(d) Pelagius is represented as having held that the infant enters on life crippled in no appreciable degree by any inherited infirmity or waywardness of the will. He begins the world with powers sufficient to cope with tlie machinations of the evil one. And thus, in so far as he does ■«Tong, it is his own fault ; in so far as he does right, he is deserving of approbation. It would seem that Pelagius and his disciples seriously underestimated the influence of Adam's fall on human nature at large. That this nature as corrupt and the seat of sin must be of itself and when nnregenerate displeasing to the All-holy, they did not perceive with clearness. And though men, happily, do not always push their opinions to their logical con- clusions, the result of such teaching as this would be the denial of any need of grace or of redemp- tion, t
V. We pass on to the question. How far is the
* Sec Hort'8 Lift and Lettert, ii. 330 f. ; see atao L 78
♦ See Neander'8 Church Uittcti/. iv. 331 ff.
doctrine of the Fall all'ected by modern theories S8 to the evolution of the human species from lower and less developed types? It has been too often hastily assumed that the belief in the con- tinuity of animal forms is inconsistent with belief in any special prerogative of man, and is still more Incompatible wiih a doctrine which represents his history as having been retrogressive at one point. But neither of these positions can be established.
The doctrine of the evolution of species is not yet to be counted as more than an extremely probable hypothesis, by which the phenomena of life and growth become intelligible. Many details are, as yet, very obscure, and the laws of inheritance have not by any means been clearly and full^ expounded. See HEREDITY. And the api)lication or this doctrine to the descent of man is beset with peculiar difficulties, which cannot be said, as yet, to have been solved. But we are, nevertheless, content in this article to tre.at of the subject of man's early history in the light of this wonderful law. Evolution may not be the final word of science as to the laws of growth ; but it expresses well the results to which investi- gation has 80 far attained. We conceive, then, of primeval man as a creature descended from brute ancestors, some of whom he closely resembled in instinct and habit as well as in structure. But there was one marked dill'erence. In him there was present the faculty of self-consciousness ; he was conscious of a rea-son which can make pro- vision for a foreseen future, and of a will which is not neco.ssarily determined by the strongest physical desire. Man is made m the image of God, although his bodily lineage be that of the ape-like creatures whom he sees round him. If R» may illu.stnite the facts of his growth by a mathematical illustration, we shall say that the curve of his progress is a continuous curve, u])on which he has come to a critical point. At this critical point the curvature seems to change its character ; in other words, the man finds himself possessed of faculties which are not, so far as he can judge, the direct product of his former history. They are, to use at once the simplest and the truest words, the gift of God. There may be, jicrhaps, absolute and visible continuity between the bodily form of the man and of the higher apes; but continuity cannot be so exactly traced in his mental development. There luis been a ficrd^aait tii a\Xo yifoi, however it h.is come about. Hence- forth he is not only an animal, but a man. If it be sivid that it is not scientific to postulate a S'lltus of this kind, it may be asked, Why not? The law of continuity is not a fetish before which we are called to prostrate ourselves ; it is nothing more than a convenient working hypothesis, which we find it necessary to desert in this instance, as in others where it will not serve our purpose. And, indeed, it is by no means certain that to the Supreme Mind there is here apparent any breach of continuity whatever. The law may be obeyed, in fact, though the sequence may not be within our observation.
A creature thus emerging from a lower animal condition, even though endowed with the divine gifts of self-conscious reason and free will, would not, indeed, be perfect. He would be, at the earliest stage of a new period of growth, already raised atwve the ape, but still far removed from the civilized European of modern life, lint then we remark that the narrative of Genesis nowhere describes the first man as perfect. When South Baid that 'Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Para- dise,'* ho was not drawing his picture from Scrip- ture. Neither UT nor NT speak of Adam as • Sermon on On 1^.
perfect, though they speak of him as innocent and pure (cf. Ec 7-'). And this was perceived by early Christian commentators. Theophilus ^f Antioch says that God placed Adam in Paradise 5i5oi>s aiVc^ d{popfj.rjv wpoKOTTiis Situs av^dyaii' Kal T^Xeios yeyd/icvo-i, n.T.X. {Ad Autiil. ii. 24); and Clement of Alex- andria states (Strom, vi. 12. 96) that Adam ' was not made perfect in respect of his constitution, but in a fit condition to receive virtue.' * This relation to God has been well described as not a state of perfection or a mere disposition, but 'a living commencement which contained within itself the possibility of a progressive development and a fulfilment of the vocation of man.'t