inclined to say that at each of these points,—the origin of the first sentient animal, the origin of the first vertebrate, and of the first mammal,—God by his omnipotence caused a new type to originate. Aside from the fact that "forces resident in matter," the basic idea of the evolutionistic theory, here begins to become somewhat faint as a background even for a "theistic" conception of development, it is evident that we have already reached a point far down the scale of organic evolution in which the admission must be made that no possible working of forces within matter can account for the change. Again we say, if we already admit that the various great types of animal life could not originate without a special creative act of God, then why should we not accept the record of Genesis which says that the various species of plants and the various species of animals were created, each a separate species, in the beginning? Once admit special creative acts, and there is no longer any need for a hypothesis of evolution.

Man.

The difficulty which stands in the way of accepting, on purely scientific grounds, the descent of man from a brute ancestor, is, first of all a biological (physiological) difficulty. Among all the mammalia (to accept the classification of man with that group), man alone has a perfect brain. By this we mean the physiologically and structurally perfect brain. It is present even in the lowest man—present in the negro or the Australian Bushman as in the civilized American; and absent in all living beings below man—absent in the ape or the elephant as truly as in the lowest mammals, the kangaroo or the duckbill. Its sign is language, capacity of progress, culture. All healthy human brains are structurally perfect; the highest brute brains are structurally imperfect. The least cultivated human being is susceptible of culture; a savage not only possesses the endowment of language but may be educated to appreciate the art of a Raphael or a Shakespeare. The brains of all other living beings are circumscribed by instinct, which never progresses. The perfect brain thus introduces another impassable biological barrier dividing the world of life.

However, the derivation of man from brute ancestry is attended by another and even greater difficulty. The brain, after all, is but an organ, it is the organ of Mind. Man possesses faculties of intellect (reason, imagination, the artistic faculties, etc.) and, above all, a moral nature, which raises him far above the brute. These faculties could not possibly have been developed by means of forces resident in matter or by means of the laws which are made to account for the physical universe.

The very term "evolution" implies the development of something that was at first involved, or essentially infolded, in that in which evolution began. In man there are attributes and faculties not shown by lower orders. Evolution, seeking to be consistent, answers: "It is true that faculties cannot be evolved out of a thing unless they exist in a crude and undeveloped state in that thing, but these higher faculties do exist in the lower orders, potentially, or in a germ form and are developed and become operative only in the higher forms of life."

Evolutionists do not shrink from this application of their theory to the human mind. The attributes of a Shakespeare and the moral nature of a Paul were, essentially or potentially (capable of development), in the star fish and the jelly fish. The difference is not one of kind but of development and degree. Man has these faculties developed, the animals have them undeveloped. In the "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," published by his son, is a letter from Mr. Darwin to W. Graham, written in 1881, from which I quote the following: "I have no practice in abstract reasoning, and I may be all astray. Nevertheless, you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done. But then, with me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the lower animals, are of any value, or are at all trustworthy." Again he says (p. 528), in another letter written to Sir C. Lyell: "Grant a simple archetypal creature, like the mud-fish or lepidosiren (mud eel) with five senses and some vestige of mind, and I believe natural selection will account for the production of every vertebrate animal, including, of course, man."

Observe that this language is very definite. It says that the mind of man, with all its wonderful attributes and faculties, was evolved from the mind of the lower animals—and he goes as low as the mud-fish and the eel that live in the slime of the swamps. Now, whoever wishes to believe such a preposterous assumption can do so. He is able to believe almost anything, and to disbelieve everything. Mr. Darwin himself says he looks upon man's convictions as of no value, because they are the convictions of a mind derived from the mind of lower animals; nor can one blame him for being skeptical. Our point, however, is that there is such a tremendous difference between the intellectual and moral faculties of man and the barely instinctive impulses of the lower creatures, that no one can see any connection between the two, unless there is some serious defect in his own mental or moral perceptions. Every instinct and conviction of the human mind rises in indignant repudiation of the theory of man's descent.

There are even among thoroughgoing Darwinians some who draw the line at this (necessary) application of the development idea. Wallace says, at the conclusion of his defense of Darwinism: "The faculties of man could not possibly have been developed by means of the same laws which have determined the progressive development of the world in general, and also of man's physical organism"—the human body. He finds in the origin of Mind clear indications of "an unseen universe—a world of spirit, to which the world of matter is altogether subordinate." ("Darwinism," p. 320.) Yet the development of mind through merely physical forces is upheld to the present day by the majority of evolutionists. The doctrine is even found in public school texts. In Davis' "Physical Geography," a high-school text, we read page 341:

"The greater intelligence of many land animals than of sea animals should also be regarded as a result of the development of land animals amid a greater variety of geographical conditions than is found in the seas. . . . The wonderful intelligence of man has been developed on the lands, because only on the lands is to be found the great variety of form, climate and products which can stimulate the development of high intelligence. It would have been as impossible for man to develop as an inhabitant of the dark and monotonous ocean floor as it has been for civilization to arise out of the frozen and lonesome lands of the Antarctic regions."

Thus even the children of our generation are taught a doctrine which is not only unproven but so far falls short of explaining that which it was invented to explain that it cannot, by any correct definition, even be dignified with the name of a "working hypothesis." It is a theory of origins which fails to account for one thing precisely—Origins.

CHAPTER THREE. The Testimony of the Rocks.

We have seen that the principal argument for a development of the higher types of life from lower organisms is based upon a study of fossil remains (paleontology). The older the strata in the earth's surface, the simpler the animal forms imbedded therein; the more recent the strata, the more complex and highly developed the fossil remains. Popular scientific works, and books of refence [tr. note: sic] generally, quote it as an axiom: In the oldest rocks the simplest fossils are found, hence the higher animals are developed from the