Is the creation of the various forms of life as pictured in Genesis inconsistent with this effort of modern biology to trace them all to one beginning and one process of development? It was for a long time supposed that it was. Under the influ ence of ancient and medieval interpretation, it was supposed that the account in Genesis could only be harmonized with a theory of the special creation of each species of life. But on a close scrutiny, this interpretation does not seem to be necessary. There is nothing in the text to indicate that the author or original readers of the record had the creation of each species by a separate divine fiat in mind. On the contrary, while the account can not be said to teach the passage of species into one another or to involve the modern doctrine of evolution, it certainly leaves room for that doc trine. The creator is represented as endowing the material elements with the power to produce cer tain forms of life. "And God said, let the earth put forth grass," etc. "Let the waters bring forth abundantly moving creature that hath life," etc. "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind," etc., i:t I, 20, 24. There is at least a suggestion here of what scientists (Le Conte) call "resident forces." There are further sug gestions of heredity in the command that plants and animals shall bring forth, each "after its kind." There is the suggestion of adaptation to environment in the fact that the waters, the air, and the earth are each commanded to bring forth each the forms of life best suited to subsist in it. There is the suggestion of fecundity in the com mand to multiply and replenish the earth. And finally there is a suggestion of the law of the sur vival of the fittest in the subordination of the low er forms to the higher and of all to man. These are no more than mere shadowy suggestions. It it not to be thought for a moment that they show a knowledge of modern scientific theories on the part of the ancient writer. Yet they indicate how free his mind was of any other theory of creation which might lay claims to exclusive consistency with his view of the origin of living forms upon the earth.
(5) Biblical Bearing. The bearing of the doctrine of evolution on the Biblical portraiture of the origin of man's intellectual and moral na ture falls rather within the scope of an article on Anthropology than within that on Cosmogony. It may be said, however, that even that part of Genesis has been found to raise no difficulty in the way of a full acceptance of both the scientific theory and the Biblical record.
finally we turn from organic evolution to cos mic evolution as a favorite doctrine in modern thought, and institute a comparison between it and the statements of Genesis, we shall find the same parallelism without absolute harmony which we have found between the cosmogony of modern science and the record of Genesis. Evolution in
this sense is defined by Herbert Spencer as "an integration of matter and concomitant dissipa tion of motion, during which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transfor mation." (First Principles, c. xvii•p. 396.) It is to be noted that evolution in this definition is a mere process. It is not a principle or cause. As a process, it may be held with a materialistic (pantheistic), theistic, or agnostic system of the ory of the nature of the First Cause. Herbert Spencer himself, followed by many, holds to evo lution upon an agnostic basis. He asserts that the First Cause, though existing, is not knowable. Others make matter itself the first cause and evo lution the process of its blind self-unfolding. Still others postulate a personal God as a First Cause and evolution as the method of his work ing. If this last metaphysical basis be put under the theory of evolution, all inconsistency between it and the cosmogony of Genesis vanishes. On the contrary, certain resemblances emerge which, though not indicating an anticipation of the mod ern thought by the Biblical writer, at least show that his mind was not pre-occupied by a rival the ory. These resemblances are especially striking in the characterization of the process of transi tion from the first to the subsequent stages of the world's history. Evolution represents the transi tion as a passage of matter from a state of "in definite, incoherent homogeneity" to a state of "definite, coherent heterogeneity." Genesis asserts that God in the beginning created heaven and earth and that "the earth was without form and void ;" i. e., in a state of "indefinite, incoherent homogeneity" and that from this state it passed by gradual stages into a state in which a firma ment, land and water, grass, herbs, and trees, sun. moon, and stars, animals and man appeared in order. In other words, a definite, coherent hetero geneity was gradually evolved out of the pre ceding opposite conditions (see Matheson, Can the Old Faith live with the New?) If it be borne in mind that Genesis was not written in order to teach science and philosophy, but to show God's earliest dealings with his people, this ab sence of real conflict between its representations and the teachings of modern science will be seen to show a soberness and soundness in the mind of its author which fitted him to become the ve hicle of God's revelations to the world. The product may be called history, legend, or even myth or allegory. whatever it be called, there is nothing in it which makes it difficult to believe that its author was inspired by God.
A. C. Z.