THE EVOLUTION OF MAN.
The central point in the whole theory is the descent of man from the brute. It is this which, as stated, gives it importance to the Christian. But for this, the hypothesis would be but a curious scientific theory. It is a matter of comparatively minor interest how the universe or the various species came. It is only because these theories are used to assert the animal origin of man that they are dealt with here.
It is in this claim as to the origin of man that all the various theories of Evolution agree, however they may vary in other matters, and, as this is the vital point, these theories are considered as one in this discussion. This is a question merely of fact. Did or did not man descend from the brute or was he specially and divinely created? This is the question in a nut-shell. The two accounts are as follows placed side by side. Darwin's account is accepted substantially by all evolutionists.
THE BIBLE ACCOUNT.
(Gen. i:26, 27; ii:7; v:1, 2.)
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.... And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.... And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.... In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him: male and female created he them; and blessed them and called their name Adam."
EVOLUTION'S ACCOUNT.
(From Darwin's Descent of Man, ii, 372.)
"Man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arborial in its habits and an inhabitant of the Old World. This creature, if its whole structure had been examined by a naturalist, would have been classed among the Quadrumana, as surely as would the common and still more ancient progenitor of the Old and New World monkeys. The Quadrumana and all the higher mammals are probably derived from an ancient marsupial animal, and this through a long line of diversified forms, either from some reptile-like, or some amphibian-like creature, and this again from some fish-like animal. In the dim obscurity of the past, we can see that the early progenitor of the Vertebrata must have been an aquatic animal, provided with branchia, with the two sexes united in the same individual."