CHAPTER I 



MAN'S ORIGIN BY EVOLUTION 



We do not know, nor can we conceive, how the first 

 protoplasmic h'ving being appeared on this earth. I am 

 as convinced of continuity as any one, wherever there is 

 evidence of it ; but I refrain from forcing my belief in it, 

 where there is absolutely no evidence, as at the origin of 

 terrestrial life. A time may come when the problem will 

 be solved and continuity may bridge the gulf between 

 the non-living and the living, but we have not yet arrived 

 at that period. 



Once grant the Origin of Life, and I see no necessity 

 for any break whatever. Man has closed the series of 

 living beings, as the latest and most complete. 



In Genesis (i. 26) we read : " And God said, Let us 

 make man in our image, after our likeness : and let him 

 have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl 

 of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and 

 over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 

 So God created man in his own image, in the image of 

 God created he him ; male and female created he them." 



Such is the Elohistic account of the creation of man. 

 The second or Jehovistic history runs as follows (ii. 7) : 

 " The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, 

 and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man 

 became a living soul ". 



It may be noticed that the ideas of God are here 



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