Ancient history points to a state of chronic war, in which the social relations were in confusion, and the development of the useful arts was almost impossible. Savage races, which continue to this day in a similar moral condition, are, we may easily believe, most unhappy. They are generally divided into tribes, which are mutually hostile, or friendly only with the view of injuring some other tribe. Might is their law, and robbery, rapine and murder express their mutual relations. This is the history of the lowest grade of barbarism, and the history of primeval man so far as it has come down to us in sacred and profane records. Man as a species first appears in history as a sinful being. Then a race maintaining a contest with the prevailing corruption and exhibiting a higher moral ideal is presented to us in Jewish history. Finally, early Christian society exhibits a greatly superior condition of things. In it polygamy scarcely existed, and slavery and war were condemned. But progress did not end here, for our Lord said, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when He, the spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth.”
The progress revealed to us by history is truly great, and if a similar difference existed between the first of the human species and the first of whose condition we have information, we can conceive how low the origin must have been. History begins with a considerable progress in civilization, and from this we must infer a long preceding period of human existence, such as a gradual evolution would require.
γ. Rationale of Moral Development.
I. Of the Species. Let us now look at the moral condition of the infant man of the present time. We know his small accountability, his trust, his innocence. We know that he is free from the law that when he “would do good, evil is present with him,” for good and evil are alike unknown. We know that until growth has progressed to a certain degree he fully deserves the praise pronounced by Our Saviour, that “of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Growth, however, generally sees a change. We know that the buddings of evil appear but too soon: the lapse of a few months sees exhibitions of anger, disobedience, malice, falsehood, and their attendants—the fruit of a corruption within not manifested before.
In early youth it may be said that moral susceptibility is often in inverse ratio to physical vigor. But with growth the more physically vigorous are often sooner taught the lessons of life, for their energy brings them into earlier conflict with the antagonisms and contradictions of the world. Here is a beautiful example of the benevolent principle of compensation.
1. Innocence and the Fall. If physical evolution be a reality, we have reason to believe that the infantile stage of human morals, as well as of human intellect, was much prolonged in the history of our first parents. This constitutes the period of human purity, when we are told by Moses that the first pair dwelt in Eden. But the growth to maturity saw the development of all the qualities inherited from the irresponsible denizen of the forest. Man inherits from his predecessors in the creation the buddings of reason: he inherits passions, propensities and appetites. His corruption is that of his animal progenitors, and his sin is the low and bestial instinct of the brute creation. Thus only is the origin of sin made clear—a problem which the pride of man would have explained in any other way had it been possible.
But how startling the exhibition of evil by this new being as compared with the scenes of the countless ages already past! Then the right of the strongest was God’s law, and rapine and destruction were the history of life. But into man had been “breathed the breath of life,” and he had “become a living soul.” The law of right, the Divine Spirit, was planted within him, and the laws of the beast were in antagonism to that law. The natural development of his inherited qualities necessarily brought him into collision with that higher standard planted within him, and that war was commenced which shall never cease “till He hath put all things under His feet.” The first act of man’s disobedience constituted the Fall, and with it would come the first intellectual “knowledge of good and of evil”—an apprehension up to that time derived exclusively from the divinity within, or conscience.[[50]]
[50]. In our present translation of Genesis, the Fall is ascribed to the influence of Satan assuming the form of the serpent, and this animal was cursed in consequence, and compelled to assume a prone position. This rendering may well be revised, since serpents, prone like others, existed in both America and Europe during the Eocene epoch, five times as great a period before Adam as has elapsed since his day. Clark states, with great probability, that “serpent” should be translated monkey or ape—a conclusion, it will be observed, exactly coinciding with our inductions on the basis of evolution. The instigation to evil by an ape merely states inheritance in another form. His curse, then, refers to the retention of the horizontal position by all other quadrumana, as we find it at the present day.
2. Free Agency. Heretofore development had been that of physical types, but the Lord had rested on the seventh day, for man closed the line of the physical creation. Now a new development was to begin—the development of mind, of morality and of grace.
On the previous days of Creation all had progressed in accordance with inevitable law apart from its objects. Now two lines of development were at the disposal of this being, between which his free will was to choose. Did he choose the courses dictated by the spirit of the brute, he was to be subject to the old law of the brute creation—the right of the strongest and spiritual death. Did he choose the guidance of the Divine Guest in his heart, he became subject to the laws which are to guide—I. the human species to an ultimate perfection, so far as consistent with this world; and II. the individual man to a higher life, where a new existence awaits him as a spiritual being, freed from the laws of terrestrial matter.