The theory set forth in this writing that before Adam was paced upon this earth to people it with his offsprings the matter of which it is composed existed in another planet, which by some mighty convulsions was broken up, and from its ruins was formed our present earth, at once affords a means of harmonizing those facts established by the researches of men and the facts of revelation. If scientists shall claim that myriads of years or of centuries must have been necessary to form the earth's crust, it may be allowed by the believers in revelation, for there is nothing that would contradict that idea in the revelations of God on the subject. If scientists shall claim that the fossilized remains in the different strata of the earth's crust reveal the fact that in the earlier periods of the earth's existence only the simpler forms of vegetation and animal life are to be found, both forms of life becoming more complex and of higher type as the earth becomes older, until it is crowned with the presence of man—all that may be allowed. But that this gradation of animal and vegetable life owes its existence to the process of evolution is denied. As before explained, the claims of evolution are contrary to all experience so far as man's knowledge extends. The great law of nature is that every plant, herb, fish, fowl, beast and man produces his kind; and though there may be slight variations from that law, those variations soon run out either by reverting to the original stock, or else by becoming incapable of producing offspring, and thus become extinct.[E]

[Footnote E: Since beginning this writing I have found some remarks on the subject of evolution by the late President John Taylor, which cannot fail to be of interest to the student of the subject: "The Animal and vegetable creations are governed by certain laws, and are composed of certain elements peculiar to themselves. This applies to man, to beasts, fowls, fish and creeping things, to the insects and to all animated nature; each one possessing its own distinctive features; each requiring a specific sustenance, each having an organism and faculties governed by prescribed laws to perpetuate, its own kind. * * * These principles do not change, as represented by evolutionists of the Darwinian school, but the primitive organisms of all living beings exist in the same form as when they first received their impress from their Maker. There are, indeed, some very slight exceptions, for instance, the ass may mix with the mare and produce the mule; but there it ends; the violation of the laws of procreation receives a check, and its operations can go no further. Similar compounds may possibly be made by experimentalists in the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, but the original elements remain the same. Yet this is not the normal but an abnormal condition with them, as with animals, birds, etc., and if we take man he is said to have been made in the image of God, for the simple reason that he is the son of God; and being His son, he is, of course, his offspring, an emanation from God, in whose likeness we are told he is made. He did not originate from a chaotic mass of matter, moving or inert, but came forth possessing, in an embryotic state, all the faculties and powers of a God. And when he shall be perfected, and have progressed to maturity he will be like his father—a God, being indeed his offspring. As the horse, the ox, the sheep and every living creature, including man, propagates its own species and perpetuates its own kind, so does God perpetuate His.—Mediation and Atonement, pp. 164, 165.]

Furthermore, since we have learned that God made "every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb before it grew" (i. e. in our earth), the gradation of life forms which the naturalists discover in the various strata of the earth's crust may reasonably be accounted for aside from the theory of evolution—viz., by the animal and vegetable life forms of some older earth being brought to our own; different species being transplanted as changed conditions in the soil and atmosphere and temperature of our earth rendered it favorable to their production, the older species becoming extinct as the changed conditions of the earth became unfavorable to them. Then too, the theory advanced in this writing gives ample room for the reconciliation of another serious difficulty between the scientist and the believer in revelation. To the latter Adam is the first man; the former maintains that there are evidences which prove the earth to have been inhabited before Adam's time. Whether or not the planet which existed previous to our own, and out of the ruins of which our own was organized was inhabited by man as well as by vegetation and animals, I cannot say; all remarks on this subject would be conjecture merely. But if the researches of scientists prove beyond all question that there were pre-Adamic races, then doubtless they were inhabitants of that world which was destroyed, but the evidence of their existence as well as the evidence of the existence of animals and vegetation was preserved in the re-creation of that planet to form this earth. Though, in this connection, I must say that so far as I have examined the works of those who treat on the subject of pre-historic man, or pre-Adamic races, they have hung the heaviest weights on the slenderest of threads; and I am inclined to the opinion that Adam was the progenitor of all races of men whoso remain have yet been found.

So much then for the different theories as to the origin of things pertaining to our earth; as to the beginning of the universe, that is beyond the scope of this inquiry, and may be dismissed by saying that it had no beginning. We conclude this part by quoting one of our hymns:[F]

If you could hie to Kolob,[G]
In the twinkling of an eye,
And then continue onward,
With the same speed to fly,

D'ye think that you could ever,
Through all eternity,
Find out the generation
Where Gods began to be?

Or see the grand beginning,
Where space did not extend?
Or view the last creation,
Where Gods and matter end?

Methinks the Spirit whispers—
No man has found "pure space,"
Nor seen the outside curtains
Where nothing has a place.

The works of God continue,
And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression
Have one eternal round.

[Footnote F: L. D. S. Hymn Book, 252, 17 ed.]

[Footnote G: A planet near the residence of God.—Book of Abraham, Pearl of Great Price, p. 30.]

IV.

I think it must be evident to all who have looked upon the dead, that man is a dual being. Who that has stood by the bier of a friend, a parent, child or wife, and looked upon the lifeless form stretched upon it, but has felt that the being he loved has departed, that he is looking upon the casket merely that contained the jewel —the spirit. This truth forced upon man's consciousness in the presence of the dead is also sustained by the word of God, in which it is said —speaking of that mysterious change to which all flesh is subject, and which man calls death— "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return to God who gave it."[A]

[Footnote A: Ecclesiastes xii: 7]