48 



Origin and Primal Condition of Man. 



family. As Noah's flood has long since ceased to be re- 

 garded as universal, so this hypothesis would carry back 

 the limitation of Jewish history a little farther, and assert 

 that Moses never meant to give the early history of all 

 mankind, but only of that family in which his nation were 

 especially interested. Changes now progressing may 

 throw light on £he question of unity of man. Mivart says 

 (p. 102) : " There is a very generally admitted opinion that 

 a new type has been developed in the United States, and 

 this in about a couple of centuries only, and in a vast 

 multitude of individuals of diverse ancestry." 



Although this question is not yet settled, but as we have 

 seen, the most opposite opinions prevail, yet at present the 

 unity or diversity of man excites less interest and attention 

 than the inquiry into man's origin. Whether as one pair 

 or as several, how did the first of human kind come into 

 being ? This has indeed always been a fruitful theme of 

 speculation and of theory, but just at present, it has been 

 brought before the world with new and more absorbing 

 interest on account of great progress of scientific investiga- 

 tion, and the earnestness with which Darwin and others 

 have advocated the theory of descent from lower species of 

 animals. We must expect to find difficulty in compre- 

 hending the beginning of existence of any species, but we 

 have to choose either the theory that man was formed from 

 matter unorganized and inanimate, or that he did indeed 

 descend from some inferior animal by generation. Analogy 

 renders it highly probable, if not indeed certain, that what- 

 ever method was adopted in the creation of inferior animals 

 served also for man, and if they originated by development, 

 then so did he also. It is evident that if the development 

 theory be adopted, that will carry us back only a certain 

 distance, for there was a time when life began to be, and 

 before which there was no organic existence in the world. 

 The intense heat of the globe was of course forages incom- 



