: 
Prof. Parsons on the Origin of Species. 1] 
the way of positive revelation! In my own mind it does not. 
I look upon the Bible as the word of God: but I do not believe 
that the first chapters of Genesis teach or were ever intended to 
teach natural scientific truth ; nor does this denial lessen my rev- 
erence for what I consider as the moral, spiritual, and religious 
truth which I believe they do teach directly, or under the form 
of parable and symbol. And upon the question of the original 
and physical creation of man, I think that we know no more 
and no less, and are at equal liberty to think, to argue, and to 
conclude, as if these chapters had never been written. To me, 
they do not say one word about it. 
But does not this notion stand in utter opposition to all reli- 
gious belief? Again, I can only say that in my own mind it does 
not. I believe, most unreservedly and undoubtingly, that man 
is superior, not in kind only but in degree, to all animals, and is 
immortal, which they are not. But this belief would not be 
either shaken or troubled, if science should, upon evidence dis- 
covered hereafter, teach, that the Gorilla, which Owen says is 
most like to man, or the Chimpanzee, which Professor Wyman, 
with better reason, places higher,—if either or both had given 
birth, when the fit time had come, toa babe, whose brain and 
pounded by Darwin, as it rests upon excessively minute changes, 
and those produced by what he aid “ accident,” (of which word, 
