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114 THE VERDICT OF HISTORY. 
in the primordial cell. All that has occurred in history 
has developed out of antecedents. Furthermore: 2. 
All that exists has developed according to natural laws. 
Scientists have given up the law which Darwin called 
“Natural Selection,” and Spencer himself cashiered the 
law which he had called “Survival of the Fittest.” But 
evolutionists continue to assert that somehow, by the 
action of certain laws, that which exists has naturally— 
there is no need of divine Pravidence, overruling the 
affairs of men,—has naturally been developed out of its 
antecedents. And so history is read by the evolutionist. 
He sees in all the institutions of civilization, in every de- 
partment of culture, in the rise and fall of nations, the 
progress and decay of literatures, a result of natural 
laws, working out the evolution of human society as it 
exists to-day. ) 
What, then, is the verdict of history? Does it con- 
form to this scheme? Is there a demonstrable develop- 
ment, by inherent forces, of human society, from lower 
to higher ranges of culture? Civilizations have risen, 
civilizations have perished: is there in this traceable the 
working of natural law? 
Dr. Emil Reich, in the “Contemporary Review,” 1889, 
p. 45 ff. pointed out the failure of the development theory 
as applied to human culture. Hebrew religion as well 
as the Hebrew state were not derived from Babylonian, 
Egyptian, Arabic or Hittite culture; Greek art is not a 
derivative product of Egyptian, Assyrian, or Phoenician 
art; Greek religion and mythology are not derived from 
other pagan systems; Roman law has not been developed 
out of Greek, Aryan, or Egyptian law; the English con- 
stitutional form of government has no antecedents in Ger- 
man or Norman-French history ; German music is not a 
result of development out of Dutch, French, or Italian 
music. Dr. Reich sums up the matter: “Institutions do 
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