XII.] THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 95 



need be taken on the ground of orthodoxy. But, in saying 

 this, it has not been meant to include the soul of man. 



It is a generally-received doctrine that the soul of every 

 individual man is absolutely created in the strict and pri- 

 mary sense of the word, that it is produced by a direct 

 or supernatural 53 act, and, of course, that by such an act 

 the soul of the first man was similarly created. It is there- 

 fore important to inquire whether " evolution " conflicts 

 with this doctrine. 



Now, the two beliefs are in fact perfectly compatible, 

 and that either on the hypothesis 1. That man's body was 

 created in a manner different in kind from that by which 

 the bodies of other animals were created ; or 2. That it 

 was created in a similar manner to theirs. 



One of the authors of the Darwinian theory, indeed, con- 

 tends that, even as regards man's body, an action took place 

 different from that by which brute forms were evolved. 

 Mr. Wallace " considers that " Natural Selection " alone 

 could not have produced so large a brain in the savage, in 

 possessing which he is furnished with an organ beyond his 

 needs. Also that it could not have produced that peculiar 

 distribution of hair, especially the nakedness of the back, 

 which is common to all races of men, nor the peculiar con- 

 struction of the feet and hands. He says, 56 after speaking 

 of the prehensile foot, common without a single exception 

 to all the apes and lemurs, " It is difficult to see why the 

 prehensile power should have been taken away " by the 

 mere operation of " Natural Selection." " It must certainly 

 have been useful in climbing, and the case of the ba- 

 boons shows that it is quite compatible with terrestrial 

 locomotion. It may not be compatible with perfectly easy 



63 The term, as before said, not being used in its ordinary theological 

 sense, but to denote an immediate Divine action as distinguished from 

 God's action through the powers conferred on the physical universe. 



64 See " Natural Selection/' pp, 332-360. 65 Loc. cit., p. 349. 



