Read Ebook: The Christian Faith Under Modern Searchlights by Johnson William Hallock Patton Francis L Francis Landey Author Of Introduction Etc

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It has been argued that the saying of Jesus, Johannine in style and substance, is so isolated in the Synoptic narrative that, in spite of its secure position in the sources, doubts of its genuineness must arise. Bousset employs this argument, remarking that the thoughts of our logion "in the remaining Synoptic tradition are scarcely found at all." It is noticeable, however, that the isolation is established only by cutting away a large portion of the Synoptic material. The parable of the Vineyard, in which Jesus speaks of Himself as a beloved son, the heir , is objected to because "never thus did Jesus elsewhere in His parables force His person into the foreground." The Markan saying in which Jesus distinguishes Himself, as Son, from men and angels is set aside; the filial consciousness implied in the repeated use by Jesus of the expressions, "My Father," "your Father," "the Father," but never "our Father," is attributed to later theological reflection, and the narratives of the divine voice at the Baptism and the Transfiguration are discredited. Similarly the incidental claims which Jesus makes for Himself in forgiving sin, in speaking of Himself as the "Bridegroom," the Physician who came to cure the moral ills of men, and as Lord of the Sabbath, are all referred to secondary strata of tradition or to dogmatic overworking of the facts.

So drastic is the process by which Bousset attempts to reduce the consciousness of Jesus to a purely human level that he even rejects the major part of the narrative of the Trial and Crucifixion. Whatever differences there may be in detail, there is no room for doubt that the charge upon which Jesus was put to death is correctly given by John. "We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God" . We may believe that the result would have been different if for one moment He had disclaimed divine prerogatives, and said, "I am of thy brethren the prophets: worship God."

If it be denied that Jesus made these claims before and at His trial, the cause of His death is unknown. This is admitted by Bousset, who rejects the whole account of the trial, including the question of Pilate, "Art thou the King of the Jews?" , and the title on the cross, retaining only the accusation that He said "I will destroy this temple" . Apart from this concrete accusation, not in itself sufficient, because not blasphemy "in the strict juristic sense of the word," it is admitted that "we cannot say any more with exactness why Jesus was condemned by Pilate." In the answer of Jesus to the high priest, telling of the Son of Man "sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven," it is said that "we hear directly the Christian confession, 'seated on the right hand of God, from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.'" It is to be noted that these passages, implying in Bousset's opinion the substitution of the "day" of Jesus for the Old Testament "day of Jahweh," and implying the metaphysics of the creeds, are to be found in Mark, not in John, and in the narrative of the trial of Jesus, not in that of His resurrection.

The "isolation" of the great passage in Matthew and Luke, as to its essential content, is thus made out only by a thoroughgoing process of elimination running through the whole story of the Gospels. Every page of the Gospels testifies, in fact, to Jesus' consciousness of a unique relation to God and to men; and an examination of His teaching in whatever part or whatever context confirms the judgment of von Dobsch?tz that "Jesus implicitly stands everywhere in the centre of His gospel. The 'I am He,' which is recognized as the leading motive of the Fourth Gospel, runs through all His words also in the Synoptics." The self-revelation of Jesus and the great invitation of Matthew xi. 25-30 may be the climax of Synoptic teaching as to the relation of Jesus alike to the Father and to mankind , but the passage is no alien or intrusive element in its context. If it is the high point of Synoptic teaching, it is the capstone of a pyramid firmly and broadly supported by the whole Synoptic narrative.

Carlyle has said that the greatness of a character is measured by the contrasts it exhibits. The words of Jesus we have been studying, taken in their entirety and in their context, show the contrasts between knowledge and humility, between power and humility, and, when the woes on the cities are contrasted with the invitation, "Come unto me," between sternness and tenderness. When Socrates was told by the oracle that he was the wisest of men, he was in perplexity for a time, but finally decided that he was wise because he recognized his own ignorance. In His knowledge of the Father and in the mystery of His own person, Jesus places Himself on an equality with God. Yet this knowledge did not "puff up." There was no need with Jesus as with Peter for the moment of spiritual insight to be followed by a rebuke for presumption; nor did He need like Paul, because of the greatness of the revelation, to have the thorn in the flesh lest He be exalted above measure. These contrasts, not found in any other historical character, are a self-authenticating feature of the words of Jesus. All of His actions, in fact, and all of His attitudes towards men, whether they were friends or foes, and all His words, whether of compassion, forgiveness, warning or indignation, were those of a "Prince and a Saviour," a Prince in majesty and power and a Saviour in pity. Both deeds and words showed that union of qualities which it would be impossible to invent, "the self-assertion of the great example of humility."

An indirect evidence of transcendent elements in the consciousness of Jesus, and of the essential harmony between His teaching and that of Paul, is furnished by the increasingly skeptical tendency of liberal criticism and the complete skepticism in which that criticism has culminated. We must discount, say the extreme Liberal critics in effect, the Ascension and Resurrection narratives, because they were written under the belief that Jesus was the exalted Son of God. We must discount the Passion narrative because dominated by the belief that Jesus was and claimed to be the Messiah; we must discount the miracles, and must take from the Gospel page everything that indicates that Jesus claimed divine prerogatives, or Messianic honours, or used titles such as "the Christ," "the Son of God," "Lord," or even "the Son of Man," because these betray the dogmatic views of the Church. But why not go further with the "mythical" school and discount the whole narrative because written under the prepossession that Jesus was an historical character? If the faith of the Church--"the enemy of history"--has been able to create those features in the portrait of Christ which have been regarded as significant for religion during the ages of Christendom, why cannot its creative activity have extended to the historical foundation? Why could it not have created its portrait of Jesus out of nothing, or at least out of the social strivings and religious needs and practices of a syncretic age?

The mythical hypothesis, it is clear, is not a mere eccentricity of criticism. It is more than an effort of youthful audacity in scholarship striving to gain public attention. It is the natural, if not the inevitable, outcome of the direction in which criticism, discarding more and more of the Gospel narrative, and deserting more and more, it may be said, the sure ground of historical evidence, has been moving. The method of a progressive reduction of the sources and elimination of unacceptable material has been only pushed by the Radicals to an extreme. The Radicals, avowedly basing themselves on the Liberals, contend that the latter have stopped at an untenable half-way position. Thus Drews says that since the days of Strauss doubts of the historical existence of Jesus have never been lulled to rest; and Reinach, avoiding Drews' extreme, yet declares that "it is contrary to every sound method to compose, as Renan did, a life of Jesus, eliminating the marvellous elements of the Gospel story. It is no more possible to make real history with myths than to make bread with the pollen of flowers." It was thought that an irreducible minimum had been reached in Schmiedel's famous nine "foundation-pillars" for a scientific life of Christ, but even these are shattered by the modern critical artillery.

Whether the Founder of the Christian religion be pictured as "merely a pious preacher of morality in the sense of present day liberalism," or a "psychopathic anomaly," obsessed with the idea that He was the Messiah, the picture is not convincing to the historian any more than it is consoling to the Christian. In neither picture can the Christ of the Gospels or the Christ of Christian experience be recognized. Matters are not mended when extremes meet, and Jesus is pictured as at once the sunny and serene Galilean pietist, and the rapt ecstatic obsessed by the thought of His own immediate and glorious return--a deluded enthusiast who saw life steadily and saw it whole. If the representation is not that of a moral or mental weakling, below the level of the normal in clearness of outlook upon life or in sincerity and decision of character, we are left with a largely imaginary figure, from which most of the concrete features have been removed. We do not know what manner of man He was, nor, it must be acknowledged, does it matter very much for religion whether He was at all; for with the increasing vagueness in the historical portrait of Jesus, there comes inevitably a weakening of His influence as a teacher whether of religion or morals.

His gospel, in the first place, was never intended to become universal, since the Gentile mission is attributed to the influence of later ecclesiastical ideas. But is not the content of Jesus' religious teaching, the Fatherhood of God and the value of the soul, unaffected by any views which are held as to His Person? Tendencies are observable in modern thought which are not reassuring upon this point; and, in fact, the history of thought shows that theism, apart from the support of Christian doctrine, is apt to pass into a pantheistic mysticism or a semi-deistic naturalism. The Fatherhood of God may be regarded as too anthropomorphic a conception, and a semi-pantheistic "all-Father" may be substituted for the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Strauss, while he is the classical example, is not alone in this passage from Liberal Christianity to a more complete skepticism which gives up theistic belief. It is not surprising that in certain circles the expression "Christian pantheism" is now heard, and that a sympathetic attitude towards pantheism should be shown by the Liberal critic. Thus J. Weiss says: "Pantheism may, indeed, have its limitations and defects, yet, without doubt, it lies very near to our time, inspired as it is by both scientific and artistic ideas. Why should we not recognize this form of religious life alongside of other forms, in case it finds vital expression in emotion and action?"

On the other hand, the theistic content of Jesus' teaching is immeasurably strengthened when enforced by His divine authority, and read in the light of His Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection. As Drews remarks: "The chief obstacle to a monistic religion and attitude is the belief irreconcilable with reason or history, in the historical reality of a 'unique,' ideal, and unsurpassable redeemer." Certainly the assurance that God is a loving Father and that we are His children, said to be the essence of Christianity, is wonderfully safeguarded and buttressed by the doctrines, or facts, of an Incarnate, Crucified, and Risen Christ.

The strongest argument for a doctrinal Christianity is not the indirect one to be found in the lessening significance of a merely human-historical Jesus, and the tendency of His figure to become dim upon the field of history, and of His voice to die away as an echo over the Judean hills. It is rather to be found in the positive evidence of the Christian documents, in the testimony of Christian experience, and in the broader effects of a doctrinal Christianity in the course of the centuries.

The statements of Harnack in his later essays show the inadequacy of a gospel which does not include in its content the Person of the Redeemer. "Only God is the Redeemer--and yet Christendom calls Jesus of Nazareth its Redeemer. How is this contradiction to be solved?" It is a fact that He is the inner possession of His own. "But that which lies behind this fact, which is expressed in the confession 'Christ liveth in me,' the persuasion of the eternal life of Christ, of His power and glory, that is a secret of the faith which mocks all explanation." When there is such a contradiction between experience and theory, it will be natural to question the adequacy of a theory which finds no interpretation for the deepest experiences of religion. Harnack, indeed, goes far towards admitting the harmony between the gospel of Jesus and that of Paul when he says: "The 'first' gospel contains the truth, the 'second' the way, and both together the life."

There is in essence but one gospel, differently presented by Jesus and Paul, whose focal point in the teaching of both is Christ and Him crucified. The differences, as shown by von Dobsch?tz in a notable essay, explain themselves naturally from the situation. In John and Paul there is only expansion and repetition of what was contained implicitly in the words of Jesus in the Synoptists. The later time was not creative, but only selected and developed; its message was an echo, not a new utterance. In the teaching of Paul as compared with that of Jesus there are three points of difference: the person of Jesus is much more strongly emphasized; His death and resurrection appear as basal redemptive acts; and everything is brought into connection with redemption from sin. All three of these differences are explained by the historical situation. Jesus Himself had brought them to God, and His resurrection had brought them out of their despair and strengthened their faith and given them courage for preaching. As to the differences, two considerations should be borne in mind: "That the gospel should be differently set forth before the death of Jesus than it was after that event is not to be wondered at; and, secondly, it is also natural that the standpoint and exposition of the recipients of grace should be different from the attitude of One who was free from sin, and knew that He was sent to bring man to God."

In the future as in the past, we may believe, doctrinal Christianity, that is a Christianity broad enough to include the teaching and example, and the person and passion and resurrection of Christ, will be for men and nations the power of God unto salvation. If the essence of a thing is shown in its activity, the essence of Christianity cannot be separated from its doctrinal content. Certainly it was Christianity in a doctrinal form that inspired the greatest achievements of the Christian Church in the course of her history. It was doctrinal Christianity that loosed the bonds of Jewish legalism, inspired the missionary enterprise of the primitive and the modern church, raised the standard of the Reformation, laid the foundations of modern democracy, and guided the sanest and bravest attempts at social reform.

Our argument has been that the primitive gospel which began to be preached by the Lord was a doctrinal gospel, a gospel of the Kingdom, the Cross and the Son of God, that no other message can be found with any distinctness within or beneath the Gospel records, and that this has been at the basis of Christian experience and of the life of the Christian Church. The gospel of the grace of God is the gospel of the glory of Christ.

The Christian Faith and Modern Science

A discussion of the present relations between science and the Christian Faith must be very largely a discussion of the theory of evolution. Our age has been called evolution-mad; we can scarcely speak or even think except in biological terms and under biological categories. The evolution theory has influenced every department of thought and even the science of thought itself, and it is often assumed that everything pre-Darwinian must be thrown to the intellectual scrap-heap.

Half a century ago the time was ripe for a new generalization in science which should include the organic world. Newton had extended the reign of mechanism in space, and Lyell, by substituting the uniformitarian for the catastrophic theory of the formation of the earth's crust, had effected the same extension in time. Men's minds had become familiar with the thought of immense reaches of space and of vast periods of time, and with the idea in both spheres of the reign of natural law instead of immediate divine intervention. The Darwinian hypothesis of Natural Selection came as the culmination of this movement of a progressive substitution of a natural for a supernatural explanation of things. The motions of planets and heavenly bodies, the formation of the strata of the earth's crust, and now the kingdom of organic life were brought within the domain of natural and general law.

It is not necessary to describe in detail the ferment in religious thought which followed the publication of the "Origin of Species," 1859; but we may notice briefly the extreme inferences which were drawn unfavourable to religion, and then the inevitable reaction. On the one hand there were loud claims at first that the death-knell of religion had been sounded. A cause other than creation had been discovered for the origin of species and by analogy for other origins formerly assigned to the Creator. Chance, not only blind but apparently cruel, was enthroned in the place of design in the production of the various forms of life. The higher was evolved from the lower, but in a way that gave to the higher the quality of the lower. Man was no longer the child of God, not even the prodigal child. He was the progeny of the brute and shared his destiny. The obligation to be moral, or even decent, had no higher sanction than the fierce struggle for existence. Theism was derived from animal-or ancestor-worship, and had no higher authority or credibility. Man, no longer made in the divine image, could lay no claim to a divine inheritance; not fallen, but rising out of his brute inheritance, he had no need for the divine mercy.

From this extreme position there was an inevitable reaction. Evolution was seen to present a face not so unfavourable to religion. Origin and destiny were two questions; the higher might be evolved from the lower, but not in such a way as to deprive the higher of its proper quality. If nature and man were so closely related, our idea of the worth of nature could be exalted without depriving man of his dignity. "A man's a man for a' that," whether sprung from the dust of the earth, as had been always held, or derived from organic material below him. An orthodox evolutionist developed a new and powerful argument for immortality; if man had gone so far, why not farther? The meaning of the whole evolutionary process, of the long travail of nature, was obviously, if it had a meaning , the production of man with his endowments, aspirations and hopes. Descent may become ascent, and the meaning of evolution may well be the development of freedom, and immortality but evolution at the end of its journey. A new and grander teleology was discernible in nature, not seen in the details of its products so much as in the great tendencies and lines of its development and the outworking of its laws. Most impressive of all, it was found that devout Christians, like Charles Kingsley, could become evolutionists without losing their faith; and that evolutionists like Romanes could become Christians, or regain their faith, without affecting their scientific views.

With all the problems which evolution has set for religious thought, it should be noticed that it has distinctly relieved the pressure of one difficulty which has been felt, though now much less acutely than formerly, since the time of Copernicus. In the words of Aubrey De Vere:

This sphere is not God's ocean, but one drop Showered from its spray. Came God from heaven for that?

Life, and life upon the earth, is the centre of attention in the thought of the day. With the physicist who sees the promise and potency of all terrestrial life in the primitive star-dust, with the biologist who speaks of the fitness of the environment to sustain life, or with the philosopher who sees in the vital impulse the most important thing in the history of the universe, the viewpoint is necessarily biocentric. Yet it has been pointed out that the sum of organized matter "is but an atom in the mass of the solar system, it occupies but a moment in its duration; it has hardly a place in space; it is but a temporary film on one of the smaller planets. It can exist only in a very small part of the scale of temperatures through which the spheres pass from their first to their last state. Set against the visible universe it is as near to nothing as we can well conceive anything to be." A distinguished evolutionist has developed an argument to prove that the earth alone in the solar system or elsewhere fulfills the conditions of the existence of any high form of life. It is not necessary to estimate the value of Wallace's argument in order to emphasize, from an evolutionary point of view, the importance of life and of man in the universe. If the standpoint of science to-day is frankly biocentric, in spite of the insignificant bulk of organized matter, religious thought need not be accused of provincialism because it is anthropocentric in its interest.

While there is general agreement among biologists that species have been derived from one another by natural causes, there is a wide diversity of opinion as to the method by which this result has been brought about. Darwin's theory of natural selection has a struggle for existence of its own, a fight for life with other evolutionary theories. Emphatic protests are made from the side of experimental biology , of paleontology , and of philosophical evolution against the Darwinian hypothesis that the selection of minute fortuitous variations can account for the rise of new species or explain the great lines of development. It is only necessary to read the two volumes published in England and America in honour of the hundredth anniversary of Darwin's birth and the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the "Origin of Species" to see that scientific opinion upon the question of the method of evolution is widely divided.

In Biblical language, the question of the hour in biology is, Who made thee to differ? "It is the question," in the words of C. H. Eigenmann, "of how the straight line of exact hereditary repetition may be caused to swerve in a definite direction to reach an adaptive point. This is the question of the present generation, perhaps of the entire twentieth century."

The Newton of biology, who will discover the laws of variation and heredity, has not, it is safe to say, yet appeared. Variation in a definite direction in virtue of an internal tendency in the organism ; variation in response to the specific stimulus of the environment ; variation due, at least in animals, to the conscious effort of the individual ; variation inciting a corresponding strengthening of parts of the individual organism, until time should be given for hereditary strengthening of these parts ; variation due to the preservation and accumulation of minute fluctuations by natural selection ; variation from unknown causes suddenly and discontinuously ; variation due to a mystical vital impulse in organic life as a whole :--no one of these views, if we take scientific opinion as a whole, can be said to have torn aside the veil behind which nature carries on her creative works.

The most notable attempt to supplement and strengthen the theory of natural selection has been made by Weismann in his theory of Germinal Selection. In Weismann's hypothesis, which has furnished in a sense the philosophical basis for the popular Eugenics movement, the struggle for existence is transferred to a struggle among the constituents of the germ-plasm. The minute invisible "determinants" of the germ-plasm, which give rise to the variations in the organ, or cell, which they determine, are unequally nourished by the nutritive stream. A determinant at first favoured by chance may at length gain strength actively to nourish itself to the detriment of its fellow-determinants, and thus attain a permanent upward movement. With Weismann the fluctuations within the germ-plasm "are the real root of all hereditary variations, and the preliminary condition for the occurrence of the Darwin-Wallace factor of selection." The struggle for existence, or the struggle for possession of the mate in sexual selection, practically goes back to "the struggle between the determinants within the germ-plasm" for food and space.

Let us see how this theory of determinants will apply to the famous case of the antlers of the elk or stag. The antlers would increase in size, in this case, only because the determinants, corresponding in the germ-plasm to the antlers in the adult organism, attracted nourishment to themselves, and withdrew it to a certain extent from their fellows. Instead, therefore, of a corresponding strengthening in the whole anterior half of the animal, which Weismann admits would be necessary, we should have, with the increased weight of the antlers, a decrease in weight and strength of other parts of the body. The problem, instead of being solved, seems to be involved in deeper mystery, and there will be hesitation in accepting the statement that "thus in our time the great riddle has been solved--the riddle of the origin of what is suited to its purpose without the co?peration of purposive forces." T. H. Morgan thinks it unfortunate that Weismann should seek to supply the deficiencies of Darwin's theory by new speculative matter skilfully removed from the field of verification.

Biologists are generally agreed in holding the doctrine of "descent with modifications," but there is no agreement as to the method by which variations in species are brought about. Bateson even declares that "evolutionary orthodoxy developed too fast," and that "the time is not ripe for the discussion of the origin of species." S. Herbert concludes: "In short, while natural selection can be looked upon as the efficient cause of the progress of evolutionary lines, their first beginnings must still be attributed to a still 'unknown factor in evolution.'"

The neo-Darwinian who sees in the accumulation of minute chance variations a sufficient explanation of the origin of species, cannot be said to hold the field in such a way as to call for the unquestioning acceptance of his views by the lay public; far less need the more remote philosophical inferences sometimes drawn from his premises be accepted without challenge as the teaching of science. While the central mystery, in the opinion of leading biologists, remains unsolved in the biological field, evolution or natural selection should be used with caution as the solvent of all the problems of the universe. The masterkey should first unlock the doors nearer home.

The more philosophical discussion of the Meaning of Evolution includes in its scope the questions of mechanism and design and of preformation and epigenesis.

Huxley says that "there is a wider teleology which is not touched by the doctrine of evolution, but is actually based upon the fundamental proposition of evolution." When A. R. Wallace at first argued that many of the characteristic human qualities were not due to natural selection, because of no value in the struggle for existence, his view incurred the ridicule of his critics, who interpreted it to mean that "our brains are made by God and our lungs by natural selection." After forty years of reflection, Wallace now takes a broader view of the place of purpose in evolution, and says: "I now uphold the doctrine that not man alone, but the whole World of Life, in almost all its varied manifestations, leads us to the same conclusion--that to afford any rational explanation of its phenomena, we require to postulate the continuous action and guidance of higher intelligences; and further, that these have probably been working towards a single end, the development of intellectual, moral, and spiritual beings." A distinguished biologist has said that "to believe that all the countless myriads of centres of co?peration and co?rdination which have been required for this cosmos could have been originated and maintained by unintelligent force acting fortuitously makes an immensely greater strain upon faith than the alternative hypothesis."

The mechanical interpretation of things, however useful for some purposes it may be, appears increasingly thin and ghostly as we advance into the realms of life, consciousness and freedom. It becomes a caricature of reality. It is not merely a colourless photograph as over against a portrait--everything reduced to black and white; but it is like an X-ray photograph of a living man, a mere skeleton without flesh and blood. Mechanism is independent of time, but time is, in a sense, of the essence of the organism. The mechanical movement can be reversed, while life processes are irreversible.

Certainly the difficulty of evolving the fit from the fortuitous becomes accentuated when man is included within the series. Man, a purposive and moral being, sees in himself and the structure of his mind and the experience of his life the crowning evidence of the action of purpose. If the cause must be adequate to produce the effect, man cannot regard himself as the product of an accidental or mechanical process from whose inception and operation the action of intelligence is excluded. In a word, a purposive being cannot have been the result of a purposeless process.

It is significant that those who have interpreted evolution to the masses have quite uniformly done so in terms of progress. But progress is a teleological conception. In a world where atoms shift unceasingly, but without the guidance of intelligence or will, there may be change but there will be no progress; for one arrangement of atoms will be as high in the scale of values as another. Evolutionists who, as evolutionists, are inspired with an ideal of human progress must in some sense be finalists. If the history of the world and of man presents any real progress, it can only be because it is in so far an expression of purpose.

A glance, almost at random, at current literature in which the conception of evolution is employed in philosophical and theological discussion, shows that the theory has suffered a sea-change. It has now come to mean, to many who use it freely, not the unfolding of the implicit, but the production or appearance of something essentially new, a creative synthesis or epigenesis. Bergson, James Ward, Baron von H?gel and Loisy are among those who use the term in this sense. Thus the last named writer says: "That which constitutes man as a human being is that which he possesses more than the beasts, and not that which he possesses in common with them. From the fact that humanity proceeds from animality, it does not follow that it is explained and defined altogether by animality, otherwise evolution must be denied."

This modification of meaning is important when the doctrine of evolution is extended downward into the inorganic sphere. Since species are derived from one another, it used to be argued, life must be derived from the lifeless; and it is obvious that if this process is pursued it will lead to an infinite regress. We go back from the civilized to the savage, from the conscious to the unconscious, from the organic to the inorganic, till finally the evolution of the atom becomes the problem of problems. We go back in an infinite regress, approaching the ideal limit: In the beginning, nothing. The goal would seem to be the evolution of primitive matter out of nothing, as Alfred Noyes has suggested in his poem, "The Origin of Life":

In the beginning?--Slowly grope we back Along the narrowing track, Back to the deserts of the world's pale prime, The mire, the clay, the slime; And then ... what then? Surely to something less; Back, back, to Nothingness!

Will you have courage, then, to bow the head, And say, when all is said-- "Out of this Nothingness arose our thought! This blank abysmal Nought Woke, and brought forth that lighted city street, Those towers, that armoured fleet"?

Will you have courage, then, to front that law That nothing can proceed-- Not even thought, not even love--from less Than its own nothingness? The law is yours! But dare you waive your pride, And kneel where you denied? The law is yours! Dare you rekindle, then, One faith for faithless men, And say you found, on that dark road you trod, In the beginning--God?

Life may be generated any day in the laboratory, but as yet this has not been done. In fact so great are the difficulties that Arrhenius thinks that there was no beginning of life, life being eternal and persisting, in spite of acknowledged scientific difficulties in the conception, amid the vicissitudes of cosmic changes and flights through interstellar space. Weismann does not think that a living germ could be conveyed in the crevices of meteorites to our planet, because "it could neither endure the excessive cold nor the absolute desiccation to which it would be exposed in cosmic space, which contains absolutely no water. This could not be endured even for a few days, much less for immeasurable periods of time."

Lord Kelvin will not go as far as Arrhenius, but believes that a meteorite brought the first living germs to this planet. K. Pearson thinks that under favourable conditions in the remote past life arose, but arose only once, out of the non-living. The bridge was so slender that it was crossed but once under imaginary conditions not controllable by experiment; and as a unique event even in imaginary history it cannot be said to be subject to any general law. It is questionable, in fact, whether in scientific merit the hypothesis is superior to that of special creation.

Dr. Sch?fer sees this and points it out very clearly in his Presidential Address. A scientific account of the origin of life must refer it to causes operating to-day; so, instead of Arrhenius' eternity of life, or of Pearson's spontaneous production of life but once under inaccessible conditions, or Lord Kelvin's meteoric conveyance of life, he believes that life is constantly being produced, and has always been produced, from certain colloidal substances which he describes. But what has become of all this life, constantly generated? He admits there is trace of only one paleontological series. While assuming that it is the nature of life to evolve, he admits that there is no evidence accessible to the senses or discerned as yet by the most delicate instruments for the existence of these countless beginnings of life. The real question then concerns not this kind of life, which eye hath not seen, but the origin of the life which we know, and whose marvellous development evolution traces. Ostwald thinks that "it is undecided whether originally there were one or several forms from which the present forms sprang, nor is it known how life first made its appearance on earth. So long as the various assumptions with regard to this question have not led to decisive, actually demonstrable differences in the results, a discussion of it is fruitless, and therefore unscientific."

A comparison has often been drawn between the birth of the individual and that of the race. Theologians have discussed the question whether the child in his spiritual nature is to be referred to a special act of creative power, or whether all of his endowments are derived from his parents.

To the poet the birth of the child suggests the presence of forces other than those of the seen and temporal. The new life is "out of the deep, from the true world, within the world we see." Its roots are in another dimension of being than that of nature or the world of time and sense. In moments of insight, "though inland far we be, our souls have sight of that immortal sea which brought us hither."

Again to the philosopher there is in the individual something indescribable, unique, not to be compressed within the compass of any general law, something in each individual which his ancestry or antecedents will not explain nor his environment produce.

Says a distinguished professor of biology: "Familiarity with development does not remove the real mystery which lies back of it. The development of a human being, of a personality, from a germ cell seems to me the climax of all wonders, greater even than that involved in the evolution of a species or the making of a world." He remarks that "if personality is determined by heredity alone, all teaching, preaching, government, is useless." The only hope for the race, he says, is in eugenics--always supposing that enough freedom is left to carry out its program.

If the birth of the individual and the full story of his origin is thus enveloped in mystery for theologian, poet, philosopher and even scientist, it is not to be expected that the problem of the origin of the human race can be solved by a neat formula. Here the mystery of the birth of the individual from parents of the same species is intensified many fold. Here the problems of mind and body, of their genetic and metaphysical relations to each other, and of the ultimate relation of the spirit world to each, press for solution before there can be any full and final answer to the question of the origin of man. Is it any wonder that the single occurrence upon which was based the birth of all future generations which have peopled the earth should be thought to involve more than can be included in any scientific hypothesis?

The objection will be made that to regard the primitive atoms or cells as practically self-preserving, self-repairing and self-improving, the fountain of all life, of all consciousness and morality and civilization, is to endow these entities with attributes that are manifestly inappropriate.

Seeing the difficulties of a theory of evolution based upon the principle of continuity alone, we may emphasize, with many popular interpreters, not so much this principle of continuity, as that of progress. Evolution would then mean not a mere shifting of the elements, a redistribution of matter and motion, but a creative synthesis, an epigenesis. It will then mean, not "There is nothing new under the sun," but rather, "What next?" The descent of man will no longer suggest the inference that as the progeny of the brute man must share his destiny, but rather the thought that "it doth not yet appear what we shall be."

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