269 
just as the animal is corporeally and psychically far higher 
than the plant, so in his corporeal, psychical, and spiritual 
nature is man far higher and distinct from the animal. There- 
fore, says Professor Goodsir, “ Man, in virtue of his possession 
of a spiritual principle, by which alone he is capable of thought 
and speech, and is impressed with the belief of moral truth 
and divine agency, stands alone among organized beings of the 
globe/ 5 * 
80. And again: — “ To my apprehension, man 5 s possession 
of a spiritual principle entirely excludes him from the scale of 
mere animal being, even although he possesses an animal 
body. 55 f 
81. But Professor Goodsir does not stop here. He proves to 
my mind, absolutely without any drawback, that man could 
never have been evolved, even physically, from the animal. He 
remarks: “An organism adapted to a spiritual end, and 
capable of acting in space in the most perfect manner, must be 
more highly developed than one not so adapted. 55 { 
82. The limits of this paper will not permit me to adduce 
Professor Goodsir 5 s evidence upon this point. But I must 
quote him once or twice more. “ Why, 55 he asks, “should man 
alone, of all the living beings on the globe, have been left so 
unfettered that his welfare should depend on his own choice? 55 
And he continues: “ Herein lies the great mystery of humanity, 
on the existence of which depends that religiosity which is 
characteristic of every form of the human race. The conscious- 
ness of untruth and of error, in some form or other, exists in 
every modification of man; and it is equally certain that all 
the vicissitudes of human history and all the distress against 
which man has had to struggle, have been directly due to his 
tendency to untruth, and his liability to error. 55 § 
83. From these extracts it will be observed that a great and 
a good man did not hesitate to support his scientific investiga- 
tions by direct references to the records of Revelation. He laid 
it down as a principle, “that although we are not to look to 
the revealed record for scientific forms of statement, we are 
nevertheless, from its character, entitled to assume that whenever 
statements are made bearing on the intellectual, moral, and 
religious departments of the economy of man, in their relations 
to his material economy and conditions of present and future 
existence, the sense or bearing of these statements will not only 
be not contradictory, but, on the contrary, confirmatory of the 
scientific results of human research. On the grounds already 
* Anatomical Memoirs , vol. i. p. 271. 
t Op. cit., p. 275. X Op. cit., p. 276. 
VOL. VII. XJ 
§ Op. cit., p. 277. 
