Origin and Primal Condition of Man. 



55 



to reform the study of psychology, however, Maudsley has 

 overleaped his mark and his theory tends too much to ma- 

 terialize the mind. Thought, as he explains it, consists in 

 some mode of action and reaction in the cortical cells of 

 the hemispheres of the "brain, and instead of "being instan- 

 taneous in action, requires appreciable time. This, indeed, is 

 shown also in what astronomers have long known as the 

 personal equation of individuals, namely, the time re- 

 quired for a sensation received on the retina to be com- 

 municated to the brain, and thence the volition to the hand 

 which registers it. The theory of evolution of species has 

 indeed a further opposition to encounter, as have many other 

 sciences, from supposed contradiction with revelation. 

 Thus the' spirit of man goeth upward and the spirit of the 

 beast goeth down to the ground (Ecc. iii, 21). But this 

 passage, if it does not refer to the erect position and up- 

 ward gaze of man, must be understood as referring to his 

 aspirations or future destiny as distinguished from the 

 beasts that perish, and not at all to his origin. Again, we 

 are told that man is created in the image of God. But 

 surely this does not refer to man's body. Hallam, the 

 historian, says : " Though man was created in God's image, 

 yet he was made also in the image of an ape." So also we 

 are met by the statement from Genesis that God moulded 

 Adam out of earth and infused the breath of life. "We 

 ought never to forget, however, that the Bible abounds in 

 anthropomorphisms, and language used after the manner 

 of men, and never intended to teach scientific truth. 



Nor should we omit, in considering the question of man's 

 origin, reverently to advert to him who was more than 

 man, while yet he was the flower and crown of our hu- 

 manity. Had he not his choice of all modes of advent into 

 this world ? Yet when he took on him to deliver man, 

 he humbled himself to be born of a woman. He became 

 incarnate by descent from a race of beings as far beneath 



