ON THE HYPOTHESIS OF EVOLUTION. 157 



als, as well as of human intellect, was much prolonged in the his- 

 tory of our first parents. This constitutes the period of human 

 purity, when we are told by Moses that the first pair dwelt in 

 Eden. But the growth to maturity saw the development of all 

 the qualities inherited from the irresponsible denizen of the forest. 

 Man inherits from his predecessors in the creation the buddino-s of 

 reason — he inherits passions, propensities, and appetites. His cor- 

 ruption is that of his animal progenitors, and his sin is the low 

 and bestial instinct of the brute creation. Thus only is the origin 

 of sin made clear — a problem which the pride of man would have 

 explained in any other way had it been possible. 



But how startling the exhibition of evil by this new being as 

 compared with the scenes of the countless ages already past ! Then 

 the right of the strongest was God's law, and rapine and destruc- 

 tion were the history of life. But into man had been ^''breathed 

 the breath of life," and he had "■ become a Jiving soul." The law 

 of right, the Divine Spirit, was planted within him, and the laws 

 of the beast were in antagonism to that law. The natural devel- 

 opment of his inherited qualities necessarily brought him into col- 

 lision with that higher standard planted within him, and that war 

 was commenced which shall never cease "till he hath put all 

 things under his feet." The first act of man's disobedience con- 

 stituted the Fall, and with it would come the first intellectual 

 "knowledge of good and of evil" — an apprehension up to that 

 time derived exclusively from the divinity within, or conscience.* 



2. Free Agency. — Heretofore development had been that of 

 physical types, but the Lord had rested on the seventh day, for 

 man closed the line of the physical creation. Now a new develop- 

 ment was to begin — the development of mind, of morality, and of 

 grace. 



On the previous days of Creation all had progressed in accord- 

 ance with inevitable law apart from its objects. Now, two lines 



* In our present translation of Genesis, the Fall is ascribed to the influence of 

 Satan assuming the form of the serpent, and this animal was cursed in consequence, 

 and compelled to assume a prone position. This rendering may well be revised, 

 since serpents, prone like others, existed in both America and Europe during the 

 Eocene epoch, five times as great a period before Adam as has elapsed since his day. 

 Clark states, with great probability, that "serpent" should be translated monkey or 

 ape — a conclusion, it will be observed, exactly comciding with our inductions on the 

 basis of evolution. The instigation to evil by an ape merely states inheritance in 

 another form. His curse, then, refers to the retention of the horizontal position re- 

 tained by all other quadrumana, as we find it at the present day. 



