As then we can have no direct knowledge of the moral and intellectual powers of animals, we can only judge of them from their actions, and other external signs. One great mark of difference has already been noticed. Man has, other animals have not, the power of laying up an external treasure of intellectual acquirements. Then there are certain arts which seem to be indispensable to man in his lowest state—no savage is so low that he is utterly destitute of them—no animal makes any pretence to them. Such are the designing, construction, and use of tools. Mr. Darwin asserts that in certain cases—very rare ones—apes have been known to use stones to break open nuts; but the mere use of a stone is a very different thing from the conception and deliberate formation of a tool, however rude. Then there is the kindling of fire, and the use of it for the purpose of cooking; and lastly, the preparation and the wearing of clothes. The tools or the clothes may be of the rudest kind, the tools may be formed from a flint, and the clothes from bark or skin, but in the preparation of each there are signs of intellectual power, of which we find no indications whatever in the lower animals.
Another important difference between man and all other animals lies in the fact, that whatever an animal does it does perfectly from the first, but it makes no improvements. A bird's first nest is perfect. With man the case is the reverse, it is only by many trials, many failures, that he attains to skill in any operation, but then he goes forward. Arts improve from generation to generation. This seems to show that the faculties of man differ from those of animals in kind, and not in degree only.
The question also arises, if man has been produced from an anthropomorphous ape by a process of natural development, how is it that the same process has not gone on in other lines? The dog, the horse, and the elephant are at least equal in intelligence and sagacity to the highest known apes. Such a development from them cannot have proceeded through the line of the apes. If these different orders are at all connected it must be through some remote common ancestor. Why then has this development come to an abrupt termination in some cases and not in all? It may indeed be said that the dog and the horse are indebted for their intelligence to the inherited results of long intercourse with man, but this cannot be the case with the elephant, which is never known to breed in captivity. Nor is there any reason to believe that the present intelligence of the elephant is recently developed. Why then has it been arrested in its course?
Whether or not we assume the theory of development to be wholly or partially correct in reference to the lower animals, we must admit that it is true of man, but in a sense totally different from that which Mr. Darwin suggests. The development of which he is the advocate is a development of race, in which the advance made by each individual generation is exceedingly small, while the difference in remote generations, the accumulated advance of successive generations, is great. In man, on the contrary, there is no reason whatever to believe that there has been any advance at all in the race from the very earliest periods—that either in physical power or intellectual ability the present generation of men, taken as a whole, are in any way superior to their most remote ancestors. The development of which man is especially capable is the development of the individual, that development being not physical, but intellectual and moral, and being in a great degree dependent on the will and perseverance of the individual, and very little on external circumstances. The result of these individual developments has been the accumulation of a vast fund of wealth, useful arts, sciences, literature, which form the common possession of the whole race, but do not necessarily imply the slightest advance in any particular individual—that advance being dependent, not on the possession of those treasures, but on the use made of them. In the case of man then development does certainly exist, but it takes a line totally distinct from that which Mr. Darwin advocates, and thus forms another broad line of demarcation between man and the most advanced of the lower animals.
It appears then that the faculties of man differ generically from those of the animals. A new order of things seems to have commenced with the appearance of man on the earth—an order in which the highest place was to be maintained by intellectual instead of physical power. No mere process of evolution then will account for man's origin. His physical nature may have been formed in that way; but we cannot believe that his intellectual and moral nature were developed from any lower creatures. Only some special Creative interference can account for his existence.
So far then as it tends to negative the continued operation of the Creator, the theory of evolution is untenable. Like that of Laplace, it fails to give an adequate cause for existing phenomena. But it seems probable, as will be seen in the next chapter, that both theories have in them much of truth. They cannot point out the cause of the universe, but they may give us a more or less accurate view of the manner in which that cause operated. The facts brought forward by geologists have been shown not to be incompatible with interpretations which the Mosaic Record readily admits, though they conflict with existing notions upon certain points. In no one then of the three sciences which have been supposed to be specially antagonistic to that record, is there anything to be found which can be maintained as a reasonable ground for doubting that that record is, what it has always been held to be by the Church, a direct Revelation from the Creator.
CHAPTER V.
SCIENCE A HELP TO INTERPRETATION.
It is now clear that there is nothing in the Mosaic Record itself, which is contradicted by any scientific discovery, and that all the alleged difficulties arise either from interpretations prematurely adopted, or from theories which, when carefully examined, are found to be defective, but which may nevertheless contain in them a large element of truth. But if scientific discoveries are available for the refutation of erroneous interpretations, the probability is that when rightly understood they will help us to arrive at the true meaning, since the Works of God are, beyond all other things, likely to throw light on that portion of His Word in which those Works are described. Nor are the theories to be passed over—the greater the amount of truth which they embody the greater will be the likelihood that they will receive help from, as well as throw light upon, such a record; and thus we shall have additional evidence that the Word, the Work, and the Intellect, which has scrutinized and interpreted the Work, are all derived from the same source. We proceed, therefore, to inquire whether these facts and theories do in any way elucidate the concise statements of Scripture, so that we may be enabled to arrive at a somewhat clearer idea of the meaning of this most ancient document, and be enabled to entertain somewhat more distinct views of the manner in which the Divine Architect saw fit to accomplish His Work.
In pursuing this investigation two points must be carefully kept in mind; the first is the distinction between theory and conjecture on the one hand, and well ascertained facts on the other. We shall have much to do with theory, and with conjectural interpretations of observed facts. These can never stand on the same footing as the facts themselves, but can only be regarded as invested with greater or less probability. If it is found that these theories do explain many observed facts, that they harmonize with, and as it were dovetail into any proposed interpretation of which the words of Moses are capable; and still more if that interpretation actually completes the defective points of the theories, and supplies an adequate cause for facts hitherto inexplicable—then the presumption is a very strong one that the interpretation thus supported is at all events an approximation to the true one.