Some scientific men, instead of defining species as a groui of in- dividuals having certain characteristics in common, say with Pro- fessor Dana, that it " corresponds to the specific amount or con- dition of concentred force, defined in the act or law of creation ;" or with Dr. Morton, that it is " a primordial organic form ; " or with Agassiz, that it is an original immaterial principle which de- termines the form or characteristics of the individuals constituting a distinct group. These are only different modes of accounting for the fact that all the individuals of a given species have certain char- acteristics or fundamental qualities in common. To such state- ments there is no objection. But when it is assumed that these original primordial forms, as in the case of humanity, for exam- ple, are by the law of propagation transmitted from generation to generation, so as to constitute all the individuals of the species essentially one, that is, one in essence or substance, so that the act of the first individual of the species (of Adam, for example) be- ing the act of the substance numerically the same in all the mem- bers of that species, is the act of each individual member, then something essentially new is added to the above given scientific definition of species, and we return to the original and genuine, form of Realism in its most oflPensive features. It would be easy to show, (1st.) that generation or the law of propagation both in plants and in animals is absolutely inscrutable ; as much so as the nature of matter, mind, or life, in themselves considered. We can no more tell what generation is, than what matter is, or what mind is. (2d.) Tiiat it is therefore unreasonable and dangerous to make a given theory as to the nature of generation or the law of propa gation the basis for the explanation of Christian doctrines. (3d.) That whatever may be the secret and inscrutable process of propa- gation, it does not involve the transmission of the same numerical essence, so that a progenitor and his descendants are one and the same substance. This assumption is liable to all the objections already urged against the original form of the idealistic doctrine. The theor}^ is moreover destitute of all evidence either from expe- rience or analogy. There is no conceivable sense in which all the oaks now on the earth are identical as to their substance with the oaks originally created. And there is no conceivable sense in which we and all mankind are identically the same substance with Adam. If a thousand candles are successively lighted from one candle they do not thereby become one candle. There is not a communication of the substance of the first to the second, and of the st-cond to the others in their order, so as to make it in any
64 PART n. ch. n.— nature of man.
sense true that the substance of the first is nuniei'ically tlie same with that of all the others. The simple fact is that by the laws of matter ordained by God, the state in which a lighted candle is, pro- duces certain chanses or movements in the constituent elements of the wick of another candle when the two are brought into contact, which movements induce other movements in the constituent parti- cles of the surrounding atmosphere, which are connected with the evolution of light and heat. But there is no communication of substance involved in the process. An acorn which falls from an oak to-day, is composed not of the same particles of matter from which the original acorn was formed, but of matter of tiie same kind, and arranged in the same way. It may be said to be im- bued with chemical and vital forces of the same kind with the original acorn, but not with numerically the same forces. So of all plants and animals. We are of the same nature Avith Adam in the same sense that all animals of one species are the same. The sameness does not consist in numerical identity of essence or of vital forces, or of reason or will, but in the sameness of kind and community of origin.
Besides the origin and the nature of man, there are two other questions, which are more or less involved in what the Scriptures teach concerning mankind, and which demand attention before we turn to the moral and religious condition of the race. The first of these concerns the Origin of the Soul, and the second the Unity of the Race.