54 DEGENERATION f I 



which is inferred by Darwin and his adherents. This 

 is a series leading from simple egg-like organisms to 

 ape -like creatures, and from these to man. Will 

 those who cannot answer our previous inquiries 

 undertake to assert dogmatically in the present case 

 at what point in the historical series there is a break 

 or division? At what step are we to be asked to 

 suppose that the order of nature was stopped, and a 

 non-natural soul introduced? The philosopher or 

 theologian of this or that school may arbitrarily draw 

 an imaginary line here or there in either series, and 

 the evolutionist will not raise a finger to stop him. 

 As long as truth in the statement of fact, and logic 

 in the inference from observed fact are respected, 

 there need be no hostility between evolutionist and 

 theologian. The theologian is content in the case of 

 individual development from the egg to admit the 

 facts of individual evolution, and to make assumptions 

 which lie altogether outside the region of scientific 

 inquiry. So, too, it would seem only reasonable that 

 he should deal with the historical series, and frankly 

 accept the natural evolution of man from lower 

 animals, declaring dogmatically, if he so please, but 

 not as an inference of the same order as are the 

 inferences of science, that something called the soul 

 arrived at any point in the series which he may think 

 suitable. At the same time, it would appear to be 

 sufiicient, even for the purposes of the theologian, to 

 hold that whatever the two above-mentioned series 

 of living things contain or imply, they do so as the 

 result of a natural and uniform process of development. 



