The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-07-24

in part as follows: Spontaneous generation
was never stumbling block either to the ia
theirs of scholastics, because the creative act
was always acknowledged and because God
was ever recognized as the author, at least
through second agents, OF the divers forms OF
life which were supposed TO originate from in
organized matter Whether, then, the germ
of life was specially created for each individual
creature, or whether matter was endowed with
the power of evolving what we call life by the
the proper collocation of the atoms and MOLE
cules of which matter is constituted, was,
from their point of view, immaterial
so far as dogma was concerned. But sup
pose that some time or other 1t should be
proved that spontaneous generation not only
has taken place, but that it actually occurs,
here and now? The fact that we have as yet
no evidence that 1t ever has taken place, or
that it does not occur now, does not prove that
that it is impossible. We may not be prepared
to affirm with Huxley and Fiske that it must
have taken place at some period in the past
history, but may we admit the possibility of
the occurrence? Should, then, such a discovery
be made, as is possible and conceivable; should
some fortunate investigator some day detect in
the great laboratory of nature the transition of
inorganic into organic and animated matter,
or should he by some happy chance be able to
transmute notifying into living matter,
would contravene revealed truth, or initiate
against any of the received dogmas of the
church, To this question we can at once and
without hesitation return an emphatic mega
tive.
Was the body o. the first man, the progenitor
of our race. created directly and Immediately
by God, or was it created indirectly and through
the operation of secondary causes? When the
Bible tells us that "the Lord God formed man
from the slime of the EARTH" are we to inter-
pref these words in vigorously literal sense,
and to believe that the Creator actually fash
toned Adam from the slime of the earth, as
potter would fashion an object from clay, or as
an artist would produce the model of statue
from wax or plaster? Or may we put different
Interpretation on the text and regard man as
indirectly created, as the last and highest term
of long series of evolutions which extend
back to the first advent of life upon earth? In
other words, is man, as to his body, the direct
and special work of the Creators hands, or is
he the descendent of some animal, some ape or
some s'missing Ink of which naturalists have
as yet discovered no trace?
We have already learned that as matter of
fact no positive evidence has been adduced in
support of the simian origin of man. Since
the publication of Darwin's "Origin of Spe-
cies'' naturalists have been exploring every
portion of the globe for some trace of the miss
ing link between man and the highest known
mammal, link which they said must exist
somewhere if the hypothesis of the evolution
of man be true. But, granting that the search
for the link connecting man with the ape has
so far been futile; admitting, with Virchow.
that "the future discovery of this proanthropos
is highly improbable" may we not, neverthe-
less, believe, as a matter of theory, that there
has been such O link, and that corporally man
is genetically descended from some unknown
species of ape or monkey? Analogy and scien-
tific consistency would seem to require US to
admit that mans bodily frame has been sub
ject to the same law of evolution, If evolution
there has been, as has obtained for the inferior
animals. There is nothing in biological sci
ence that would necessarily exempt mans cor
poral structure from the action of this law. Is
there, then, anything in dogma or sound
metaphysics which would make 1t impossible
for us to hold view which has found such ia
vor with the great majority of contemporary
evolutionists?
Whatever may be the final verdict of science
in respect of mans body, it cannot be at vari-
ance with Roman Catholic dogma. Granting
that future researches shall demonstrate be-
yond doubt that man is genetically related to
the inferior animals, there will not be even, in
such an improbable event, the slightest ground
for imagining that the conclusions of science
are hopelessly at variance with the declara-
lions of the sacred text, or the authorized
teachings of the Roman Catholic church. We
should be obliged to revise the Interpretation
that has usually been given to the words of
scripture which refer to the formation of
Adams body and read these words in the
sense which evolution demands-a sense
which, as we have seen, may be attributed to
the words of the inspired record without either
distorting the meaning of terms or in any way
doing violence to the text.