El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1916-08-19

= AN asked to say who was the first
man. and at the same time 1 am
/ Il furnished with well written state
ment by a man VINO explicitly az
firms his belief that Adam. the Adam
: # Genesis" was the first man. and
/ that he was made by God from the
I dust Of the ground" and then and Their:
was endowed with physical and spirit
uaI power.
! He also affirms that the most re-
liable genealogy of the human race IL
found in Luke's Gospel 3:23-2s." and
adds: of course. II one believes in the
Darwinian theory of evolution, that
man came from the lower order OF
creation. il would be easy to extend
his origin to millions of years. as sug-
gested, but far more difficult and
, equally as humiliating. to acknowledge
ones ancestry on such an Insecure
hypothesis"
The reader will perceive the pride OF
lineage prOtruding from what I have
quoted Just as the man born to z
throne refuses to admit that, aside
from adventitious advantages. he is
al his subject" born TO handle a hoe
or a bayonet. so the man who be-
lieves that God specially made him
what he is from the beginning. denies
the animal kingdom
The tradition that God made man
In his own image is another express
sion OF the same kind Of pride Most
well Informed persons. no doubt. take
the asserted resemblance between man
and his maker as referring to mora:
and spiritual qualities, yet there are
multitudes who read the scriptural
statement on this subject so literally
that they believe that If God could be
seen he would appear in the shape of
a superlatively perfect man
The writer Of the statement further
says: That record (the Bible record).
is good enough for one who has i'm
plcit confidence in the veracity Of the
scriptures" Now, I should like 10
point out that the question is not about
veracity, but is about Interpretation
and knowledge. Nobody supposes thai
either the writer OF Genesis or the
writer of Luke's Gospel was unvera-
cious in stating what he heard, or what
he believed. but all serious students
of nature and of history of man do
suppose that many pertinent facts
which are now well known were en-
tirely unknown when those early
scriptures were written
All wise theologians long ago bowed
to the necessity Of such a suppOsition
because they wanted to keep the whole
Bible from being dragged down into
o. its legendary books
Science does not pretend to have
found the first man.. nor even man
first animal ancestor in a direct line
of descent. It only processes to have
found irrefragable evidence that men
and women were living upon this
earth at least a hundred thousand
years ago; and that. while distinctly
human in bodily form and structure
and in mental qualities, the earliest
known representatives, Of our race
we're much inferior in both these re-
spects TO their descendants OF historic
times
Moreover. science has demonstrated
that there are structural resem blances
between men and apes which show
that both are descended from n com
mon ancestor one very telling fact
is that serum reactions prove that there
exists a close blood relationship be-
tween men and the three great species
Ct anthrOpOid apostle gorilla. the
chimpanZee and the ourang-outang
It is not necessary to retell here the
story Of prehistoric mantle river
drift man. the cave man, the man OF