46 



soul. The creation of the first human soul 

 marks the real creation of the human race, although 

 we might assume that a natural development 

 lasting millions of years had preceded it." 



"These," he adds, "are, it is true, only attrac 

 tive possibilities, the outcome of bold specula 

 tion, but I have referred to them in order to 

 prove to you that, if ever science is able to 

 demonstrate to us the natural development of 

 man from an ancestry resembling beasts, the 

 divine origin and the divine end of humanity will 

 nevertheless remain unass ailed and firmly established 

 as before'' 



This may be regarded by Father Wasmann 

 as a "bold speculation," but we can hardly agree 

 with him in calling it an "attractive possibility." 

 If we understand Father Wasmann's specula 

 tion rightly, it is an attempt to push aside Dar 

 win's doctrine about the descent of man, and 

 in a measure the Mivartian hypothesis as well, 

 and to supplant both by what might, perhaps, 

 be properly termed a fhylogenetic germ-cell theory 

 of humanity. In other words, instead of the hy 

 pothesis of Mivart which refers man's ancestry 

 to apes, assuming that at a certain period in 



