40 THE EEV. CANON E. B. GIEDLESTONB, M.A., ON 



treatment of man in his early days. Like himself I am not dis- 

 posed to believe all we are told about evolution, but the evolu- 

 tionists tell us we may see in the development of an individual an 

 analogue of the development of the human race. If so let us 

 answer the evolutionists from their own point of view. When is 

 man most ready to learn, most adaptable, most easily changed and 

 developed in certain special directions ? Surely in his childhood. 

 As we get older our powers of adaptation get moderated and we 

 lose them to some extent. We have not the same power of 

 acquiring a language, even, that we had in childhood. Let us go 

 back to the childhood of mankind. Is not it very likely, even from 

 the evolutionist's point of view, that in those years man could adapt 

 himself more easily to climatic and other influences, and also may 

 have been much more ready to take advantage of the peculiar 

 state of the world as developed before his eyes than he is now ? 

 But in his early days man had not that accumulation of science 

 and discovery that we have now. 



The Rev. R. C. Kirkpatrick, M.A. — There is one aspect of the 

 question, viz., that if man was three or four thousand years ago, as 

 some would have us believe, an ignorant savage, then the African 

 has had seven or eight thousand years more savagery, perhaps 

 than the white man, and yet if we educate him we find very little 

 difference between the two. I was shown an instance the other 

 day of a man who was perfectly black who was sent over here to 

 a training college. He was head and shoulders above the others 

 in certain acquirements. He said his ancestors had, for thousands 

 of years, been distinct savages, and here you had a man of 

 marked scientific attainments. How does that bear out the 

 theory of evolution ? To my mind it is rather an awkward fact 

 to get over. 



The Author. — I thank you for the attention with which you 

 have listened to my paper, and the appreciation which you have 

 shown. One does not like to be too long in a paper of this 

 kind. 



With regard to what Dr. Lowyhas said, there maybe a relation- 

 ship between the two woi'ds " Kobab " and " Nakab " which he has 

 referi'ed to with regard to the curse in the story of Balaam, but 

 the difference is there, nevertheless, even though the roots may be 

 related. It is just as if a particular English writer were to say 

 " buk" instead of " book," so that although the two roots "Kobab " 



