" every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." Nothing is there said of his breathing into man the breath of life, i. e., a principle of rational life. Yet we know that it was done. Its not being^ expressly mentioned in the case of Eve, therefore, is no proof that it did not occur. Again, it is said, that God's resting on the Sabbath, implies that his creating energy was not after- wards exerted. This is understood to draw the line between the immediate creation and the production of effects in nature by second causes under the providential control of God. The doc- trine of creationism, on the other hand, assumes that God con- stantly, now as well as at the beginning, exercises his immediate agency in producing something out of nothing. But, in the first place, we do not know how the agency of God is connected with the operation of second causes, how far that agency is mediate, and how far it is immediate ; and in the second place, we do know that God has not bound himself to mere providential direction ; that his omnipresent power is ever operating through means and without means in the whole sphere of history and of nature. Of all arguments in favor of traducianism the most effective is that derived from the transmission of a sinful nature from Adam to his posterity. It is insisted that this can neither be explained nor jus- tified unless we assume that Adam's sin was our sin and our guilt, and that the identical active, intelligent, voluntary substance which transgressed in him, has been transmitted to us. This is an argument which can be fully considered only when we come tc treat of original sin. For the present it is enough to repeat the remark just made, that the fact is one thing and the explanation of the fact is another thing-. The fact is admitted that the sin of Adam in a true and important sense is our sin, — and that we de- rive from him a corrupt nature ; but that this necessitates the adoption of the ex traduce doctrine as to the origin of the soul, is not so clear. It has been denied by the vast majority of the most strenuous defenders of the doctrine of original sin, in all ages of the Church. To call creationism a Pelagian principle is only an evidence of ignorance. Again, it is urged that the doctrine of the incai'nation necessarily involves the truth of the ex traduce theory. Christ was born of a woman. He was the seed of the woman. Unless both as to soul and body derived from his human mother, it is said, He cannot truly be of the same race with us. The Lutheran theologians, therefore, say : " Si Christus non assumpsis- set animam ab anima Mariae, animam humanam non redemisset." This, however, is a simple non aequitur. All that is necessary is
70 PART IL Ch. m.— origin OF THE SOUL.
tliat Christ should be a man, a son of David, in the same sense as any other of the posterity of David, save only his miraculous conception. He was formed ex substantia matris suce in the same sense in which every child born of a woman is born of her substance, but what that sense is, his birth does not determine. The most plausible argument in favour of traducianism is the undeniable fact of the transmission of the ethnical, national, family, and even parental, peculiarities of mind and temper. This seems to evince that there is a derivation not only of the body but also of the soul in which these peculiarities inhere. But even this argument is not conclusive, because it is impossible for us to determine to what proximate cause these peculiarities are due. They may all be referred, for what we know, to something peculiar in the physical constitution. That the mind is greatly influenced by the body cannot be denied. And a body having the physical peculiarities belonging to any race, nation, or family, may determine within certain limits the character of the soul.
§ 3. Creationism.
The common doctrine of the Church, and especially of the Reformed theologians, has ever been that the soul of the child is not generated or derived from the parents, but that it is created by the immediate agency of God. The arguments generally urged in favour of this view are, —
1. That it is more consistent with the prevailing representations of the Scriptures. In the original account of the creation there is a marked distinction made between the body and the soul. The one is from the earth, the other from God. This distinction is kept up throughout the Bible. The body and soul are not only represented as different substances, but also as having different origins. The body shall return to dust, says the wise man, and the spirit to God who gave it. Here the origin of the soul is represented as different from and higher than that of the body. The former is from God in a sense in which the latter is not. In like manner God is said to form " the spirit of man within him " (Zech. xii. 1) ; to give " breath unto the people upon " the earth, " and spirit to them that walk therein." (Is. xlii. 5.) This language nearly agrees with the account of the original creation, in which God is said to have breathed into man the breath of lifcj to indicate that the soul is not earthy or material, but had its origin immediately from God. Hence He is called "God of the spirits of all flesh." (Num. xvi. 22.) It could not well be said that He is