ii THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS, 



have been a point in the history of the species at which a 

 dying brute, — differing from its offspring merely by an infe- 

 riority of development, represented by a few atoms, mayhaj) 

 by a single atom, — produced an undying man, or man in his 

 })resent state must be a mere animal, possessed of no immor- 

 tal soul, and as irresponsible for his actions to the God before 

 whose bar he is, in consequence, never to appear, as his pre- 

 sumed relatives and progenitors the beasts that perish. Nor 

 will it do to attempt escaping from the difficulty, by alleging 

 that God at some certain link in the chain might have con- 

 verted a mortal creature into an immortal existence, by breath- 

 ing into it a " living soul ;" seeing that a renunciation of any 

 such direct interference on the part of Deity in the work of 

 creation forms the prominent and characteristic feature of 

 the scheme, — nay, that it constitutes the very nucleus round 

 which the scheme has originated. And thus, though the de- 

 velopment theory be not atheistic, it is at least practically tan- 

 tamount to atheism. For, if man be a dying creature, re- 

 stricted in his existence to the present scene of things, what 

 does it really matter to him, for any one moral purpose, 

 whether there be a God or no 1 If in reality on the same 

 religious level with the dog, wolf, and fox, that are by nature 

 atheists, — a nature most properly coupled with irresponsibi- 

 lity, — to what one practical purpose should he know or be- 

 lieve in a God whom he, as certainly as they, is never to meet 

 as his Judge 1 or why should he square his conduct by the 

 requirements of the moral code, farther than a low and con- 

 venient expediency may chance to demand 1* 



* The Continental assertors of the development hypothesis are greatly 

 more frank than those of our own country regarding the "life after 

 death," and what man has to expect from it. The individual, they tell 

 us, perishes for ever ; but then, out of his remains there spring up other 

 vitalities. The immortality of the soul is, it would seem, an idle figment, 

 for there really exists no such things as souls ; but is there no comfort in 

 being taught, instead, that we are to resolve into monads and maggots ^ 



