13. § 32. The Origin of Man.

§ 32. The Origin of Man.

. Creation culminates in man. In him the spiritual and the material world unite. According to the first creation narrative, man, male and female together, was created on the sixth day, Gen. 1:26v., after the creation of the land animals had preceded. Scripture also teaches therein a close kinship of man and animal. Both were created on the same day, both were also formed from the dust of the earth. But alongside that kinship there is also a great distinction. The animals are brought forth by the earth at God's command, Gen. 1:24; man, however, is created after a deliberation of God, after his image, as a lord over all things. These brief indications are elucidated and expanded in the second creation narrative. The first creation narrative gives a general history of creation, which finds its goal and its end in man; the second deals in particular with the creation of man and with the relation in which the other creatures stand to him. In the first account man is the end of nature, in the second the beginning of history. The first narrative shows how all other creatures prepare man; the second introduces the history of the temptation and of the fall of man and for that purpose

describes especially his original state. In the first account, therefore, the creation of all other things, of heaven, earth, firmament, etc., is narrated at length and in regular order, and the creation of man is not discussed in detail; the second presupposes the creation of heaven and earth, gives no chronological but a material order, and does not say when plants and animals were created but describes only in what relation they, according to their nature, stand to man. Gen. 2:4b-9 does not imply that the plants, but only that the garden in Eden, was formed after man; the creation of the plants is without doubt thought by the writer between verses 6 and 7.

Likewise, in Gen. 2:18v. the creation of the animals is indeed placed only after that of man, but not in order thereby to describe the objective course of creation, but only to indicate that the help for the man is to be found not among the animals but only in a [491] being like him. The description, finally, of the creation of the woman is in no respect in conflict with that in Gen. 1 but is only a further explanation thereof. Cf. Hengstenberg,

Authentie des Pentateuchs I 306 f. Oehler, Altt. Theol. § 18. Köhler, Lehrb. der bibl. Gesch. des A. T. I 24. Baumstark, Christl. Apologetik II 458 f. H. van Eyck van Heslinga, De eenheid van het scheppingsverhaal, Leiden,

Daamen 1896.

2. This Divine origin of man has never been doubted in the Christian church and theology. But outside revelation all kinds of conjectures about the origin of man have been ventured. Many legends of the Heathens still ascribe the creation of man to the gods or demigods, as e.g. in Hesiodus,

Op. et Dier. Lib. I 23-25. Ovidius, Metam. I 82 sq. 363 sq. And philosophy too, especially that of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, usually recognized in man, formed from the dust of the earth, a higher, rational principle, which was derived from the gods. But more than once, both in religion and in

philosophy, wholly different ideas have nevertheless been cherished about the origin of man. Now man comes forth autochthonously from the earth, then he has developed from some animal or other, or he is also held to be the fruit of some tree or other etc., cf. Andrew Lang, Research into the development of religion, cult, and mythology, Translated from the Eng. by Dr. L. Knappert I 1893 p. 143. 275. With materialism in the previous century in France this view of the origin of man again came into honour; man was explained wholly and entirely, also as to his psychical side, from matter. Since that time the idea of evolution gained ground more and more.

Linnaeus 1778 and Blumenbach 1840 still maintained the specific distinction between man and animal. But Kant already regarded the transition of man from an earlier animal to a later human condition as something that spoke for itself, Kritik der Urtheilskraft § 77-80, Ueber die verschiedenen Racen der Menschen 1775. Lamarck 1744-1829, Sint-Hilaire

1772-1844, Oken 1779-1851, von Baer 1836, H. Spencer 1852, Schaaffhausen 1853, Huxley 1859, Nägeli 1859 were all already advocates of the animal descent of man. Philosophy taught this already long before natural science. And Charles Darwin [492] 1809-1882 was therefore by no means the first who propounded the doctrine connected with his name. His fame has only been that he made a very great multitude of observations, which related to the life of man and animal and brought to light the kinship of both; that he knew how to combine these in a peculiar way and to place them in the service of the hypothesis already prevailing; and that he pointed out a way in which this descent of man from the animal, as it seemed, was made possible, The origin of species by means of natural selection 1859,

Dutch transl. Het ontstaan der soorten, by Dr. T. C. Winkler, 2nd ed. 1883.

The descent of man 1871, Dutch transl. De afstamming van den mensch en

de seksueele teeltkeus, edited by Dr. H. Hartogh Heys van Zouteveen, 3rd pr. 1884. A whole host of scholars, Lyell, Owen, Lubbock, Tylor, Hooker,

Tyndall, Huxley, Moleschott, Haeckel, Hellwald, Büchner, Vogt etc. thereby considered the earlier hypothesis as good as proven and presented it as an incontrovertible result of natural science. Under Darwinism is now to be understood the doctrine that the species into which the organic beings were formerly classified do not bear constant properties but are variable; that the higher organic beings have arisen from the lower and in particular man has gradually in the course of the centuries developed from an extinct ape lineage; that the organic in its turn has arisen from the inorganic, and that thus evolution is the way in which under the dominion of purely mechanical and chemical laws all that exists has come into being. That is the thesis or rather the hypothesis. This evolution Darwin attempts to explain and to make possible by the following considerations: first, nature teaches us everywhere to know a struggle for life, in which every being participates and by which it is compelled to develop and to perfect itself or otherwise to perish; second, nature selects from many plants, animals, men such for continued life and propagation (natural selection) as are most favourably organized, and this natural selection is supported by sexual selection, by which every female gives preference to the best organized male; third, the favourable properties thus acquired, in the way of struggle and selection, pass from parents to children or also to [493] grandchildren (atavism), and perfect the organisms more and more. Naturally these are not proofs, but only suppositions and explanations, how in Darwin's opinion evolution could be possible. Proofs for the hypothesis are actually derived only from the kinship that is to be observed among the organic beings and that also exists in physical and psychical respect between animal and man; from the

change and inheritance of properties, which we observe time and again in the world of men and animals; from the rudimentary organs, which have remained to man from his earlier animal condition; from embryology, according to which the higher organisms as embryos pass through the developmental stages of the lower, Romanes, De bewĳzen voor de theorie van Darwin, from the Eng. by Spaink, Amst. 1884.

3. However much authority this Darwinism may at once have appeared with, it has nevertheless from the beginning encountered serious opposition, not only among theologians and philosophers, but also among all kinds of natural scientists, such as Agassiz, Essay on the classification 1865,

Dawson, Die Natur und die Bibel, aus dem Engl. Gütersloh 1877, Nägeli, Entstehung u. Begriff der naturhist. Art, 2e Aufl. 1865. Mech. phys. Theorie der Abstammungslehre 1883. Wigand, Der Darwinismus u. s. w. 3 Bde

1874-77, and further Dana, Flourens, de Beaumont, Jordan, Blanchard, Quatrefages, Oswald Heer, Oscar Fraas, Ad. Bastian, R. Wagner, Pfaff,

Kölliker etc. Virchow repeats almost every year at the meeting of naturalists his protest against those who present Darwinism as a dogma. Duboys

Reymond spoke of sieben Welträthsel, which could not be solved by natural science, and wrote not long before his death that we perhaps had to return again to supranaturalism. The life-force earlier rejected with mockery is again taken under protection by Gustave Bunge; in Max Verworn, Wilhelm

Ostwald, Ed. Rindfleisch a tendency toward pantheism and mysticism is to be perceived; even Haeckel commended monism as unity of religion and science. Romanes, who was decidedly a Darwinist, died in 1895 reconciled with the faith of the Anglican church. There is undoubtedly a reaction against materialism and Darwinism approaching. And in addition there comes still the [494] criticism, to which Darwinism has been subjected by

theologians and philosophers. They too have in this question the right to speak and have raised weighty objections, cf. Ulrici, Gott u. die Natur 1866.

Gott u. der Mensch I 1874. Zöckler, Gesch. der Bez. II 579 f. Id. Die Lehre v. Urstand des Menschen 1879 S. 113 f. Hartmann, Wahrheit u. Irrthum im

Darw. 1875. Carneri, Sittlichkeit u. Darw. Wien 1877. Weygoldt, Darw.

Relig. Sittl. Leiden 1878. Hamann, Entwicklungslehre u. Darwinismus, Jena 1892. Dutoit-Haller, Schöpfung u. Entw. nach Bibel u. Naturw. Basel

1892. Joh. Ranke, Der Mensch, Leipzig 2e Aufl. 1894. Ebrard, Apol. I 352 f. Steude, Christ. u. Naturwiss. 1895 S. 148 f. Bettex, Naturstudium u.

Christ. 2e Aufl. 1896. Pesch, Die grossen Welträthsel II 147. 171 f. Reusch, Bibel u. Natur 330 f. Gutberlet, Der Mensch, sein Ursprung u. seine Entw.

Paderborn 1896. Hettinger, Apol. I 167 f. Kuenen, Theol. Tĳdschr. X 408v.

Lamers, Nieuwe Bĳdr. III 185v. Serrurier, Gids Mei 1895. Tĳdspiegel April 1896 bl. 455. Wet. Bladen Mei 1896. Salisbury in his opening address of The britisch association of science in Oxford Aug. 1894 etc.

With a view to this turning point, theology has often been far too premature and has accommodated itself far too hastily to the theory of evolution, e.g. Powell, Evidences of Christianity 1860. Temple, Christ. and Natural Science, trans. by Dr. J. W. Gunning, Haarlem 1887. Drummond,

The ascent of man, 1895. Carrière, The moral world order p. 365ff. etc. Yet there exist against Darwinism far too serious and weighty objections for it to be accepted as a scientific explanation of the phenomena. In the first place, it is wholly powerless to make the origin of life even in any degree intelligible. At first one took refuge in the generatio aequivoca, i.e. in the arising of organic beings through accidental combination of inorganic substances. When the investigations of Pasteur proved its untenability, one seized upon the supposition that the protoplasms or germs of life had been

brought to the earth by meteor-stones from other heavenly bodies (Helmholtz, Thomson). When this hypothesis too proved to be little more than a notion, the doctrine was proclaimed that the cells and germs of life had always existed alongside the inorganic and thus, like matter, force, motion etc., were eternal. But thereby the insufficiency of the [495] theory of evolution was pronounced by the proponents themselves; whoever makes matter, motion, life eternal, does not solve the riddle but despairs of the solution. In the second place, Darwinism is also not able to explain the further development of organic beings. Scripture on the one hand acknowledges the truth that lies in evolution, when it has plants and animals come forth from the earth at God's command, Gen. 1:11, 20, 24; but on the other hand it says that the earth could bring forth these organic beings only by a word of God's omnipotence, and that those organic beings from the beginning existed alongside one another as specifically distinct; they all have their own kind, Gen. 1 vv. 11, 21. Thereby it is not excluded that within the kinds all sorts of changes can take place, and neither is the right of science curtailed, to indicate the boundaries of the kinds more precisely.

Indeed it is absolutely not necessary to see in all the kinds which botany and zoology now enumerate original creations; the concept of kind has still by no means been sharply and clearly determined. But it is equally certain that the essential diversity and inequality of creatures rests on God's creative omnipotence. He is the one who makes a distinction between light and darkness, day and night, heaven and earth, plant and animal, angel and man, Thomas, S. Theol. I qu. 47. And this diversity and inequality of creatures, specifically of organic beings, remains in Darwinism a riddle. If man had descended from the animal, precisely the great difference that exists between the two and comes to expression in the whole organism

would remain an insoluble riddle. It is now indeed generally acknowledged that the many kinds of plants and animals cannot be derived from one, or even from four or five original organisms; those kinds diverge morphologically and physiologically far too strongly. Natural and sexual selection are insufficient to make such kind-changes possible, and have therefore already been importantly limited and modified by Darwin himself.

Moreover, such transitions from the one kind into the other have never been observed either in the past or in the present time. The same kinds of plants and animals that we now know also existed thousands of years ago and appeared all at once in great numbers. The transitional forms which would bring the kinds now existing closer to one another [496] have been found nowhere. Palaeontology does not prove a slow and straight-line ascent of organic beings from the lower to the higher, but shows that all sorts of kinds existed alongside one another from the beginning. Such transitional forms, however, would have to be found in great numbers, because the morphological changes took place so slowly, only in thousands of years, and were each time of so slight significance. It cannot be imagined that all these would by chance have perished through catastrophes; all the less, because all the lower organisms have, down to the present day, in spite of their imperfection and unfitness for the struggle for life, continued to exist alongside the higher. To this is added that from various sides, especially by Aug. Weismann, on good grounds the thesis has been defended that precisely acquired characteristics are not inherited, Koster, Wet. Bladen,

March 1897 p. 321-344. Entirely in contradiction with Darwin's theory, the morphological characteristics are the least and the physiological the most variable. If those morphological changes also proceeded so slowly and were each time so slight in significance, they could also be of no use in the

struggle for life; in the time of transition they were rather a defect than a perfection. So long as breathing through gills passed over into breathing through lungs, it was rather a hindrance than an advantage in the struggle for existence. For all these reasons the natural scientist, whose science must rest on facts, would do better, in this matter to refrain from a judgment.

Materialism and Darwinism are both historically and logically not a result of experimental science but of philosophy. Besides, Darwin himself says that many of the considerations that he advanced are in a high degree speculative, Afst. des menschen II 365. According to Haeckel he discovered no new facts, but did combine and utilize them in a peculiar way, Nat.

Schöpf. 1874 S. 25. The great kinship of man and animal has always been acknowledged and expressed in the animal rationale. But in earlier times one did not yet connect with that the monistic philosophy, that a pure potency, which is nothing, such as atoms, chaos, cells etc., can nevertheless become everything. That has first been discovered by pantheism, materialism and Darwinism! Third, with Darwinism the origin of man is an [497] insoluble problem. Positive proofs for man's animal descent are actually not there. Haeckel's ontogeny can after the refutation by Bischoff and others no longer count as proof. The arguments that one derived from all sorts of human bones and human skulls found in caves, most recently in Ned. Indië, cf. Prof. Hubrecht in Gids June 1896, have in turn been abandoned one after the other. The investigation on the one hand of the anthropoid ape species and on the other hand of all sorts of bones, skulls, abnormal humans, microcephalics, dwarfs etc., has ended with establishing that the distinction between animal and man is essential and has always existed, Pfaff, Schöpf. 721. It is then also generally acknowledged that no ape species, as it now exists or has existed, can be the stock of the human

race. The strongest defenders of Darwinism concede that a transitional species must be assumed, of which, however, the slightest trace has thus far not been found. Virchow said at the meeting of naturalists in 1894: Bis jetzt is noch kein Affe entdeckt worden, der als der eigentliche Urvater des

Menschen betrachtet werden konnte, auch kein Halbaffe. Diese Frage steht nicht mehr im Vordergrund der Forschung, bĳ Hettinger, Apol. III 297.

Above all, however, Darwinism in the fourth place remains in default of the explanation of man as to his psychical side. Darwin began with the attempt to derive all spiritual phenomena in man, consciousness, language, religion, morality etc. from phenomena that occurred in animals, Afst. des menschen, chapters 3 and 4. The expression of emotions in man and animals 1872, and many others have followed him in that. But these attempts too have thus far not succeeded. Just as the essence of force and matter, the origin of motion, the arising of life, teleology, so too consciousness, language, freedom of the will, religion, morality still belong to the Welträthsel, which await solution.

The thought, which is purely spiritual, stands to the brain in a wholly different relation than bile to the liver and urine to the kidneys. Language is and remains, according to the word of Max Müller, the Rubicon between us and the animal. The psychological explanation of religion is untenable, part

I 208. And the derivation of rationality from the social instincts does not do justice to the authority of the [498] moral law, to the categorical character of the moral imperative, to the "Sollen" of the good, to conscience, responsibility, consciousness of guilt, repentance, remorse, punishment.

Yes, although Darwinism in itself is not yet identical with materialism, it nevertheless moves in that line, finds there its principal support, but thus also prepares the perversion of religion and morality and kills the human in man. It makes no difference whether one says that it is better to be a highly

developed animal than a fallen man; the doctrine of the animal descent of man assails in man the image of God and degrades him to the image of orang-utan and chimpanzee. And that image of God is not to be maintained from the standpoint of evolution. It compels us to go back to creation, as Scripture teaches it to us.

4. In connection with this doctrine concerning the origin of man, evolution also comes into conflict with Scripture with respect to the age, the unity, and the original dwelling-place of man. A great age was ascribed to the human race by many peoples, such as the Japanese, the Indians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, who spoke of different world-times and of 10 and 100 thousands of years. Modern anthropology has repeatedly returned to these fabulous numbers, but remains just as little in agreement as pagan mythology; it varies between 10 and 250 thousand years and more. Concerning the existence of man in the tertiary period there prevails great difference of opinion; it is denied by most, also by many who otherwise are Darwinists, such as Virchow, Mor,

Wagner, Oskar Schmidt, Häckel, Zittel e. a. The question is therefore also so difficult to answer, because the boundaries between tertiary and quaternary period cannot be indicated. But even if man has lived in the tertiary period and even if he is a contemporary of the mammoth, then this does not prove that man is so old, but that that period is much younger than one originally thought. Much more uncertain are the calculations which are built on the pile-dwellings which one found in Switzerland and elsewhere, on the bones and skulls which were discovered in caves near Liège,

Amiens, Dusseldorf etc., on the delta formations of Nile [499] and Mississippi and on the stone-, bronzeand iron-period, which according to some followed one another chronologically. All the calculations built on

this have therefore time and again been contradicted and refuted by sober natural investigators, such as Fraas, Quenstedt, Pfaff, Dawson, Tylor,

Virchow, Schaaffhausen, Kjerulf, even Hellwald, Culturgesch. I 10. Here even more than with the age of the earth it holds that one can indeed name numbers, but that one has no material for a history in so long a time. Of much more value for the determination of the age of the human race are the chronological data which are provided by the history and the monuments of various peoples. The history of India and China yields no firm basis for chronology and ascends only a few centuries before Christ. But with the history of Egypt and Babylonia it is somewhat otherwise. Here there is undoubtedly an ancient civilization; it exists already as far as we can go back in history. Scripture itself teaches that also clearly. But nevertheless the chronology is still so uncertain that nothing can be built upon it. This appears sufficiently from the fact that the reign of the Egyptian king Menes according to Boeckh begins in 5702, according to Brugsch in 4455, according to Lepsius in 3893, according to Bunsen in 3623, according to Wilkinson in 2691 etc.; and that Bunsen lets the historical time for Babylon begin in 3784, v. Gutschmid in 2447, Brandis in 2458, Oppert in 3540 etc.,

Hettinger, Apol. III 258 f. Every practitioner of ancient history has his own chronology; it is a labyrinth in which the thread is lacking; only with the people of Israel is there in the proper sense talk of a history and of a reckoning of time. Fritz Hommel therefore rightly says that the chronology for the first thousand years before Christ stands fairly firm, sometimes down to particulars; that in the second thousand years before Christ only a few fixed points seem to be given, and that in the third thousand years, i.e. before 2000 B.C., everything is uncertain, Gesch. des alten Morgenlandes,

Stuttgart 1895 S. 38. Moreover, the human race also for other reasons

cannot have existed many thousands of years before Christ. The population of the earth would then at the time of Christ have been much greater and would have been spread much more widely. And yet a thousand years B.C. the greatest part of the [500] earth was still uninhabited, North Asia, Central and Northern Europe, Africa south of the Sahara, Australia, the South Sea islands, America. Even at the time of Christ, except in Asia, humanity was chiefly still dwelling around the Mediterranean Sea. If humanity were so old, there would also have been found many more ruins of cities and remains of men, which now are only scanty in number and limited to a part of the earth. The most reliable numbers therefore do not go higher than to five to seven thousand years B.C., Pfaff, Schöpf. 710-728. Gander, Die

Sündflut 1896 S. 78-90. Upham in an article on Die Zeitdauer der geolog.

Epochen in the journal Gaea XXX 1894 S. 621 f. cites various scholars who place the ice age about seven or eight thousand years before Christ. If we therewith consider that also concerning the chronology of the bible there is still anything but agreement, then there is also at this point no important difference between Scripture and science. But even if according to the usual calculation the flood took place in 2348 B.C., there was up to the calling of Abraham in 1900 a period of 450 years, which is sufficient to cause fairly powerful kingdoms to arise on Euphrates and Nile. Noah and his three sons could, each marriage reckoned at six children, in fourteen generations of 33 years, that is in 462 years, have more than twelve million descendants.

Compare further concerning the age of the human race: Zöckler, Gesch. der Bez. II 755 f. Id. Lehre vom Urstand 87 f. Id. Herzog2 9, 583. Vigouroux,

Les livres saints etc. III 452 s. Schanz, Apol. des Christ. I 333 f. Dessailly, L'antiquité de la race humaine d'après les sciences contemporaines, Paris

1893. P. Schanz, Das Alter des Menschengeschlechts, Freiburg 1896.

Reusch, Bibel u. Natur 518 f. Hettinger, Apol. der Christ. I7 281-310.

5. The unity of the human race stands firm for Holy Scripture, Gen. 1:26, 6:3, 7:21, 10:32, Mt. 19:4, Hd. 17:26, Rom. 5:12v., 1 Cor. 15:21v. 45v. but has been almost never acknowledged by the peoples who lived outside the revelation. The Greeks regarded themselves as autochthones and looked down from on high upon the barbarians. And this contrast is found among almost all peoples. In India, too, in the course of time a sharp [501] division was made between the four classes of the people, and for each a separate origin was assumed. Only the Stoa declared that all men formed one συστημα πολιτικον, one body, of which each was a member, and therefore also preached universal justice and philanthropy, Zeller, Philos. der Gr. IV 287 f. After the Renaissance, here and there the idea arose again of a different origin of the human race. This idea appeared now in the form of properly polygenism in Caesalpinus, in Blount and other deists; partly as coadamitism, i.e. descent of the different races from different progenitors, in Paracelsus e. a., partly as praeadamitism, i.e. descent of the wild and dark-coloured peoples from a progenitor before Adam, while he then was only the progenitor of the Jews or also of white humanity, in Zanini and especially in Isaac de la Peyrère. The latter in 1655 published, without name of author, printer, or place, a little work entitled: Praeadamitae; and behind it a Systema theologiae ex praeadamitarum hypothesi. In it it was asserted that long before Adam men had existed, with appeal to Gen. 4:14, 16, 17,

6:2-4. These men descended from that first pair, whose creation is reported in Gen. 1. In Gen. 2, however, the creation is narrated of Adam and Eve, who were the progenitors of the Jews. These transgressed the law that had been given to them in paradise, and fell into still greater sins than the

peoples descended from the first man, for these did not sin, as Paul, Rom.

5:12-14 expresses it, in likeness of the sin of Adam; they transgressed no positive law; they committed peccata naturalia but no peccata contra legem.

This theory for a time made great headway and called forth opponents from all sides, Spanheim, Op. III 1249 sq. Turret. Theol. El. V qu. 8. Marck,

Historia Paradisi II 2 § 3 sq. Moor, Comm. II 1001-5. M. Vitringa II 127, cf.

Studien en Bĳdragen van de Moll en Scheffer IV 238 f. Zöckler, Gesch. der Bez. I 545 f. II 768 f. Urstand 231 f. But it nevertheless soon fell into oblivion. Only a few, such as Bayle, Arnold, Swedenborg, did not consider it wholly rejectable. Especially when in the previous century knowledge of the peoples was expanded and the great difference in colour, hair, stature, custom etc. between the peoples was perceived, then many returned to the idea of different [502] progenitors, Sullivan 1795, Crüger 1784, Ballenstedt

1818, Stanhope Smith 1790, Cordonnière 1814, Gobineau 1853-55 e. a. By some this was made serviceable to the defence of slavery, as by Dobbs in Ireland against Wilberforce, by Morton, Nott, Gliddon, Knox, Agassiz e. a.

Another kind of polygenism was taught by Schelling, Werke, II 1 S. 500515. He also assumed many races of men before Adam, but these had so raised and developed themselves from a low, animal standpoint that they finally produced him, in whom the human first came to revelation and who therefore rightly could bear the name of man, haadam. And likewise a certain praeadamitism was taught by Oken, Carus, Baumgärtner, Perty,

Bunsen, cf. also Bilderdĳk, Opstellen v. godg. en zedek. inh. II 75. Strauss, Dogm. I 680 etc. To that was now added after 1860 Darwinism, which on account of its doctrine of variability could very well be monogenistic but nevertheless with many of its adherents became polygenistic. The development from animal to man has taken place at different times and

places and has given different races their appearance, Häckel, Schaaffhausen, Caspari, Vogt, Büchner etc. On Darwinian standpoint, however, the question as to the age of man is not to be answered. The transition from animal to man has taken place so slowly that there has properly been no first man. Over against this polygenism, monogenism has still been defended by von Humboldt, Blumenbach, St. Hilaire, v. Baer, v.

Meyer, Wagner, Quatrefages, Darwin, Peschel, Ranke; Virchow too considers it not impossible, Hettinger, Apol. III 224.

Now the existence of peoples and races in humanity is certainly a very important problem, the solution of which has not yet been found for a long time. The difference in colour, hair, skull, language, representations, religion, morals, customs, habits etc. is so great, and the spread of the one humanity over the whole earth e.g. to the South Sea islands, to America etc. is so unknown, that the thought of a different origin of the peoples can hardly be surprising. Scripture therefore derives the origin of the languages and of the peoples from an act of God, by which He intervened in the development of humanity, Gen. 11, cf. Schelling, Werke II 1 S. 94-118.

Lüken, Die Tradit. des Mensch. 278 f. Auberlen, De goddel. openbaring I.

Kaulen, Die Sprachenverwirrung zu Babel, Mainz [503] 1861. Strodl, Die Entstehung der Völker, Schaffh. 1868. The origin of the peoples has a deep, religious-ethical significance and testifies to spiritual decline. The wilder and rougher humanity becomes, the more the languages, the representations etc. diverge. In proportion as one lives more secluded, the difference of language increases. Confusion of speech is the consequence of confusion in the thoughts, in the consciousness, in life. And yet in that division and rupture the unity is still preserved. Linguistics has discovered relationship and unity of origin, where formerly it was not suspected in the remotest

distance. The existence of races and peoples is a fact, and yet the indication of their boundaries is so difficult, that there is the greatest difference of opinion about it. Kant assumed 4, Blumenbach 5, Buffon 6, Peschel 7,

Agassiz 8, Haeckel 12, Morton even 22 different races, Peschel, Völkerkunde, 316 f. Among all races there are again transitions, which seem to make a mockery of every classification. Genesis 10 therefore also maintains the unity of humanity amid all diversity, and Joh. von Müller said not without reason: von diesem Kapitel muss alle Historie anfangen.

Against this unity Darwinism in fact can raise no objection. The distinction between man and animal is after all always much greater than between men among themselves. If man could develop from an animal, it is not to be seen why the common origin of humanity in itself should meet with objection. Darwinism indeed offers the means at hand to make all kinds of changes within the same species under all kinds of influences of climate, way of life etc. possible and intelligible. In so far it renders excellent service to the defence of the truth. For, however great the difference between the races may be, the unity and the kinship of all men nevertheless come to the fore all the more strongly through deeper investigation. It appears in this, that parents of the different races can mate and can produce fertile children; that every class of men can inhabit every zone of the earth and can live there; that peoples who have never come into contact with one another nevertheless have various characteristics and customs in common with one another, such as gestures, decimal system, skin colouring, tattooing, circumcision, couvade etc.; that numerous physiological phenomena are the same in all races, such as the upright posture, the [504] form of the skull, the average weight of the brain, number and length of the teeth, the duration of pregnancy, the average number of pulse beats, the

internal structure of the organism, of hand, foot etc., the average age, the temperature of the body, the periodicity of the catamenia, susceptibility to diseases etc.; and that they finally in intellectual, religious, moral, social, political respect have all kinds of things in common, language, understanding, reason, memory, knowledge of God, conscience, consciousness of sin, repentance, sacrifices, fasting, prayer, traditions about a golden age, about the flood etc. The unity of the human race, taught by Scripture, is most strongly confirmed by all this. It is in the end no indifferent matter, as has sometimes been asserted. It is on the contrary of the highest importance; it is the presupposition of religion and morality. The solidarity of the human race, original sin, the reconciliation in Christ, the universality of the kingdom of God, the catholicity of the church, love of neighbour, are built upon it. Verg. Zöckler, Die einheitl. Abstammung des

Menschengeschlechts, Jahrb. f. d. Theol. 1863 S. 51-90, Id. Gesch. der Bez.

II 768 f. Id. Lehre vom Urstand 231 f. Rauch, Die Einheit des Menschengeschlechts, Augsburg 1873. Th. Waitz, Ueber die Einheit des

Menschengeschlechts und den Naturzustand des Menschen, Leipzig 1859.

H. Ulrici, Gott und der Mensch, I 2 S. 146 f. Lotze, Mikrokosmos II3 S.

101 f. Peschel, Völkerkunde S. 14 f. Reusch, Bibel und Natur S. 459 f.

Schanz, Apol. des Christ I 318-333. Vigouroux, Les livres saints IV 1-120.

Delitzsch, Neuer Comm. zu Genesis S. 199. Hettinger, Apol. des Christ. I7

S. 223-280.

6. Finally, there is also disagreement about the original dwelling-place of man. Genesis relates that God, after He had created Adam, planted a garden in Eden. Eden, ‎‏‏ֵעֶדן‎, joy, land of joy, is therefore not the same as paradise but is a region, in which the court or garden, ‎‏‏ַגן‎, LXX παραδεισος, according to Spiegel from the Zend pairidaêze = enclosure, was planted. This paradise is

then further called garden of Eden, Gen. 2:15, 3:23, garden of God, Ez.

31:8, 9, garden of Iahveh, Jes. 51:3, and is sometimes identified with Eden, Jes. 51:3, Ezech. 28:13, 31:9. Further, God planted that garden in Eden

‎‏‏ִמֶּקֶדם‎, from the east, eastward, toward the east, namely from the standpoint of the writer [505] out. From the region Eden a stream went out to water the garden; and from there, i.e. from that garden, at its flowing out from the garden it divided itself into four heads or branches, which bear the names of Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel and Phrath. The latter two rivers are the Tigris and the Euphrates; but about the former two there has always been disagreement. The church fathers, just like Josephus, usually thought of the Ganges in the case of the Pison and of the Nile in the case of the Gihon. But a careful investigation into the location of paradise was not undertaken by them. The earthly paradise for them often merged with the heavenly and was then explained allegorically. Augustine, de Gen. ad litt. VIII, 1 says that there were three opinions about paradise. Some conceived it as an earthly, others as a heavenly paradise, and still others unite both opinions. Those who held it to be an earthly paradise then thought that it had been situated very high between heaven and earth, that it even reached to the moon, or that the whole earth had once been paradise, or that it had been situated on the other side of the ocean. According to some, paradise after the fall was wholly and entirely destroyed, especially by the flood; according to others it still existed, but had become inaccessible through mountains and seas; and still others supposed that it had been taken up into heaven. The first who tried to indicate the location of paradise geographically was Augustinus

Steuchus from Gubbio, hence Eugubinus, † 1550. In his work Kosmopoiia, published in 1535 at Lyon, he developed the so-called Pasitigris hypothesis, according to which the four rivers are the mouths of one great stream, the

united Tigris-Euphrates, and paradise thus had been situated in the vicinity of the present city of Korna. This hypothesis found much approval among Roman Catholics such as Pererius, Jansen, Lapide, Petavius, Mersenna, among Reformed such as Calvin on Gen. 2:10, Marck, Histor. Paradisi 1705 lib. I, among Lutherans and others, and was adopted in modified form by Pressel, art. Paradies in Herzog1. Around the middle of the 17th century there arose alongside it the so-called Armenia hypothesis, which had already been prepared by Rupert of Deutz, Pellicanus, Fournier and then was developed especially by Reland, Prof. at Utrecht † 1706. This takes

Pison to be the Phasis, Gihon to be the Araxes, Havilah to be Colchis, Cush to be the land of the Κοσσαιοι between Media and Susiana, and thus sought paradise [506] much farther north, namely high in Armenia, approximately between Erzerum and Tiflis. It gained even more ground than the Pasitigris hypothesis and in the present time was still defended by von Raumer, Kurtz,

Baumgarten, Keil, Lange, Delitzsch, Rougemont etc. By contrast, Friedrich Delitzsch in his work: Wo lag das Paradies, Leipzig 1881 sought the location of paradise again farther south, namely in the region near Babylon, which on account of its beauty was called by the Babylonians and Assyrians

"garden of the God Dunias"; the stream out of Eden was thus the Euphrates in its upper course, Pison and Gihon were two canal rivers. Others, however, have gone much further and see in the paradise narrative a legend, which gradually has wandered from the east to the west and in which Pison and Gihon originally designate the Indus and the Oxus, J. D. Michaelis,

Knobel, Bunsen, Ewald etc. Others see in it a myth, in which Havilah represents the gold-land of the legend and the Gihon is the Ganges or the Nile, Paulus, Eichhorn, Gesenius, Tuch, Bertheau, Schrader and others.

Most anthropologists and linguists no longer take Gen. 2 into account at all

and name entirely different lands as the original dwelling-place of man. But they are far from unanimous and have bestowed this honor upon approximately all lands. Romanes, Klaproth, de Gobineau, George Browne named America, Spiller thought of Greenland, because the polar regions after the cooling of the earth were the first to be habitable, Wagner held

Europe to be the land where the ape first developed into man. Unger named specifically Styria, L. Geiger Germany, Cuno and Spiegel South Russia,

Poesche the region between Dnieper and Niemen, Benfey and Whitney Central Europe, Warren the North Pole. Others such as Darwin, Huxley,

Peschel and others gave preference to Africa, because there in gorilla and chimpanzee the nearest relatives of man were found. And Link, Häckel,

Hellwald, Schmidt devised a certain land Lemuria, where the apes first became men and which had been situated between Africa and Australia but by chance at the end of the tertiary period had disappeared into the depths of the sea. Many in addition assume not only one original dwelling-place of man, but are of the opinion that the evolution from animal to man has taken place in different parts of the earth, and thus unite [507] Darwinism with polygenism; thus e.g. Häckel, Vogt, Schaaffhausen, Caspari, Fr. Müller etc.

Already this great difference among the anthropologists shows that science up to now can establish nothing here with any certainty. It loses itself in conjectures but knows nothing concerning origin and dwelling-place of the first man. There is then also not a single fact that compels us to give up the determination of Holy Scripture concerning Eden. Rather, ethnology, linguistics, history and natural science provide us with data that make Asia probable as the original dwelling-place of man. Neither Africa, nor Europe, nor America and still much less a land such as Lemuria can lay as much claim to that as Asia. Here we find the oldest peoples, the oldest

civilization, the oldest languages; the whole of ancient history points us to this continent. From this part of the earth Europe and Africa, Australia and also America have been populated. To be sure, many questions present themselves here, to which no answer can yet be given. And especially it is uncertain how and when America has become populated, Zöckler, Gesch. der Bez. I 542 f. Peschel, Völkerkunde 402 f. Vigouroux, Les livres saints

IV 98 s. Dr. E. Schmidt, Die aeltesten Spuren des Menschen in N. Amerika, No 38 and 39 of the Deutsche Zeitund Streitfragen, Wetenschappelijke

Bladen 1895. But these objections in no way overthrow the doctrine of Scripture that Asia is the cradle of humanity. Concerning the location of paradise and of Eden there may be difference of opinion, so that it has been placed in turn in the middle, east, south of Asia; even the geography may no longer be able to be established; Scripture and science both testify that in Asia the original dwelling-place of man is to be sought, Peschel,

Völkerkunde S. 35-41. Zöckler, Gesch. der Bez. passim, especially I 128 f.

170 f. 395 f. 654 f. II 779 f. Id. Lehre vom Urstand 216 f. Herzog art.

Paradies of Pressel, Herzog2 art. Eden of Rütschi. Reusch, Bibel und Natur, 498 f. Zöckler, Bibl. u. Kirchenhist. Studien, München 1893 V 1-38.

Delitzsch, Neuer Comm. zu Genesis S. 81 f. [508]

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