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comes this very remarkable thing, that we do get abnormal laws and disease 
in the animate world, and especially in contact with just that part of creation 
which we have set before us as containing the most marvellous instances of 
God’s design. Of course, when I say “ most marvellous,” I mean that which 
comes home as such most strongly to our minds : — I do not mean that the 
instances we get in one direction are really more marvellous than those which 
we get elsewhere. I quite agree with Mr. Henslow and with Mr. Row that 
every part of animated nature somehow or other sets before you an ideal of 
perfection ; but that when you attempt to find that ideal, by comparing one 
creature with another, it is lost. How must we account for this seeming 
imperfection when we have such great perfection shown everywhere else ? 
I say emphatically, as a believer in the Bible, that the Bible is the only book 
that throws light upon that. We have been asked to-night what the Fall has 
to do with it 
Mr. Row. — I said that that gave no adequate account of it. 
The Chairman. — Now, the Bible to my mind does give a very adequate 
account of it. When God made all His works, He pronounced them to be 
“ very good ” ; and the Bible tells me that man, the chief of His works, fell 
from the perfection in which he was created ; and that when he fell from 
that state, and a curse fell upon him, that curse not only fell upon man, but 
the earth was cursed for his sake. That curse not only fell upon man, but 
upon the whole of the living creation, whether vegetable or animal 
Mr. Reddie. — I hope you do not mean to say that man was cursed, because 
it is really not the fact ? 
The Chairman.— I say that man fell under the curse of God on account 
of his disobedience 
Mr. Reddie. — The Bible does not say that man was cursed. Even after 
the world was destroyed by the Flood, it is written, “ And God blessed Noah 
and his sons ” ; but there is no cursing of man in Scripture. 
The Chairman. — But the Bible does set forth that the curse on creation 
was on account of man’s fall, — that was its effect ; and revelation is the only 
thing that gives us an explanation of the matter. To my mind it is a most 
adequate explanation ; and it seems to throw a flood of light on the apparent 
nature of disease and abnormal forms, and the introduction of imperfection 
into that which God had pronounced to be very good. With regard to the 
rudimentary organs, they have been accounted for, by those who maintain what 
I believe to be the Biblical account, not by the law of evolution, but by the 
fiat of His will. W e have no right to limit God’s action, or to say that He 
must work according to the theory of evolution ; and if the Bible is only 
opposed by theories of science, we should hold by the Biblical account until 
science gives us something like an authoritative proof in contradiction. It 
will be time enough to attempt to make the Bible square with it then, and 
I certainly doubt the policy of attempting it beforehand. But how may the 
rudimentary organs be accounted for ? That which men, with imperfect know- 
ledge, have considered to be superfluous and unnecessary, a more advanced 
knowledge has shown to be essentially necessary to the well-being of the creature. 
