DOES LIKENESS PROVE DESCENT? 167 



conclude from his spiritual operations the exist- 

 ence of his own rational soul, as an immaterial, 

 simple, spiritual principle, differing essentially 

 from the merely sensitive life principle of the 

 animal. Man is gifted with reason and free will, 

 neither of which the brute possesses. It can 

 but follow its animal instinct. 



The origin of matter postulated a Divine 

 creative act, so too did the origin of life, and the 

 same is true beyond cavil of the human soul. 

 Materialistic evolutionists are wilfully deceiving 

 their followers, when they claim as a fact the 

 evolution of the soul of man, by whatever name 

 they may call it, from the unreasoning brute. Not 

 merely can they not prove such an evolution to 

 have taken place, but it remains in itself impossi- 

 ble. The only explanation possible is that, which 

 under a rich oriental symbolism the Scripture of- 

 fers when it tells us that into the last made of all 

 His creatures God breathed the breath of life: 



And the Lord God . . . breathed into his face 

 the breath of life, and man became a living soul. 



This, in poetic words, expresses the fact of the 

 creation of the human soul, a creation repeated in 

 each instance. Such is the value of the soul of 

 man, in which is found the image and likeness of 

 God, and which is created to be united to Him 

 eternally unless, indeed, it would use the free- 

 dom of its will to make this union impossible for- 

 ever. 



