Ma7t in the Light of Evoltttion 



produced from lower Is a birth, not a creation. 

 It Is evolution pure and simple. Says Professor 

 Lewis: " According to the ancient view the pres- 

 ent world was a growth; It was born, and came 

 from something antecedent, not merely as a 

 cause but as Its seed or embryo. Plato's world 

 was a living being, a natural production." ^ 



The Idea of origin by birth from some pre- 

 ceding form, and this is the essential idea of evo- 

 lution, was perfectly natural and reasonable to 

 the writers of the Bible, and apparently to all 

 ancient Oriental thinkers. They speak of the 

 " generations of the Heavens and the Earth " 

 as of the generations of the patriarchs. The 

 writer of the ninetieth psalm says: '* Before the 

 mountains were born, or ever thou hadst brought 

 to birth the earth and the world," if we translate 

 his words literally. Here we have side by side 

 the thought of a primal creation and of later 

 evolution. The mind of these ancient thinkers 

 was broad enough to conceive of both these 

 processes; we are prone to overemphasize one 

 to the exclusion of the other. 



1 Lewis, Tayler, "Six Days of Creation," Chapter 

 XXIV. 



2 



