Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-06-05

tolerance. That they all tend to become
tyrannical and 30 mischievous and hostile to
progress and civilization. That when men
have advanced 30 far rs TO be able TO realize
these truths, they have outgrown the need of
theological crutckes, and can under no cir
cumstances revert to their primitive condition
of intellectual pupilaSe.
Colonel Ingersoll has recognized this state
of things. and has believed the time rips for
the extension of intellectual enfranchisement.
The suitability of his methods to his audience
has already been fully demonstrated. No
lecturer has achieved so splendid and univer-
nal the other day commented upon the con-
trast between the reception accorded Inger-
soil in New FORK, and the indifference against
which the churches there have so struggle.
And the significance of such facts cannot be
mistaken. The masses are not only ripe for
the great transformation which is relocating
theology to the limbo of "creeds outworn,
but that Transformation is proceeding every
month and year with increasing force aud
volume. The lectures of Colonel Ingersoll,
and the popular enthusiasm with which
they are received, indicate the nature and
extent of the change which is taking place,
and if rightly accepted may serve as guides
to the new world theory about to become
established. A century ago Tom Paine APP
peared as the missionary of infdeiity. The
world was not yet fully ready for his ex-
ploitation of Christianity Puritanism still
retained its numbing hold upon large
proportion of the English-speaking peoples,
and it was still infamous to be an infidel
The French Revolution afforded breathing
space to the threatened churches, by produc-
ing a reaction against Voltaire and his school.
But inquiry could not be fettered. The
German renaissance was signalized by the
Institution of the most thorough going crit
icism of the Bible the world had yet known.
The spread of the democratic spirit
advanced views on religion. And in due
course Colonel Ingerson appeared, to mark the
changes which a century of progress and
dissension and growth had brought about,
by providing the age with more refined
and broader Tom Paine, who should add
to the armory of the original all the
weapons of precision forged at Tubingen
who should vitalize his assaults upon
Christianity with a Humanitarian philosophy
appealing to the intellect and the heart alike;
who should barb his shafts with all the graces
of wit and all the lightness of humor and
who should clothe in an eloquence alternately
terse and imprisoned, arguments too well
fortified by learning to be refuted, and senti-
ments too strongly in harmony with the ten
denotes of the age to be rejected. Those who
are wise, and who desire to read the signs of
the times Alright, must by no means under
estimate the significance of Colonel IDger-
soils avatar. He is emphatically and pc
culiarly man of the period, and he repre-
sents ideas and views which are no longer
held secretly by scattered groups, under ban
and protest, but are avowed deliberately and
with perfect composure by millions who are
10 longer capable of being browbeaten by
ecclesiastical arrogance, or deluded by theo-
logical casuistry.
PRRADAMrTEs By Alexander WincheIl, IL D.
Chicago ). C. Griggs Il Co.
This is a curious volume in some respects.
1t reminds us of those creatures which, hav-
ing become amphibious, leave it in doubt
whether their further development will con-
tbo, oIt L.
take them back to their original marine hab-
itats. Professor Wincbell is one of those in
congruous compounds, an orthodox scientist,
and he has here undertaken to write book
which, while traversing biblical assertions
from beginning to end, nevertheless main
tains the most serious and sincere reverence
for the authority it thus overrides. Professor
Winchell is conscientious student, and his
researches have forced him to the conclusion
that man must have existed before the Adam
of the Bible. Having firmly established this
proposition, however, it does not occur TO him
to inquire into the authenticity of that bibli
cal narrative which conflicts with the facts of
science so hopelessly, but instead he sets to
work laboriously to prove that the Genesiacal
story means something or anything different
from what the commentators have arrived at.
The result of this endeavor is necessarily the
spelling of the book, for nearly half of it is
worse than wasted in idle disquisitions
upon the possible interpretations of texts and
commentaries both of which are as foreign
to sober science as the text and commenta-
ries of the Zend Avesta. or the Shah Nameh,
or the Vishnu Purana, or the Ramayana, or
the Shoe King, or the Koran, OF the Popol
Vuh The purely scientific views Of the
author are interesting, progressive, and cour-
ageously followed out. A great deal of labor
has been bestowed upon the inquiry, and its
conclusions are for the most part plausible.
The curious circumstance about the enter
this time think it necessary to devote large
volume to demonstrating the existence of man
before Adam. 1t would seem from this that
there are still some people who continue TO
Adam, and that he was the parent of all
mankind 1t is true that most of the theolo-
gians have given up Adam and the Gene
siacal account of the Creation, long ago, and
that they now merely claim the right to
allegorize the whole story as much as they
please, 80 as to make it conform to
the conclusions of science. But the
idea that it is necessary to apologize for
the PRONUNCIATION of such a theory as this
of Professor Winchell is as odd almost as if
Mr.. Tyndall were to ask leave of Cardinal
Newman before propoundmg q new by
pothesis of sound propagation or light diffu-
sion. There is no question among educated
men at the present day as to the existence Of
man before Adam that is before the age
which ignorant theologians have fancifully
assigned as the,time of fictitious and fabu-
lous parsonage mentioned in certain Asiatic
books of no historical or scientific value. In
r II L g