OUR FIRST PARENTS 225 



tion itself, and the evidence of it in the many 

 relics that remain, is perfectly explained in the 

 Sacred Record. The first man and woman trans- 

 gressed the law of their Creator; the second man 

 proved to be a murderer. With perfect correct- 

 ness, therefore, does the writer just quoted argue 

 that the causes of degradation were present at the 

 beginning. They began with the first sin, and 

 they continued in an accelerating ratio until the 

 deluge, when we find them beginning anew with 

 Cham. Hence the explanation for the prevalent 

 idolatry that followed, and the wide-spread de- 

 cline, moral intellectual and cultural. As Schle- 

 gel, quoted by Dean Harris, 5 excellently says : 



"When man had once fallen from virtue, no 

 determinable limit could be assigned to his deg- 

 radation, nor how far he might descend by de- 

 grees till he reached almost to the level of the 

 brute. For, as in his origin he was a being es- 

 sentially free, he was in consequence capable of 

 change, and even in his organic powers most 

 flexible. 



"We must adopt this principle, as the only clue 

 to guide us in our enquiries, from the African 

 negro who with his bodily strength and ability, 

 with his docile, and in general, good character is 

 far from occupying the lowest grade in the scale 

 of humanity down to the Patagonian, the almost 

 imbecile Peshwerais, and the horrible cannibal of 



5 "Earth's First Man." 



