9 
14. Here is another passage of arms between the living 
knight and the eminent but deceased logician. Sir John 
says : — 
“ In another passage, Archbishop Whately quotes with approbation a 
passage from President Smith, of the college of New Jersey, who says 
that man, ‘ cast out an orphan of nature, naked and helpless, into the 
savage forest, must have perished before he could have learned how to 
supply his most immediate and urgent wants. Suppose him to have been 
created, or to have started into being, one knows not how, in the full 
strength of his bodily powers, how long must it have been before he could 
have known the proper use of his limbs, or how to apply them to climb 
the tree,’ &c., &c. Exactly the same, however, [adds Sir John] might 
be said of the gorilla or the chimpanzee, which certainly are not the 
degraded descendants of civilized ancestors.” 
15. Now here we have a questionable and carelessly constructed 
argument quoted at third hand, but to say the least, quite as 
questionably and carelessly answered. One can gather the 
meaning of the argument quoted by the late Archbishop, even 
as it is cited by Sir John Lubbock. But it contains an odd 
mixture of ideas. If we believe man to have been created, then 
we should not speak of him as “ starting into being, one knows 
not how. 55 That is the language of the other side ; and no end 
of absurdities may follow the imaginary deductions from such 
an unrealized conception. If such language were advanced as 
regards anything else than modern science, it would be cha- 
racterized as downright nonsense. Again, if the first man was 
created “ in th efull strength of his bodily powers; ” lie would 
also — unless he was merely an idiot, or some nondescript, non- 
intelligent being, with neither the reason of a man nor the 
instinct of a brute — have soon “ known the proper use of his 
limbs.” It is the easiest thing in the world to select such ill- 
conceived arguments as these, culled from an author who is out 
of the way and cannot explain them, in order to show how incon- 
clusive they are. But in fact Sir John Lubbock actually quotes 
these lame arguments in order to borrow them, and he even adds 
to their lameness. He thinks it enough to argue in reply, 
“ Exactly the same , however, might be said of the gorilla or the 
chimpanzee, which certainly are not the degraded descendants 
of civilized ancestors.” The “ same ” might, indeed, “ be said,” 
but could only be foolishly said, of men and monkeys. But no 
man who claims to be rational is entitled to say that even a 
gorilla or chimpanzee may have “ started into being one knows 
not how.” It would be far less irrational to conceive that a stone 
or any other inanimate thing could have started into being 
without a Creator, — for that is the meaning of the phrase, “ one 
