WHAT IS EVOLUTION? 39 



in the higher organisms, against either degradation or 

 elevation. 



Advantage has been taken of this by some specu 

 lators to suggest that new species may have originated \ 

 by parthenogenesis, that is to say, by what theologians! 

 would call miraculous conception, and this idea hasf 

 by some of them been connected even with the nativity 

 of our Lord on the earth. But such speculations are 

 very far removed from even the borders of science. 

 These speculations may, however, raise the question 

 whether man is to be succeeded by any improved 

 species. If it had pleased God at any time to produce 

 several individuals of a new race as superior to ordi 

 nary humanity as was Jesus of Nazareth, and to 

 isolate and protect from admixture this new departure, 

 the world might have entered on a new stage as 

 superior to the present as man himself is to the pre- 

 daceous beasts which the nations of the earth delight 

 to use as their emblems. This idea presented itself 

 to the Prophet Daniel when he saw the successive^ 

 conquering empires of the world represented by a 

 series of ferocious beasts, and saw these replaced by 

 one like unto the Son of Man/ a truly human per 

 sonage, descending from heaven to reign on earth.! 

 The same figure is in the mind of Christ when He 

 calls Himself distinctively the c Son of Man/ not as 

 merely human or in comparison with God, but as 

 contrasted with the lower powers of earth, and as re 

 presenting the heaven-descended man of Daniel. 



