order comes again from disorder, gTOwth from decay, and youth from age."
Finally, he comes to the sixth day, under which head, having disposed of the quadrupeds in his remarks on the fifth day, he speaks only of man. He thinks that possibly a perfect primus homo could
have been made, by God, from the earth, like the animals (p. 247); but
the record is against it, asserting that man was made in God's image,
and therefore he admits that " the origin of man, as man, was
special and peculiar;" by which he means, as he says, " his distinctive
humanity, as separate from all that he has in common with the lower
animals" (p. 248). He thinks,further, as follows :
"
We are not much concerned about the mode of production of his material
or merely physical organization. In regard to this, there is nothing in
the expressions, ' He made,' or ' lie created him,' or ' He made him
from the earth,' which is at war with the idea of growth or
development, during either a longer or shorter period. Ages might have
been employed in bringing that material nature, through all the lower
stages, up to the necessary degree of perfection for the higher use
that was afterwards to be made of it. We do not say that the Bible
teaches this; we do not think that any one would be warranted in
putting any such interpretation upon it. There is, however, in itself,
and aside from any question of interpretation, nothing monstrous or
incredible in the idea that what had formerly been the residence of an
irrational and grovelling tenant might now be -' selected as the abode
of a higher life, might be fitted up in a manner corresponding to its
new dignity, might be made to assume an erect heavenward position,
whilst it takes on that beauty of face and form which would become the
new intelligence, and indeed, be one of its necessary results."
In other words, a monkey may possibly have been curtailed behind and straightened up into a man. -
The seventh day is regarded as now in progress and as including the period of spiritual existence beyond this life.
The prominent points, then, in the system are:
1.
His personifying Nature, after Plato's notion ; and, as a
consequence, regarding her as, in a sense, " self-acting ;" yet needing
occasional supernatural acts, to rescue her from the decay or death to
which she tends, and having alternately her time of rest and action.
2. Hence making mother earth to bring forth, through her
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