(2.) That Gen. 2: 7 relates to the creation of the same first man as Gen. 1: 26–28, and not of another man ages later, seems to me to admit of no rational doubt. The inducements to make out two distinct creations, i. e. of two different first men, come from the supposed proof of the existence of man on the earth ages before the Adam of antediluvian history. I propose to treat below this question of the antiquity of man. Let it suffice here to say that we must not mutilate the record or disregard the laws of philology for the sake of making the sacred narrative conform to theories which are yet rather assumptions than scientifically proven facts.——As to the correspondences and variations in the two narratives of the creation of man, the first makes prominent his being created in the image of God: the second assumes this in the fact that God gave him law in Eden; in the knowledge of the lower animals which his naming them assumes; in the superior dignity which the Lord’s bringing them before him for names implies; and in the fact that among them all no helpmeet for him could be found. His nature ranked far above theirs.——The earlier narrative says briefly that God “created them male and female.” The later one expands this fact much more fully and makes it the foundation for the law of marriage. The later record treats with the utmost brevity the main part of the six days’ work and must have been written with the previous record before the mind, to be a supplementary and continuative history, designed to bring out prominently the creation of woman and the scenes of the garden, its moral trial and ultimately its results.——The supposition of a different Adam from that of the former record could never have occurred to the Hebrew mind, and therefore can not be accepted as the sense of the passage.
10. Invariability of “kind” in the vegetable and animal kingdoms.
The record in Genesis sets forth that God created grass, herb, and then fruit tree; “each after his kind;” also reptiles, fish, fowl and land-animals, each “after his kind;” and finally man “in the image of God.” Over against this the modern theory which bears thename of Darwin holds that all the animals of our globe “have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number;”[9] and moreover, that man has in this respect no pre-eminence above the beasts, but has descended in the same line with them from some one of the four or five progenitors of the great animal kingdom. More still he says in the same connection—“Analogy would lead me one step further, viz. to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype.”——These four or five progenitors of the whole animal kingdom correspond substantially with what Webster calls the five sub-kingdoms, viz. Vertebrates, Articulates, Mollusks, Radiates, and Protozoans. The technical classification under these sub-kingdoms into Classes, Orders, Families, Genera, and Species becomes of little or no account in any discussion of Darwin’s system, for his theory of “descent with modifications” is reckless of all these lines of demarkation, traveling over and through them all without finding the least obstruction.——Let it be distinctly understood therefore that though Mr. Darwin makes frequent use of the word “species,” and entitles one of his volumes—“The Origin of Species,” yet his theory takes a far wider range than the question whether “species are variable.”In his view not only are species variable, intermixing at will and passing from one into another, but genera also and families and orders and classes—not to say also each of the great sub-kingdoms of the animal world;[10] even the distinction between animals and vegetables fades away under his analogical argument.Hence the issue between Darwin and Moses is relieved of whatever uncertainty hangsover the dividing line between species and varieties, and may fitly be limited to these two points; the invariability of “kind” in the sense of Moses in Genesis; and the distinct origination of man.
Under Mr. Darwin’s system “community of descent” and not “some unknown plan of creation” is “the hidden bond” which unites together all living existences of our globe. “Looking to some unknown plan of creation” (in his own words) has prevented the truly scientific classification and history of the forms of life in our world. The Bible has stood in the way of the growth of science.——Under his system the changes by natural descent from any given parent to its offspring, taken individually, have been exceedingly small. Hence the theory requires an indefinitely long time from the point of the original creation of the four or five primordial forms to the present status of living things, vegetable and animal, in our world.——The above remarks will suffice for a very general introduction to Mr. Darwin’s system.
Wishing to bring this discussion within the narrowest possible limits and yet do justice to Darwin, to Genesis, and to the truth, I propose to state briefly his main arguments; then comprehensively my rejoinder to them severally in their order, and then subjoin some general considerations bearing upon his entire theory.
1. Darwin holds that by natural law the offspring vary, though slightly, from the parent, and hence, that, given an indefinitely long time, he has any desired amount of variation.
2. When animals multiply beyond the means of subsistence, there ensues a struggle for life in which the strongest and most favored in circumstances are the victors and survive. This law which he calls “Natural Selection” (or “the survival of the fittest”) works a gradual improvement in the race. A twin argument with this comes from “sexual selection,” the amount of which is that in the case of some at least of the animal races, there arises a struggle among the males for the possession of the females, in which struggle the most attractive in beauty or in song, or the champions in fight, being the victors, perpetuate the race and thus improve it. This law of the animal races (“sexual selection”) works precisely in the same line with the lawcalled “natural selection.” It may serve therefore to provide a little more of the same thing, but no new or different product whatever. Hence it does not seem to call for a distinct refutation.
3. Homologous anatomical structure is found to obtain very extensively among widely diverse races, e. g. in the arm of man, the fore-leg of the monkey and indeed of all quadrupeds, in the wing of the bird and the fin of the fish. This indicates a common parentage.
4. Some animals which, fully grown, differ from each other widely, are scarcely distinguishable in the embryo. Hence he infers their common origin.
5. The fact of rudimentary organs is assumed to be historic, proving that some ancient progenitor used them, and that they have gradually passed out of use. This is held to prove that great changes of structure come of genealogical descent.