THE DESCENT OF MAN 53 



would be in agreement. We have now to consider 

 how far this is the case. 



Is it the sphere of zoology alone to express an 

 opinion regarding the origin of man ? Is this 

 science alone competent to do so ? No, it is not 

 although it would be competent, if man were merely 

 an animal and nothing more. Were this the case, 

 we might well ask : ' Whence can we suppose man 

 to have come, if not from a tertiary mammal ? 

 Surely he did not fall from the skies ? ' But as a 

 matter of fact man is not merely an animal. Who- 

 ever recognises an essential difference between 

 man and beast, and regards the intellectual soul of 

 man as his most important part, will acknowledge 

 that in investigating the descent and origin of 

 man, the chief question is : ' Whence comes his 

 higher part ? ' not : ' Whence comes his lower 

 part ? ' Therefore I believe myself justified in 

 saying that psychology, and not zoology, is of chief 

 importance among the natural sciences, when they 

 are called upon to account for the origin of man. 

 Now psychology tells us I am speaking especially 

 of psychology as a department of Christian philo- 

 sophy that the soul of man is not only essentially 

 different from the soul of an animal, but is a simple 

 spiritual being. Now such a being cannot in its 

 very nature develop out of anything else it can 

 come into existence only by way of creation. There- 

 fore the soul of man cannot owe its origin to evolu- 

 tion. 



