Cousin quotes the complaint of Anselm against Roscolin and other nominalists, " de ne pas conipreiidre coinment plusieurs hommes ne sont qu'un seul et menie homme, — nondum intelliget quomodo plures homines in specie sint inius homo." ^ The doctrine of his " Monologium " and " Proslogium " and " Dialogus de veritate," Cousin says, is " que non-seulement il y a des individus humains, mais qu'il y a en autre le genre huuiain, I'humanitd, qui est une, conime il admettait qu'il y a un temps absolu que les durees partic- ulieres manifestent sans le constituer, une vdrite une et subsistante par elle-meme, un type absolu du bien, que tons les biens particu- Hers supposent et rdfldchissent plus ou moins imparfaitement." ^ He quotes Abelard as stating the doctrine which he opposed, in the following words : "Homo quredain species est, res una essen- tialiter, cui adveniunt forinae qutedam et efRciunt Socratem : illani eamdem essentialiter eodem modo informant formae facientes Plato- nem et cagtera individua hominis ; nee aliquid est in Socrate, prteter illas formas informantes illam materiam ad Sciendum Socratem, quin illud idem eodem tempore in Platone informatum sit formis PLatonis. Et hoc intelligunt de singulis speciebus ad individua et de generibus ad species." ^ According to one theory, " les individus seuls existent et constituent I'essence des choses ; " according to the other, " I'essence des individus est dans le genre auquel ils se rapportent ; en tant qu' individus ils ne sont que des accidents."^ All this is sufficiently plain. That which constitutes the species or genus is a real objective existence, a substance one and the same numerically as well as specifically. This one general substance exists in every individual belonging to the species, and constitutes their essence. That which is peculiar to the individual, and which distinguishes it from other individuals of the same species, is purely accidental. This one substance of humanity,, which is revealed or manifested in all men, and which constitutes them men, " possesses all the attributes of the human individual ;' for the individual is only a portion and specimen of the nature. Considered as an essence, human nature is an intelligent, rational, and voluntary essence; and accordingly its agency in Adam partakes of the corresponding qualities." ^ " Agency," however, supposes " an agent ; and since oiiginal sin is not the product of the individual agent, because it ajipears at birth, it must be referred to the generic agent, — i. e., to the human nature in distinction from the human person or individual." ^
I Cousin's Frnyments Pkihsophiques, Paris, 1840, p. 146. 2 Jbidan.
8 lb«i. p. 1G7. 4 jbid. p. 171.
» Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 78. « Jbid. p. 80
54 TART n. Ch. n.— nature of man.
Generic Humanity.
What God created, therefore, was not an individual man, but the species homo^ or generic humanity, — an intelligent, rational, and A'oluntary essence ; individual men are the manifestations of this substance numerically and specifically one and the same, in connection with their several corporeal organizations. Their souls are not inrlividual essences, but one common essence revealed and acting in many separate organisms.
This answer to the question proposed above, What is human nature generically considered, which makes it an essence or substance common to all the individuals of the race, is the most common and the most intelligible. Scientific men ado])t a some- what different phraseology. Instead of substances, they s])eak of forces. Nature is defined to be the sum of the forces operating in the external world. Oxygen is a force ; magnetism, electricity, etc., are forces. " A species is ... . based on a specific amount or condition of concentred force, defined in the act or law of crea- tion." ^ Humanity, or human nature, is the sum of the forces which constitute man what he is. The unity of the race consists in the fact that these forces are numerically as well as specifically the same in all the individuals of which it is composed.
The German theologians, particularly those of the school of Schleiermacher, use the terms life, law, and organic law. Human nature is a generic life, i. e., a form of life manifested in a multi- tude of individuals of the same kind. In the individual it is not distinct or different from what it is in the genus. It is tlie same organic law. A single oak may produce ten thousand other oaks ; but the whole forest is as much an inward organic unity as any single tree.
These may be convenient formulas to prevent the necessity of circumlocutions, and to express a class of facts ; but they do not convey any definite idea beyond the facts themselves. To say that a whole forest of oaks have the same generic life, that they are as truly one as any individual tree is one, means simpl}'' that the nature is the same in all, and that all have been derived from a common source. And to say that mankind are a unit because they have the same generic life, and are all descended from a common parent, either means nothing more than that all men are of the same species, i. e., that humanity is specifically the same in all mankind ; or it means all that is intended by those who teach that 1 Professor James D. Dana, Biblioiheca Sacra, 1857, p. 861.