ever take place, when all creatures will thus be advanced to the limits of perfectibility, there will be no more Natural Selection; for she will have done her work, and, consequently, there will be no more struggles for life. Creatures will not be waging battle within battle; in fact, all the destroyers will disappear, and they will be transformed into some superior position "by an advancement of the brain for intellectual purposes; and even the intestine worm will perhaps be in a fair way to study logic and propound theories." 2

The theory begins in mystery, and ends in it. It dreams of a beginning untold ages ago, it dreams of a kind of perfection untold ages hence, and places midway a beautiful exposition of many facts which yet leave the theory proofless.

But, in conclusion, the theorists are at war with one another. As Ishmaelites, their hand is against every man. Each is a law in theorising to himself. Their contendings

may well teach us caution. Lamarck set those right who preceded him. The author of The Vestiges of Creation out

1 "Origin of Species,” p. 131.

2 "Darwinian Theory Examined," p. 157.

stripped Lamarck; and Mr. Darwin sets both aside, while he in turn has been severely censured by M. Tremaux, and has all his reasoning controverted in favour of the new theory. Lamarck believed in spontaneous generation, Darwin does not. The author of The Vestiges expounded a law of development, and Mr. Darwin displaces it by natural selection. M. Tremaux has repudiated the origin which Mr. Darwin has assumed, and insists on our believing that not water, but the soil, is the origin of all life, and therefore of man. With him there is no progress; all creatures have reached their resting-place. But man rises or sinks according to the more recent or ancient soil he dwells on. Professor Huxley is unwilling to abandon his idea that life may come from dead matter, and is not disposed to accept of Mr. Darwin's explanation of the origin of life by the Creator having, at first, breathed it into one or more forms. While accepting Mr. Darwin's theory of a common descent for man with all other creatures, he not only differs from him as to the beginning, but he admits that there is no gradual transition from the one to the other. He acknowledges that "the structural differences between man and even the highest apes, are great and significant;" and yet, because there is no sign of gradual transition "between the gorilla and the orang, or the orang and the gibbon," he infers that they all had a common origin; whereas, the more natural conclusion from the facts would be, that they had separate beginnings.

Mr. Wallace, whose claims are admitted to be equal to those of Mr. Darwin as the propounder of the theory of the origin of species and as to the powers expressed by Natural Selection, has firmly asserted that, with all its resources, Natural Selection is utterly inadequate to account for the origin and structure of the human race. "A superior intelligence has guided that development in a definite direction

and for a special purpose." It is interesting to observe how completely these two great naturalists differ from one another. Mr. Wallace argues against Natural Selection as sufficient to explain the greatness of man's brain in even the lowest savages, who have little more use for it than the lower animals around them, whose brain is greatly inferior. These savages, in having a brain little inferior to that of the highest type of man, possess that which is comparatively of so little use to them that it could not have been obtained in the struggle for existence. "They possess," he says, "a mental organ beyond their needs. Natural Selection could only have endowed savage man with a brain a little superior to that of an ape; whereas, he actually possesses one very little inferior to that of a philosopher." Mr. Wallace also specifies other facts in the natural history of man, for which Mr. Darwin's theory utterly fails to account. In the structure of the hands and feet, in that also of the larynx, giving the power of speech and especially of musical sounds, he finds evidence of the inadequacy of Natural Selection. His references to the human body are so pointed, that their effect cannot be slighted by unprejudiced inquirers," The soft, naked, sensitive skin of man, entirely free from the hairy covering which is so universal among other mammalia, cannot be explained on the theory of Natural Selection. The habits of savages show that they feel the want of this covering, which is most completely absent in man exactly where it is thickest in other animals. We have no reason whatever to believe that it would have been hurtful or even useless to primitive man; and under these circumstances, its complete abolition, shown by its never reverting in mixed breeds, is a demonstration of the agency of some other power than a law of the survival of the fittest in the development of man from the lower

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animals."1 Mr. Wallace's discussion of "The Limits of Natural Selection, as Applied to Man," is not only interesting in itself, but is instructive, as showing you how little is gained by abandoning the simple teaching of Scripture for the elaborate and conflicting theories of our ablest and most accomplished naturalists.

1 "The Limits of Natural Selection, as applied to Man," by A. R. Wallace, pp. 355, 356.

CHAPTER VIII.

Have there been more Origins than one for the Human Race?— The Bible Doctrine in relation to Recent Theories.

"As we go westward, we observe the light colour predominate over the dark; and then again, when we come within the influence of damp from the sea air, we see the shade deepen into the general blackness of the coast population.”—Dr. Livingstone.

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T is more than two hundred years1 since La Peyrère, basing his reasoning on the Scriptures, argued in favour of a plurality of origins for the human family. Taking the history of Cain for his guide,2 he maintained that there was a Non-Adamite race, the ancestors of the Gentiles; and that the Jews alone, of whose origin and history the Bible treats, were the descendants of Adam. La Peyrère was a theologian who vindicated as true all that is in the Bible; "and exhibited in his work," says Quatrefages, "a mixture of complete faith and free criticism," but he found, in that age, no listeners. After his time there was a long silence, though possibly much thought, on the subject, until Voltaire and Rousseau, seizing La Peyrère's arguments, wielded them against the Scriptures with the commanding brilliancy of their genius. The contest was soon transferred to the United States of America, where the reasoning of the French Encyclopædists was reproduced with all that intensity of feeling and that variety of resource which the interests of the Slavery question created. The Christianity and scholarship of America gave to the discussion a magnitude and influence 2 Genesis iv. 16, 17.

1 1655.