THE CHURCH AND MAN S ORIGIN 195 



the same time his brain growing in some incom 

 prehensible way, and for no good reason, except 

 that it is necessary for the theory to believe that 

 the brain-development went on so swimmingly 

 that it compensated for the physical degenera 



tion. 1 



This is surely no exaggerated picture, and it 

 shows conclusively the unreasonableness of insist 

 ing upon the bodily evolution of man from the 

 brute. We are quite well aware of the droughts 

 and cataclysms that are invented to show how 

 the monkey was forced out of the woods and made 

 to walk like man, but what are all these but mere 

 dreams which fancy spins that the theory of evo 

 lution, as applied to man, may not appear too 

 absurd when confronted with the common-sense 

 facts. But if, on the one hand, the laws of grad 

 ual evolution and natural selection render the ap 

 plication of evolution to man s body unscientific, 

 the De Vriesian theory of sudden mutations is 

 equally unsatisfactory. Had man suddenly ap 

 peared, begotten as a monstrosity in the primeval 

 forest, it is not difficult to tell the fate which 

 must inevitably have overtaken him. If we are to 

 suppose that an intelligent soul was at once in 

 fused into him by the Creator a supposition 

 which alone could save this theory we might 

 surely then far more becomingly accept the im 

 mediate formation of the body of man, directly 



Ibid., pp. 158, 159. 



